Hopefully you all had a happy Fourth! Today just finally sharing a few photos from our Memorial weekend trip to the Northwest. Beautiful country and I would happily go back every year if I could. This time we only had a few short days so before you could say "Schools out for the summer" we packed the car to the gills and headed out.
After a long day on the road we were happy to arrive at our Seattle hotel. While Tom and I have seen Seattle a number of times, we thought the girls would enjoy a little time to look around.
Our hotel had a nice little view of the space needle, which is as close as we got.
Looking down at the street from our room Sarah said "This just doesn't feel right". Only 3 years on the farm and our girls were feeling a bit lost and overwhelmed in the city!
The next day we wondered down through Pike's Market and down to the wharf.
We passed on most of the usual tourist activites after seeing the price to ride up the space needle and the lines at the acquarium. We chose instead to enjoy this new attraction:
Who wouldn't want to ride a giant Ferris Wheel on the waterfront! It was a nice long ride and the spectacular views were well worth the short wait in line.
Sarah was pretty terrified at first.
But after a bit she settled in and enjoyed the ride.
After our morning on the wharf we stopped for a bit of shopping (oh, I could have shopped all day with the stores they had) and dinner with a cousin we headed up to Lynden to our main desitination—to visit Tom's brother's family.
We did have a minor detour around the freeway bridge that collapsed on our route the day before our trip. Crazy. But oy, did we enjoy the scenery on our way!
Once there it rained, rained, rained (not surpirsingly) so the kids just enjoyed each other's company playing around the house.
When the rain let up we headed out to the coast community of Fairhaven. They had a festival going on, so the town was busy busy, but we parked and walked down along the waterfront.
Watching the train go under the bridge beneath them. An awesome sight to see that power rumble underneath your feet!
Sweetest cousin Sofia. I want to bottle her brown eyes and dimples.
And such a lovable boy, Eli is. He and Sarah are sporting matching toothless grins. But Eli wins in the adorable freckle department. We enjoyed so much hearing him play the piano as he is doing amazingly well for his age! Natural talent.
Speaking of talent, Petra has more than enough to spare in the kitchen. Yum.
And baby Lucie showed off her new talent for us—walking everywhere!
There was a kayak race along the path we walked. We enjoyed watching and encouraging them as they neared the finish after rowing all the way from Vancouver, B.C.!
The next morning we played at their neighborhood park. Lynden was an impressively well-manicured Dutch community. This city park alone was just amazing. They are quite fortunate to have it just a short bike ride from their house.
Clark cousins lined up by age!
We ended our visit there much too soon, but nevertheless headed 7 hours south to Lebanon, OR (south of Portland) to visit my aunt and uncle. The extra miles were well worth it!
The girls got acquainted with another cousin.
And they had a blast playing in Aunt Marilyn's beautiful yard.
Eva took a liking to Uncle Bob. Maybe he reminded her just a little bit of her Grandpa Rog? Tom had a great time joining Bob for a tour where he works at the airport.
We sure miss having Bob and Marilyn around the farm, so it was well worth the detour to spend the night with them!
One final stop on the drive home to see Multnomah Falls.
Always worth the stop, even though it was cool and wet.
Turns out we brought the cool wet weather home with us to enjoy for the next several days. The rain was badly needed on the farm. So, like I said before, we would happily make this trip to the Northwest every year, especially if we can lasso those rain clouds and haul them home with us!