popsicles at G&G's house...

today is our last full day before going home tomorrow.  we hit up the park, had lunch, took a nap and are going to have a good home made dinner with grandma and grandpa.  trying to stick to our schedule so traveling will be easier tomorrow (fingers crossed).  soaking in the sun in the backyard with a popsicle this afternoon.

sunday funday with the fam...

today was a great day.  we are making up for lost time since bowie was sick, but we got to visit with my grandfather and his wife while bow splashed in the sprinkler outside.  and my favorite kind of summer night, jacuzzi night at my aunt and uncles house with a bbq!  bowie got to go in the jacuzzi and had lots of fun playing with her cousins old toys!  and the boys had an intense foos ball game!

lazy day with baby Q!

i wish we had these kind of days everyday on our vacation.  we had a great saturday having lunch as a big family and then jamie and ryan got to nap while the rest of us watched baby Q! 

seal rescue and park!

we hit up the san pedro area to check out a small aquarium (which was closed for an event) and ended up at the seal rescue and a park and came home with our favorite sandwiches!

sickie!

day after we arrived and bowie got sick, and not just a little sick, but high fever, snot rockets and glazed over eyes.  she has been all over my mom and i, so i hope we stay healthy, but the timing could not be worse, as we want to spend as much time with auntie jamie and baby Q, but we can't expose them.

cousins meet for the first time!

we have been waiting for this day for a month now!  we finally get to meet our sweet niece and cousin! 

flat stanley...

anyone familiar with this elementary school project?  my best friends daughter sent this to us and we are supposed to take pics with the doll and tell about where we live, what we like to do and share the dolls adventures.  the point is to see how far he travels and expose the kids to new places.  here is his latest adventures in the evergreen state!

 

Dear Cornerstone Class Room #10

Flat Stanley made his way approximately 1,150 miles to the beautiful evergreen state of Washington!  He specifically stayed with his host family on the border of Renton and Maple Valley, which is about 25 miles south of Seattle.  A couple of fun facts about our area are:

~our football team The Seahawks have their training facility in Renton

~Rock star legend Jimi Hendrix is buried at a local cemetery in Renton

~Boeing has their final assembly plant in Renton for the 737 plane, where they produce more than 1 plane a day!

~Maple Valley used to be a resort town with its main attraction being Lake Wilderness, it was not officially incorporated until 1997

Over the last month we have enjoyed making Flat Stanley a part of our family and he has gone on many adventures with us.  Let me introduce you to our family, Jarad is an engineer working at Blue Origin, a privately funded American aerospace company, founded by Jeff Bezos.  The mission at Blue Origin is for human space travel on rocket ships!  So basically Stanley got to hang out with a bunch of rocket scientists and astronauts in a rocket factory, how cool is that?  Jarad also loves to mountain bike and Stanley got to tag along for many rides on Tiger Mountain and at a bike park in Issaquah.  Erin is a stay at home mom to 2 year old daughter Bowie and we brought him with us to our normal weekly toddler activities, which include play dates, mommy and me groups and The Little Gym.  During our family time at home, Stanley enjoyed hanging out on the lake we live on, Shadow Lake as well as helping us welcome Spring and doing some gardening!  He was also surprised to see that we have a lot of wild life in our backyard.  We have nesting bald eagles, deer, foxes, owls and our neighbors have chickens and goats that like to visit.  He also got to sample farm fresh eggs from our neighbors and said they are the best, what a treat!  They are usually brown and green eggs and have yolks so golden they look orange! 

There are a few really cool places we got to visit with Stanley that are close by, however Washington is known to be quite rainy and Stanley didn't hold up so well in the rain.  So we were unable to take pics with him, but are sending this small calendar to show some of these highlights.  We took him to Snoqualmie Falls a beautiful 268 foot waterfall.  It is so powerful you get wet just standing on the observation deck.  We did a lot of "rock hunting" one of Erin & Bowie's favorite activities.  We go to the Arboretum (a tree garden) in Maple Valley and we look for painted rocks.  When we find them we post them on a group so that the artists can see them found.  We also paint and hide our own rocks and usually re-hide the rocks we find in another location around town.  Stanley also got to visit Pike Place in downtown Seattle where they have an very well known fish stand, indoor market and all kinds of food vendors.  We got to sample some Washington apples and Rainier cherries, two fruits that we are well known for.  But our favorite was getting some chocolate from the "Seattle Chocolate Company."  And Stanley got many opportunities to see our favorite view, Mt. Rainier, an active volcano!  We can see it from all over town, it is the highest mountain in Washington state and the tallest mountain in the Cascade Range in the Pacific Northwest!  From afar it looks like a beautiful snow capped mountain, but those are actually glaciers and it is considered to be one of the worlds most dangerous volcanoes.  Most of these locations can be seen in the calendar, so check them out, so you can see Stanley's travels. 

We have enjoyed showing Stanley our community in the beautiful Pacific North West and we look forward to seeing what new adventures he goes on next!

Thanks for visiting!