This morning my mom is watching the kids and I got to sneak off to the library to get an internet connection and upload some pictures. Woohoo! I'm not sure I can remember the last time I had some solid kid-free hours to do what I wanted to do, not just get the house ready to show or something like that. It's very nice and so quiet here.
Last Friday we met up with another of my online friends, Cindy. She's got 5 kids. Her 4th is a boy the same age as Ian, and she's got another boy a few months older than Rinnah. We met up with her, her husband, and her kids on the beach near here. We had a nice time!
On Saturday we had one of the best days we've had since we hit the road. We met Elsa, a friend from college who lives nearby, early in the morning to catch a ferry to Whidbey Island. It's a huge island just off the coast, very developed and modern (no deserted) with some gorgeous scenerey. The kids loved the ferry ride-it was their first ride on a real boat:
After the ferry ride we got back in the truck and drove to the very northernmost point on the island, Deception Pass. We saw all sorts of things along the way-farms, beaches, towns, parks-it was a nice drive. When we arrived, we took a short hike up a very steep hill, then climbed the steps to the top of this bridge:
It's 187 feet above the water, and the views are breathtaking. We walked across and back so we could see from both sides (there's a road in the middle).
After that, we decided to head down to Fort Casey for lunch. But on the way we made a stop at a blueberry farm where we could pick our own berries. I think this is Rinnah's absolute favorite thing we have ever done. She just had a ball picking the berries, eating the berries, and running around realizing there were more berries in every direction! Ian took his job very seriously, choosing "only the blue ones" and eating just a few because he wanted to fill up the bucket.
When we left, Rinnah was inconsolable until I pulled out the blueberries we were taking home. I think she thought it was just a buffet! For the rest of the day she was happy so long as she had a steady stream of blueberries coming her way.
After the blueberry farm we continued on to Fort Casey for lunch. It was an old military fort in WWII that now you can look around and climb on. There were lots of little cavernous places that made for a great place to run and play hide and seek with the kids. They had a blast! Rinnah cooperated more for the camera, but both kids had a good time.
Rinnah is about the size of the cannonballs they used here
After that we headed back on the ferry for the ride home. The kids really did awesome, especially since we were out so far past naptime.
Besides the big adventures, we've been doing many smaller things. The kids are spending lots of time with grandma, which everyone enjoys. We've been to the children's museum several times now, and made our rounds to catch the Walgreens and grocery store deals. We've also spent some time at home since Ian seems to have caught some sort of cold over the weekend and we're trying to get him to take it easy. We went to the zoo yesterday hoping that he would get more rest riding in the stroller than he would playing at home. I'm not sure if it worked or not, but he enjoyed seeing all the tigers and elephants. Rinnah was much more interested in finishing off the blueberries than looking at the animals.
This was at an African village setup they had at the zoo
This was indoors, kind of like a sandbox but filled with some kind of small rice or seeds so it wasn't messy at all. Both kids really enjoyed digging for treasures here.
I think we'll be in Everett through this weekend, then head down to Portland on Sunday. From there we'll be off to California!
2 comments:
OMG! You know Cindy?? Are you on Pregnancy . org? Me too!
Cindy is on Large Families Board as am I. Small world!
Beautiful pics and those blueberries look yummy. We love blueberry picking too.
So funny about Rinnah eating so many... she probably had some "interesting" diapers afterwards! LOL.
I am also glad you caught some alone time- pretty important to recharge those Mommy Batteries!
Yep! I met Cindy on the Sept 06 board, since her Samuel and my Ian were both born that month. I was thaigirl1 on pg.org. I remember you from there! I lurked a lot on the large families board, hoping that someday that would be me.
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