Washington

Okay so I finally got all of my pictures sorted and posted from the trip. The girls, me, and my dad spent a week in Washington at the beginning of the month. We had a ton of fun, but the drive was so long!! Here is what we did.

We stopped in tri-cities along the way and visited James at his new digs, nice James. He lives in an AWESOME neighborhood with a great view.

We went to church with Aunt Sandy and they talked about sheep! I can't get away from farm life even in Seattle! Kami didn't want to go to nursery without me, my calling may not be the best for her.
We spent some time at the Puget sound. Ash said "real sand!" but then asked when do we get to see the "real ocean". The girls had fun playing in the sand.

Ash played with the seaweed, yuk.

Pretty though

Monday we went to Ft. Lewis-Mc Cord with Aunt Sandy. We hit the kids water park while we were there. That is Mt. Rainier in the background. We were lucky enough to have great weather with no rain the entire time we were there.

Later that night Ash and Kaite went to my cousin Holly's to stay the night. They had so much fun with her girls. The rest of us went to Red Lobster and a movie. Then on Tuesday we went to Seattle and ate at Ivars. This is Kami in her divers mask, she was scaring the seagulls out the window!

This is the fire chief boat, right out our window.

Space Needle

I think that Ash and Kaite may have had more fun though. They spent two days playing with their cousins and going to the point defiance zoo. Holly was brave and took 6 girls to the zoo all by herself! The girls loved it and enjoyed seeing all the animals, especially the walruses. They got to touch crabs and starfish. They saw a lot of sharks, Ash said some of them were banging on the glass at them. Ash said there was a scorpion as big as her arm there, they enjoyed every minute of it.

Wednesday we hung around and went to a park, the girls played in the sand again.

They also played with Aunt Sandy's bamboo in her backyard.

Pretending to be birds after watching Rio.

James showed up on Thursday and a whole gang of us (I think 25) headed to ocean shores. This is what the girls looked forward to the most..... the ocean, the REAL ocean!!
I missed it but James said that Kami didn't realize we were on the beach and as she got out of her car seat she said "what is that stinky smell" and then her eyes got wide when she saw the ocean.

First dip in. Of course the only time it was cloudy was at the beach. The girls really thought they were going to swim, but it was cold!
What a good uncle, James showing Ash how to make a sand castle.

Ash's sand castle, she was trying to finish before the tide came in.

Kaite throwing sand on uncle James.

I have no idea what Kami was up to but she kept doing this.

A boat

Then we drove up to the rain forest. I really enjoyed this, it was so pretty the pictures don't do it justice. We took a little hike around Quinault lake.

Check out this monster tree!

We came out right at nice spot in the lake. Most of the kids went for a swim. The view was gorgeous!

Kami was told not to go out any farther than this rock.

After the rain forest we all took over McDonalds and had most of the place to ourselves, we were quite a sight!
Friday 32 of us got together for a great BBQ.
This is James "king of the insect people"-Ky's observation.

We spent the night visiting and hanging out. I really enjoyed holding Jeremiah, Jennifer's new baby he is 3 months but looks 6, he is such a cutie! We had so much fun on our trip Kami said "I DON"T WANT TO GO HOME!" she was not happy about leaving. I really needed a vacation. I enjoyed spending time with all my cousins and next time I hope we can take Kyle with us. I did not take as many pictures as I wanted and I didn't get any decent ones of our whole group.
The ride home was long, but pretty. We went through Montana coming home and managed to see some of the boat show going on in Coeur d'alene, by accident of course. It was so nice to sleep in my own bed though. Ky was happy to see us. He said it was quiet and lonely without us!
I can't wait to go again!
I am even considering getting a facebook account just to keep in touch with everyone.