Up close and personal with the wildlife

While staying in Port Townsend, we went to the Olympic Game Farm in Sequim. Derek and I had been there long ago when we were dating, but it is way better with kids! You drive through a big park and the animals come right up to your car, where you can feed them whole wheat bread. Well, I should say most of the animals can come to your car... the bears or dangerous ones are behind fences! But you still get to drive very close to them, which is how I got this picture of a bear

and this shot of a zebra. During certain parts of the drive, there are signs that say, "Don't stop, continue on," so we figured we had better follow that advice, and drove by the bears, zebras and I think some elk... I don't know, they sort of all started blending together! But the girls thought it was SOOO cool.

At first when we were feeding animals, Symantha was so scared of them being so close that she would lean back on me, which made the animal come in even farther! Insert hundreds of squeals and shrieks throughout this entire adventure.

We couldn't keep one particular animal out of the bread... ADDISON! Every time we turned our heads, she was shoveling some more bread in her mouth. The animals didn't really phase her much.

We were not allowed to stop for the buffalo, but I was good with that. Supposedly it was breeding season and they can be mean... they looked it.

It seemed like we would be looking out one window, and some animal would come sticking his head in the other window and scare everyone half to death!

Hailey was loving these guys and their little soft tongues. They would eat the bread pretty gently, which was nice.

I took a ton of other pictures of peacocks, bunnies, roosters, a little petting zoo and other various animals, but I think you get the picture! It was a fun family adventure!

Bliss

I finally am all set up with my new laptop and I have to say I am in computer heaven. Everything takes me half as long to do, I can take it anywhere easily, and it is very pretty. Yes, I said pretty, even though it is just black, it is shiny and new and makes my life just a little better. We debated over what to get and whether to enter the Mac world, but ended up with a Toshiba laptop, that has everything our computer-savvy friends told us we would need.

And I have the coolest God story to go with my new computer. After researching, budgeting, and trying to make a good decision about what to do with our computer we finally decided last Sunday to go buy it. That very day we received a stud fee from someone who used our dog Bodie to breed with - we hadn't expected it, and had kind of forgotten about it. But the amount was $750 and our computer came to $747. We ended up paying $3 for our computer that day!! Such a cool blessing.

So now that I have taken a few days to reconnect with the world (although my e-mail inbox is completely out of control and needs some serious organization), I am finally getting to the post I had been planning to do 3 weeks ago! I just wanted to say hello again, before I got back to business:) It is soooo good to be back!

Unplugged and unhappy

Our computer died and not sure what we are going to do about it... very sad for me but I will be offline for a while. Except for the occasional time I can steal Derek's work laptop (like now!)... or drop by one of my friends' houses for an email check... hint, hint friends...

We are trying to figure out if it can be fixed or if it's time for a new one, but it's been down since Thursday. Derek keeps making fun of my withdrawal symptoms. That is because he is still plugged in and doesn't feel my pain! Anyways, hope to be back soon...

We heart Port Townsend (still)

We just got back from a great few days in Port Townsend. This is the third time we have gone as a family, and every summer I wonder if we should go somewhere else.... but then realize that the girls ask when we are going back ALL year long and there is something cool about making it a tradition and familiar to all of us. We love the mix of things to do there - beach, lighthouses, hiking, cute town, great restaurants, excellent coffee, Olympic Game Farm, very cool historic houses to check out, etc. It is a little different for us every year, but always proves to be a great choice!

This year we stayed in this adorable cottage for the first time...

Where we had visitors in the garden the very first afternoon...
and I loved the picture taking opportunities in this garden, as well! I guess it was lavender season, because there are signs for lavender everywhere and it was beautiful in the yard. Once again, I have such a hard time narrowing down so many pictures! Might be a hint that I take a few too many...
We love this neighborhood park, with the huge tire swing, ocean view from a big cliff, and beautiful gardens and paths to explore. The girls went so high on this tire swing - it was actually freaking me out just a little!

This was at another park the next day, down at the end of town. I loved the sky this evening.
This "Pirate ship" (according to the girls) was docked and letting people come on board for tours. This was very exciting...
Especially when one of the crew members showed Symantha how to steer the boat and let her try.
Can't get enough of the tire swing, but this one is littler so Addison could join them.
We also love exploring Fort Warden and all the old bunkers, tunnels, etc.
The girls have gotten braver every year, because it is dark down there! And unfortunately we forgot flashlights this time. They still explored, just kept a little closer to us this time.
There was a lot of chase, hide and seek, and some sort of game where Daddy captured them and put them in a dungeon.... I'm not kidding when I say HOURS of fun.
And it is never complete without me making everyone sit and take a family picture:)
As I write this, I realize that I think my very first blog post was Port Townsend last year! Wow, one year of blogging to celebrate. Good for me.

Stay tuned for pictures from the Olympic Game Farm... it was quite the experience!

Happy birthday Mom!

A few fun pics to celebrate Mom's birthday today... wish I had one of when she was little to compare with my girls! But I am lucky to even find these ones.

This is with my sister, Megan

Funny, I was just noticing I have two pics of her with me in a white dress - First communion and wedding!

Here are just a few really great things about my Mom:

*She is very outgoing, animated and fun

*She is so generous, and loves to surprise her kids and grandkids with prizes

*She is creative and has always made celebrations BIG. She has always made her kids feel special and given us wonderful memories.

*She loves her family LOTS

*She has always encouraged us to succeed and do our best

And today I hope she knows we love her and want her to have a wonderful birthday!

The best way to beat the heat

When your husband is out of town and the temperature hits this...


It is a definite sign that one should head directly to the ocean beach! I had originally planned to take a day trip to the beach, since I kept wanting cute pictures and Derek is not a fan of the ocean (he is convinced it is always grey and windy... sort of don't blame him). Then Derek reminded me that our friends had offered the use of their beach house at Ocean shores, so Sara and I decided to go for a couple of nights and come back Wednesday morning. We packed up her suburban...


and left on Monday night. It was an adventurous trip, although only 2 1/2 hours. And it was all due to my girls - one had awful leg pains and we had to stop for tylenol, one had diarrhea and we had to stop to change her, and then one threw up due to being carsick. Sorry for the gory details, but at about this point we were wondering.... was this such a good idea???? But after getting settled in a VERY large and wonderful beach house, we headed out in the morning to this....


And it became VERY worth it. Especially when we heard it just kept getting hotter and hotter at home. So, we thought we would change plans again and stay a little longer until Thursday...

Enjoying the waves and the sun and the cool breezes....

Learning what sand feels like on our toes...

Getting completely sandy and filthy


and loving every second of it. Well, most of it except for the occasional craziness of 5 children, including the youngest one who seemed to have caught some sort of stomach bug and was proclaiming herself, "stinky" at least every hour. I could have done without that. But still better to be here where it was cool, then home where it was sizzling.





Which is why we then changed our plan ONCE more, and although Sara and the boys went home on Thursday, Derek joined us Thursday night and we stayed through Saturday evening. He actually had a work meeting in Olympia, so it wasn't too bad for him to commute on Friday. What started out to be a quick beach day, turned into almost a week long vacation!





And it was such a complete blessing.

Twinsies

Symantha got her birthday present from us in the mail a couple of days ago (only a little late:)). Thanks to my friend Heather, I found these matching girl and American girl doll dresses from Etsy for a very reasonable price (only $22, including shipping!). It is the perfect dress for summer, and I figure it can easily be layered when the weather gets colder.



By the way, do you notice anything new about Symantha's smile? She lost her top front tooth and has the cutest little lisp when she talks now. The other front tooth is just about to fall out too - that is going to be one big gap!

Grandma D. sent the girls these matching Gymboree outfits in the picture below. Matching outfits always make me think of my friend Holly, who swears if she had girls (she has 3 boys) she would match right along with them! I would have loved to see that. However, I'll continue to wear my own separate outfit and let the girls be the twinsies. I am in love with this picture!