Our Trip to Washington

Our much-anticipated trip to WA did not disappoint. We had a FANTASTIC time! We loved meeting all of our extended families. Everyone was so nice and made us feel very comfortable and welcome.

These relatives are all from Kurt's dad's side of the family. Everyone mentioned is Kurt's cousin unless otherwise specified. He hadn't seen them for about 13 years and I had never met them so we were very excited to go see everyone.

Our plan was to leave Wednesday morning at 4 am but Kurt got the "lets leave early bug" (as usual) and so we left Tuesday afternoon. We drove for 4 hours and stayed up in Yreka. We still had about 8 hours to go the next day. On our way through Portland we stopped at the temple. It was a beautiful day and the sky was such a pretty blue.

We arrived at Uncle George and Aunt Judie's house at about 4:30 which was a good time. It gave the kids time to run and play before settling down for the night.

On Thursday we traveled up to Seattle to go to Pike's Place Market. Cori and her kids went with us which was really good because getting through Seattle was crazy but she knew her way and got us through with no problems. We met Karen there and got some yummy donuts and explored the market.

Hailey found some cupcakes she really wanted:

Then we stopped at the cheese factory and watched them mix the cheese. You looked through the windows and then had huge tubs/baths of cheese. It was a crazy amount of cheese!

All of us in front of "the sign" to get your picture taken with.

Then we walked down the street and ate at Steamers. The kids found this cool water feature along the way and wanted their pictures taken.

Kurt loves to take jumping pictures.

Oops, a little out of order but oh-well.

On Friday we went to Roger's house. Roger and Veronique had a daughter, Monique, pass away at the beginning of the year and we went to the cemetery to visit her gravesite.

Then we went to a big grassy area where the kids could all run crazy and play but all they wanted to do was climb on this thing and scare all the moms to death by jumping off of it.

On Saturday we had a big family BBQ to celebrate 4th of July. They had all sorts of fun games for the kids to play. They did the limbo (which I don't have any pictures of!),

a donut eating contest:

Hey, who's kid is that using his hands?

Relay races:

Obstacle course:

Water balloon throwing contest:

And of course we had fireworks for the 4th:

(Oh, by the way, this is at like 9 pm and it was still so light!)

Gotta have sparklers:

On Monday we all drove to Mount Rainier. We drove up to Sunrise Point (I think??). It was a lovely 41 degrees outside! Chilly!

Mt. Rainier played peak-a-boo with us but we managed to get some good shots of it.

Siri and her family:

Us:

Cori and her kids

Emily and her family:

Somehow we didn't get a picture of Uncle George, Aunt Judie and Damon. I guess we will have to come back to get one!!

Then we drove to a lower elevation for a picnic and hike.

Just down from where we were going to eat was a little trail that lead to these bridges.

It was a bit scary watching the kids cross but we all made it safe and sound.

A group shot:

Out of Uncle George and Aunt Judie's 10 kids we had 6 here:

David, Damon, Cori, Siri, Emily and Karen.

Missing were Honor, Roger, Amber and Ryan.

Our little hiker boy:

Surprise!

No, we didn't magically have a 4th baby.

Kurt borrowed Siri's baby Will for the hike.

This would be our happy hiker:

This would be our not-so-happy hiker:

Kayla did absolutely amazing on this trip. With all the new things, places and people we thought she would have had a hard time but she did so good! Until this point when she shut down and didn't want to hike anymore. She got up and was a trooper but she definitely drug her heels and lagged behind.

We took off after the hike to begin our journey home.

On the south side of Mt. Rainier, there is a town called Packwood where Rick (Kurt's brother-in-law) and April (Kurt's sister) own cabins (they are vacation rentals so if anyone is interested, let us know and we will get you hooked up with Rick). We stopped there for gas and were amazed at these animals just sitting on the side of the road.

There were 3 just hanging out. The gas station lady said they come down all the time and there can be so many that they fill up this field plus another. Amazing!

Oh, and just for a good laugh - us city folk thought they were moose. Apparently they are Elk. We had no idea - we were completely clueless.

By the last 11.5 hours of our trip home on Tuesday our kids were beat. There were 9 kids staying at Uncle George and Aunt Judie's house (Cori and Siri were visiting from UT) so there were always kids to play with. From the time they got up in the morning, til the time they dropped into bed at night, they were running - all day long. They were exhausted.

Well, exhausted kids and traveling in a car for 12 hours don't really mix all that great. Kayla managed to take a nap at about 11 am and was fine the rest of the day but Hailey and Evan just would not fall asleep and boy were they grouchy; which made for a grouchy momma.

Finally, FINALLY this happened:

Oh man - the peace that we had was complete bliss!

We had an amazing trip and wish we could have stayed longer. Thank you so much to all our WA families that welcomed us and entertained us. We had a great time and it was so GREAT to meet all of you!

And remember, anytime you want to come to Cali, you always have a place to stay! We would love to have you!

Blogger Challenged

Help - I am blogger challenged!

Does anyone know how to put a picture up in the header and not have it be super huge?

Let me know.

Much appreciated!

More pics of Ocean Cove

The view from our camp site:

Gotta love that California coast!

A fun rope swing the kids found:

If you look on the rock on the right about half way up from the bottom, you can see 2 white specs laying on the rock. Those were seals. You could see them much better with your eyes. They were really cool!

Action shot of the helicopter

Can you see Cody trying to protect us from the scuba diver?

He didn't like the mask AT ALL!

Waterfall

Feeding the peacocks

Judgments

One thing Kurt and I both try really hard to do is to not pass judgments on others. It simply isn’t our job. We are not perfect and therefore have no right to judge others based on their imperfections.

There have been several occasions over the years where friends have made decisions that we think “boy, that is not what we would have chosen.” But that is just it – it wasn’t our choice to make. It was theirs and we have not walked down their road in life, we have only walked ours so therefore our choices may be different based on life experiences and we do not judge them because of that difference.

Over the last several weeks I have been involved in several conversations where someone was either judging another or they were feeling judged by others and it made me feel sad. It feels horrible to be judged by another. I am sure you have all felt judged at some point in your life – I know I have.

I felt judged in high school when I didn’t want to drink and party like all the other kids. I felt judged at 22 when I joined the church. I felt judged when (despite all my tries and appts with lactation people) breastfeeding failed and I had to bottle feed my babies. I feel judged when people find out I am a working mom. And now I feel judged about home-schooling.

But you know what? Over the years I have learned that I shouldn’t care what people think. I know I am doing the best I can with the cards that I have been dealt and I give others the benefit of the doubt that they are doing the best that they can with their cards too.

And that is what we should do in this life. We should love each other; be friendly to everyone; be supportive to each other; and definitely not judge. And don’t worry if others are judging you. You can’t control them. They are not perfect either. Just do the best you can and hope others are doing the same.

What a crazy few days!

So we made plans with friends to go camping on Memorial Day. However, we never seemed to pick a place and make reservations. Not so good on Memorial Day. So we choose a place that was first come, first serve. They said as long as we were there by Friday at noon we should be ok. Kurt didn't want to risk it so he wanted to leave on Thursday.

And that was the plan until this happened:

Yep, that is our very own sink hole. Right under a huge display we put in at a new carwash. Notice the arbor post that is hanging in the air on the right? It was just hanging there! Very scary! The display is kind of like a permanent home show for us. And unfortunately, a sink hole happened right in the middle of it. It is hard to see exactly how big this is but it is approx. 17' long x 11' wide x 10' deep. Kurt spent all day Thursday at the car wash helping the landlord figure out what to do. So we didn't get to leave until Friday morning.

Then this happened:

That would be a blown tire on our trailer. In 3 years, this was our first traveling mishap.

We went to Ocean Cove which is on the coast north of Jenner. It was a beautiful camp ground, lots of grass to keep the kids clean =), and we had a wonderful view of the ocean. Saturday morning a helicopter flew over VERY LOW right along the ocean cliff which meant it was RIGHT over us. It seemed to go over every so often so we thought it was a scenic tour or something until it landed in the campground. That's right - it landed right in the campground. We all went running down to check it out:

It turned out to be a Sheriff helicopter that was patrolling the coast. Apparently someone was injured down at the boat ramp and they flew in to assist. It turned out to be a little boy that had crashed his bike going down the boat ramp (it was very steep and all gravel). They loaded the boy into the ambulance and the helicopter took off. It got right over the ocean and turned right around and landed again. Since the nearest hospital was so far away and down very curvy roads, they decided to transport him by helicopter. We got to see it take off and land - it was very interesting. However we wished that it wasn't for a hurt little boy.

Later we hiked down to the ocean and got to see all sorts of fun things:

Isn't she cute?!

Kayla fell and got hurt and was so brave! We were so proud of her! She scraped up her wrist and cut her pants open scraping her knee.

Stump beach

Camp Fire time:

Fort Ross

We found this little one lane road that was absolutely beautiful! And the view was beautiful too!

One day we were low on gas and had to go north to find a diesel gas station. Along the way we came across a head on accident. There were only a few Sheriffs there holding peoples necks waiting for the ambulance to get there. We were the first car stopped and had a front row view of watching all the fire trucks, ambulances, sheriffs, etc. show up. Then the helicopter landed again! Then it took off and a red medic helicopter landed. We didn't see them load anyone into them but it was crazy to witness everything. It made us very appreciative for the safety we had had while traveling.

On Sunday night the dads took the kids on a night walk. They headed out before dark to explore.

They found peacocks that they got to feed!

Don't ask me what is up with that face! Funny boy! He is showing off like the peacock, I guess.

We could see them coming through the dark forest by their glowing sticks and glowing flash lights.

We had a great time and are very grateful to have made it home safe and sound.