My Return and Report!

That's right, that's the Space Needle in Seattle. And I was there! I went with a bunch of online friends and it was so fun! It felt so good to be going on a real vacation that I was grinning in the airport on the way there. It was just good to get a break.

We stayed at a cabin on lake Kachess, near Mt. Rainer, I believe. It was beautiful. There were 28 of us there and we threw a party! We did game nights until late, late, late, there was a ton of chatting, Yummy food, classes to learn or create stuff, a service project and sight seeing.



On the train

Downtown at the Public Market


Pickled Asparagus!


Fruit and vegetable stands galore!


And, of course, FISH!


We also saw a troll, and there was a man there making it more of an experience as he was yelling his views for all the world to hear. We couldn't help but laugh since the local girls told us that this kind of crazy was common for Seattle.


We stopped by the temple too, the grounds are gorgeous, of course, it's always nice there.


And Snoqualomie Falls which I was taken back by. We were running a little late and talked about not stopping here. But ended up stopping anyways. I had no idea what we were about to give up, they are amazing! And so big!


Here's the view from the back porch of our cabin.


Playing games


White Elephant gift exchange




So fun, I loved it. I want to go again.

Well, I'm off again

This weekend the adventure will take me up to Washington State! And this time I am going alone. I'm meeting several Internet friends for a Girl's Weekend Out. I'm a little nervous since I've only met two of them IRL.

I'm also a little nervous because I've never left Gordon with the girl's by himself for so long. Not that I'm afraid he's not a competent father, but I am worried. He says the thing he's worried the most about is forgetting to feed the fish, since the girls will remind him to feed them. So we'll see if our fish survive the weekend...

I've also realized that I have never flown by myself before. I've always had someone else traveling with me. Once was Lily, I think she was one. Gordon assures me that it will be really easy, flying without children. But I don't know, something about having a person to take care of makes you braver and more assertive.

Anyways my charge is to go and have fun, relax, and come back fully charged again. After all, study season is almost upon us again.

Kid Funny

I was just making lunches for the girls. I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for Abigail, Lily and myself and a meat sandwich for Eve, since she refuses to eat peanut butter.

Eve was jealous she didn't get any jelly on her sandwich, like everyone else, so she added it. Yum Yum! Meat, mayonnaise and grape jelly!

A trip to PHX again!

Even though we were just there two weeks ago, we got the chance to visit AZ again. Gordon's company was sending him for a one day meeting of the Casualty Actuaries of the Desert States. We decided to jump on the chance of someone else footing the gas bill and went to play again.

This time the weather was much more how we remembered Arizona, with beautiful clear skies the whole time.

A cool stop on the way is the continental divide. We, of course, had to take pictures in front of it.


We made it to AZ safe and sound, just in time for some fooling around.

Here's Eve with Tyler. Who she called her husband the whole time. It was cute until they got into an argument, then she'd come to us saying "my husband hit me". Tyler never agreed that he was a husband.





Thursday was Gordon's day of meetings. So while he was away, and Calvin was at work, Julie, the kids and I worked on our super secret project. We also went and visited a friend. This friend, Jessica(9), just broke her leg on Monday while playing on their trampoline. The break was so severe she spent three days in the hospital. She was home, but still on some major pain killers and was biding her time until she could have a surgery to help set the bones back in place. Her parents were going to host a party for us, but couldn't with Jessica being so laid up.

Thursday night was late night. The boys went to the midnight showing of the Hulk Julie and I stayed up watching Christy since I had borrowed that book from Julie and just finished it. I think that book is Julie's favorite. I liked it too. Julie and I were able to go to bed at one thirty, a full hour before the men came in. Or so they reported to me, I didn't wake up at all when they came home.

Friday our families went for a day of fun out at Saguaro lake. Not until after a lazy morning of sleeping in, mind you. We forgot to bring our camera, but it was really fun. The water was warm so it felt really good to swim in, and we did for hours. The beach is very gradual so the little kids could walk around in the water and play pretty far into the lake. We did have a little problem with birds helping themselves to our bread while we were swimming. Luckily another person on the beach stopped them and rescued most of it for us. There was also the great swimming race between Julie and I, which I lost.

On the way home we notice that the fountain was going in Fountain Hills, so we drove over there to check it out. We found the coolest park. We didn't stay, because it was already getting late, but next time we head to AZ we want to plan some time there. There was a water playground, plus the fountain to watch, plus tons of grassy area to play. It just looked like a fabulous park.

After getting all 10 of us through the showers to wash the smell of fish off of us, we went to down town Mesa. There was an ice cream festival that we couldn't miss. They had ice cream eating contests for the kids, live bands, and cheap ice cream for sale. Lily and Megan were in the contest, each contestant was given one cone of ice cream, and they raced to see who could eat it fastest. Neither one won, but they both enjoyed the ice cream anyways! A funny thing was the hippy band that was playing there. We had fun dancing to there music, Eve and Abigail were totally going all out in their dancing, but the band didn't seem to be having fun at all. Not a single one of them smiled, none of them seemed to enjoy making music. We gave them our change anyways, and hope that cheers them up.

Saturday we went with our other friends, Paul and Molly, and their two children, Houghton and Mary, to the Zoo.


To be honest, we didn't see very many animals. We spent most of our time playing in the splash playground. Luckily Paul and Molly have a membership and were able to get us all in with that, so it wasn't a waste of our admission price. And we did have a lot of fun.



The fountains had Abigail worried, we still go her wet several times to keep her cool


Gordon's Eye view of Mary


The train ride, so we could see at least of couple animals before leaving.




Saturday night was a party we threw to see more of our friends. Our friends, Ben and Sara, hosted it at their Condo's pool. We had a great turnout with lots of yummy food (it was potluck).

Here are the kids with the pinata. It wasn't as dark as it looked, the flash just made it that way.


Then the mad grab!


Sunday (Father's Day) we went to the earliest meeting available. It wasn't our old ward, but we felt we couldn't postpone our leaving that long. After church the kids presented their dads with our "super secret project" I surprised it was kept a secret so well. I guess we kept the kids busy enough they forgot about it!




After that we had to head home. It was bittersweet, we really have some good friends there in AZ.

Storm Troopers at the Library!

There were several visitors at the library to kick off their reading program. Along with the storm troopers there was a juggler and a magician. The magician was really good, I never could see how he did any of his tricks. The theme was "Catch the Reading Bug!" So the magician did tricks like have huge cockroaches appear out of thin air and a tarantula too. It was creeping me out but the kids seemed to like it. Luckily for me he also did some more traditional slight of hand making a bunny appear, and tied ropes loop together. It was a really fun kick off, and I was glad to hear they'll continue with summer shows ever Friday for the next two months! Hooray for summer fun!

Jack's Creek

For a very fun weekend we went camping with four other families up past Santa Fe at Jack's Creek. On our drive the mountains were so green we were enchanted. Gordon wondered aloud if this is what Ireland looks like. We saw several deer, chipmunks and ground squirrels. For some extra adventure, we bought our very first fishing poles to try our hands at fishing. This weekend was free fishing day here in NM so we didn't have to get a license.

Here we are hanging out in the morning





I did five little girl's hair, none of them were too please with the process of it.




We went fishing at a place called Cowles Pond. They also had several booths set up with activities for the kids set up. The girls watched how to tie your hook on a line, learned how to identify different kinds of trout, and what trout to expect in the pond we were at. There was a painting activity that was the clear favorite. They had rubber fish that the girls smeared paint on, then pressed papers against them to impressions of fish. The last booth we went to was on the type of bugs were in the pond. The station had several pans filled with a little dirt and water. Then when you looked close you'd notice hundreds of little bugs moving in the pans. No wonder the fish liked it here! The girls got to pick out bugs with tweezers then examine them under microscopes. They liked that.

Once we went through the stations we finally got to the fishing. Some of our friends are old pros at fishing and took the time to teach Gordon how to set up our new gear and use it. Gordon caught on really quick and was soon figuring out where the perfect spot was to cast the line in so it wouldn't get tangled in the weeds.

Lily with our Barbie fishing pole


Isobel taking a turn


Gordon with our most common catch


Eve with our first caught fish (actually caught by Cassie)


Gordon with his first fish


Abigail in her messy glory


Me with my fish (the biggest one caught!)


The girls playing in the stream between two ponds



We ended up with four fish and we cooked them up for dinner, frying them in butter, onions and a little bit of Sprite. It was good, Abigail thought so especially, eating more of it than anyone else. The campground host was really friendly as he made his rounds and he stopped and ate dinner with us too.

We really liked the beautiful area up there and plan to go back again. Maybe try out some other camping spots and having Bryce teach us how to fish in a stream.