Summer trip to WA

We took our annual pilgrimage to WA for the last two weeks of August. Thankfully the very, very hot weather was mostly over by that point (normally those are the hottest two weeks of the summer) and we wore sweatshirts most mornings.

H taught my parents how to properly use the bar in their salon...

My nephew was up staying with us on my parents' boat.  He hung out with C while I took the younger kids to visit some friends from MOPs that are the same age.

We had a few days we got to visit our good friends, including a day where I got to visit with my scrapbooking friends I'd missed at the annual retreat in July and between us we had 11 boys and 2 token girls (V's age). The boys all played video games and we got to catch up.

I signed up my nephew and the kids and I and another friend for the Bubble Run.  The bubble run is a 5k run through Everett that has huge stations with bubbles every KM with colored bubbles.   We were very wet when we were done, but everyone finished and had lots of fun.

Funds raised went to Providence Hospital, so Dad was a Bubbleteer...

 

 

 

Another friend loaned us her minivan which was a huge blessing as with 3 kids, it's hard to be able to go with my parents in one vehicle-we were able to use it to take my nephew back down to his mom's tiny house on a lake and explore it.  The kids are obsessed with programs on TV about tiny houses and enjoyed seeing one in person. 

We were able to attend our old church and visit some more friends on Sunday and pick plums with them.  On Monday we drove down to see my cousin and grandparents and took my grandparents to Target with the kids and then out for dinner and play Bingo and see grandma's garden at their home.

Tuesday we went out to our other grandmother's for lunch and the kids could play with more cousins and my aunt was very generous to take the kids all horseback riding-they all enjoy it but I figured with V's obsession with My Little Pony that it would be a great age to do it.

 

We then had a playdate at a park in the morning with another MOPs friend who sent me home with some cross-country skiis that she hadn't been making use of ("you live in Canada now, you should cross-country ski now" she told me.  I promised to send a picture this winter of me on the skiis with a Tim Horton's coffee in hand.) 

We met my high school Spanish teacher and her boyfriend for brunch and kite-flying at Gasworks.  This trip it would be the closest we made it to Seattle.  

'We then met other friends for a playtime at the Everett Children's museum.

 

The second weekend had been set aside for a trip out on the boat out to Fort Flagler, but huge windstorms were predicted (many friends lost power for more than 48 hours) so we opted to stay close to home.

We headed up to Washington park to find some tide pools and my parents took the kids out to Fort Casey to explore the bunkers and beach. 

 

We also headed to Snoqualmie hoping to do a train ride, but didn't head up on the right day, so we checked out the trains on display and Snoqualmie falls.

 

Monday we packed up most of our stuff and had dinner with friends near our old house and Tuesday we relaxed on our last full day of vacation and I was able to meet a former coworker and friend for an amazing dinner while I got to hear more about her new job.

We flew home trying a new method-we usually go through Chicago on Southwest.  This allows us 2 bags per person to bring things home from the US and Seattle that we can't find in our new home and Southwest in Chicago is all at the end of one terminal making it easy to switch planes with 3 kids in tow.  However, for our return flight the option was either prohibitively expensive or at a bad time, so we flew through Phoenix and stayed on the plane-it actually worked out fine, the kids played ipad or slept (V) most of the time and it was only an extra 30 minutes than the travel time out to Seattle.