We had a giant adventure at the end of this summer. Because Nolan has to take 2 weeks off of work at Christmas, he stayed home and the girls and I headed out to see his family in Kennewick, Wa. Kennewick is in the south-east part of Washington. The first day, the girls and I drove to Ontario, Or. In preparation for the trip we bought two dvd players that were able to play from USB sticks. We put a bunch of movies on each for the girls. It is amazing how the movies like Curious Buddies, Baby Einstein and Elmo's World will keep Clara's attention but Finding Nemo will not. Must be a lot of money in research!! and it works. The only problem, at the end of the first day Lexa's dvd was having power supply problems. The next day was only a 3 1/2 hour drive to kennewick. We got there in time for church and to hear Auntie Ana play her oboe in church.
We spent Sunday thru Thursday playing with grandma, grandpa and Auntie Ana. I got to play tennis with Briana. We went swimming almost every night, at the neighbors house, the country club, and grandma clara's condo pool. It was awesome. I slept and took naps! Grandma took Lexa apricot picking and let her help canning them.
Friday we drove to Portland, Or to see our great friends the Murdocks. They were having a crazy heat wave, around 109. Their poor air conditioner was running its little heart out to keep their house at 78! That night we went and swam at a beach on the Columbia River. It was so much fun. Those Murdock boys are great swimmers! But I will admit there was sand in my bag even when I got home to Colorado. :)
The next day we all headed out to play in the public fountains in Portland. We went to three different ones. I think the one the boys liked the least, Lexa liked the most! We had a fun day exploring all the city, ending with a not so fun accident (messy pants). Well, it wasnt so fun for Bryan who was trying to clean it up in a public bathroom and having homeless men laugh and leave the bathroom. It was a little funny for Ily and I. hehe.
Before the fountains we also went blueberry picking at a farm. We got to feed apples to a horse and then pick berries. It was a ton of fun, but the kids got hot pretty fast.
Sunday we went to church then headed back to Kennewick for more fun with grandma and grandpa and auntie ana.
Tuesday Marilyn, the girls and I drove to Seattle. We stayed in Issaquah at a motel 6. That night Richard met us there. We also finally got to see Nolans aunt, uncle and cousins from Virginia. We were in Seattle to see his cousin Zac get married. He was getting married to someone from Victoria, BC and Seattle was the closest temple.
The next day grandma, grandpa, the girls and I went to the Seattle Zoo. This is an amazing place.
The day after was the wedding. On the way to the temple Lexa asked me to please bring her out a piece of cake. The sweet girl thought that everything she sees on TV weddings is what we were going to do in the temple. We explained to her that she would get to have cake later. Right after the wedding I drove to the airport to pick up Nolan. We drove back to the temple where the family was having a picnic in a park nearby. After that we drove to the ferry to get to Bainbridge Island. We went there to visit Nolans friends from growing up who just had twins, a boy and girl. They made us dinner and we walked around their little town. It was very cute and had good ice cream. That night we drove to stay at a hotel in Silverdale. We didnt pay for a room on the water, but were given one. The room was nice and I wish we could have stayed longer. :) Unfortunetely there was not a lot of parking. They were getting ready for a 3 on 3 basketball tournament in their parking lot and their was a dog show going on. Kinda crazy! People not happy about it either.
The next day we drove like crazy to make a ferry from Kingston to Edmonds, Wa then on to the ferry in Vancouver, BC to Victoria. We didnt make the same ferry in Vancouver as Marilyn, Richard and Auntie Ana (who had joined the group Wed night by tiny plane from Kennewick). But they waited for us in Victoria. The ferry was an hour and a half. It was really big and we walked around a lot. There was a part of the ship that had disney playing on tv's and a play place for little ones. The girls liked being outside the most. I got a little seasick when the ferry was going around islands, but we all made it. We ended up spending the rest of the evening in Victoria. It was Nolan's birthday! We saw a lot of beautiful buildings and had the best meal of my life. It was a shellfish thermador. whoa.
We drove to Duncan, BC about an hour north of Victoria. The next day Nolan, Marilyn, Richard, Briana and Lexa went sight-seeing. I let Clara take a nap so she would be tolerable for the wedding reception that night. We did however take a quick look around a place called the BC Forest Discovery center. It was an old lumber village. It had a train and Clara did not like the whistle.
That night was a beautiful wedding reception. It was on the brides farm. They raise sheep. They roasted lamb and cooked fresh salmon they caught that week. Clara had fun chasing chickens, playing with the bubble machine and rolling in dirt. Lexa did pretty much the same and had fun feeding the sheep and goats. They had live music. We all had fun talking and dancing until really late in the night.
Next day we drove Nolan to the airport, took the ferry back to Vancouver, waited an hour to get over the US border, drove around Seattle traffic and stopped in Kennewick again, 12 hours later!!
Next day we slept in and left around 12. We drove to Ogden that night. I thought driving at night would be good because the girls would be sleeping. Not so. They were wound up and going crazy, like screaming in the car. It was pretty funny. Motel 6 again. Next day we drove all the way home. We almost went insane around Laramie, but made it.
It was a great long trip. We had a little bit of everything: seeing family, laying around and swimming, seeing friends, sightseeing and riding ferries.
I will make another post providing pictures. Not sure how to work that in to the blog right now. Maybe someone could teach me.