Had so much fun visiting our family in Washington last month. The time truly flew by so quickly- but we tried to make the most of every day! It always feels like a family reunion when we come into town....since I'm the only one who doesn't live there. Everyone tries to block off time to spend together and enjoy fun family outings as a group. As the kids have gotten older and older, that's become a lot easier to do! The youngest cousins are now 3.5! So much easier than when we had tons of toddlers running around--- that's for sure. LOVED celebrating Noah's homecoming from West Virginia. I was thrilled that Blake could be there for that weekend- with the Paces. Loved hearing Noah's talk and feeling the spirit so strongly. I just knew that what he had to say was truly so powerful and inspiring for my children. He talked about how much God loves His children and the fact that we may not know the meaning of many things- but we do know that God loves us and that knowledge can be enough to keep us going if we remember it and keep the spirit close to our hearts on a daily basis. Jason made a variety of pizzas in the pizza oven afterwards-- it was a wonderful day.
The day before, we took family pictures and enjoyed the slip n slide at Dave's house along with bike riding and lunch at the Tacoma waterfront. Loved spending time with Michelle and her family for the day since they headed off to Yellowstone shortly thereafter.
On Monday, we all boarded the ferry for The Ol' Swimming Hole! A summer tradition that we will never tire of! LOVED watching all my kids strong enough to swim over to the big slide and diving dock. Loved eating pretzel bread and cheese from the German deli. Loved watching the teens play cards on the ferry and watching the kids look for jelly fish over the side of the boat. Fun day.
Tuesday we were off to Enchanted Village and Wild Waves with the Paces and Dave Stevens family. It was a packed and fun filled day of roller coasters, water slides and dipping dots. A highlight of the trip for sure is any amusement park for my kids! Especially when cousins are involved!
The boys had the best time ever at I Fly with Papa for a sky diving adventure! They loved it and wished they were old enough to sky dive for real! Unfortunately we looked it up and you can't actually sky dive until you're 18. But they sure had fun with the simulated experience. The girls enjoyed a day of shopping! We had dinner with the Mike Stevens crew and babysat while Jess and Mike headed out for a quick church meeting. Loved laughing our heads off with little Ricky. He's hilarious. On Thursday, we met the big group at Defy trampoline park and everyone was thoroughly entertained jumping, practicing flips, climbing walls and swinging all over the place. Afterwards we sat for quite a while chatting it up at the Round Table Buffet while the kids played arcade games and entertained themselves quite nicely. We went to the farmer's market and picked blackberries for shakes. Evelyn went out with Adam and his friends to pizza and movies. The kids and I hung out at the Dave Stevens house with cousins. It was a fun filled day.
On Friday we enjoyed blueberry picking and ice cream at the farmer's market in Olympia! Then a special dinner out at Kyote and a Rainier's game in Tacoma. I think this was the day I started to get a little tired- haha! It had been a very full week to say the least. But there was still an amazing family day at Nisqually Campground to enjoy for Saturday. Loved swinging on the rope swings, riding down the slip n slide, playing volleyball and roasting hot dogs. Probably our favorite family tradition at Nisqually. Sunday was a low key day of church and then dinner and a movie at the Paces-- we hadn't had much time to do that and we loved hanging out and relaxing.
It truly was an incredible week. We were so grateful to Dave and Jen for letting us use their car for the 10 days! Car rentals are incredibly expensive these days so we were SOO lucky they were willing to let us use their van. SO grateful to Mom and Dad for the yummy dinners and all the organization and planning and packing lunches and buying tickets and so on and so forth! It's not easy to organize five families. So grateful to all my siblings for the delicious dinners and allowing us to take over their week. We love so much our summer trip to WA! It is always an incredible time.
