Washington

 In Washington we visit Grandma and Grandpa Cows. It's summer, and that means farm work, all day, and almost everyday. 

We also saw a lot of the newest nephew to our family. Evelyn loves to try and pick the little kids up and carry them around. It's usually a little more than she can handle. :)

 Riding Grandpa's new tractor with Uncle Ryan. It's one of those giant ones, and the first John Deere tractor on the farm that I can remember. 

 Ben rode his bike here a lot as well. He enjoyed long stretches of road without any stoplights, just like Idaho. 

 Our whole family decided to take a short two-day trip to Mt. Rainier. When we finally got up to the Paradise viewpoint, this is all we saw. Fog. It was so cold up there. That's the second coldest we've been since we moved to California, behind our Christmas trip to St. George. It should have started snowing, just for effect. All we had were sandals and light jackets. I was smart enough to pack jeans, thankfully. 

 And there was still plenty of snow on the ground, in fact. So much that unless you were equipped for the snow, you couldn't really explore the trails at all. There was lots of water, and lots of mud. Evelyn had thawed out enough at this point to declare she was hot and didn't need her jacket anymore. I think it was just peer pressure. My nephews are a lot tougher when it comes to temperature. They rebuilt the Visitor's Center here since I last visited, and it was cool. Not as cool as the old one though. It was a place to get warm at least!

We headed down off the mountain and to our campground. Now, it wasn't too cold down here. Just raining/misting on us. We were kind of not prepared for this. It didn't rain a lot though, and we all hoped the weather would be more cooperative the next day. 

 This is only the second time our kids have been camping, and I daresay, it was far more successful this time around. The kids loved it. 

Gordon and Clayton had a fabulous time beating this dead tree with sticks, climbing all over it, and jumping off of it. There was no running off of children, and no mosquitoes or hornets. I thank the cool, rainy weather for that. 

The next morning, we broke camp and found the rain had gone overnight. We headed down to the old ranger station at Longmire, which was crawling with people. We crossed the suspension bridge, where we finally found parking and the kids enjoyed throwing rocks into the river there. We noticed after a while the clouds were breaking up, so we headed back to the cars to drive up to Paradise to see if we'd get lucky and view Mt. Rainier. 

Success! Ev was happy to be here, even if she didn't look it, and Gordon is doing some cool guy hand motion and sound effect. Such a goofy kid. 

I was going to put a picture of Tyler and Nicole here, but I then I remembered her 8 month old pregnant belly, and thought better of it. Even though she isn't huge. 

 We drove down to the Grove of the Patriarchs, a section of old-growth cedar trees. They're 200 to 300 feet tall. Gizmo had to ride in the back pack because he wasn't allowed on the trail. There was a suspension bridge to cross here, and lots of mosquitoes. The kids enjoyed running around and the picnic lunch we had. 

 The last stop on the route was Sunrise, a viewpoint at 6400 ft. It was cool here too, but the trails weren't quite as snowed over here, so we could walk around a little and see some hikers tackling Mt. Rainier. The kids liked playing in the mud puddles and throwing rocks into them here as well. There was a good visitor's center to walk though, and my girls liked hearing about how Mt. Rainier is a volcano. They didn't quite believe me at first when I told them it was, because they didn't see any lava. 

Ah, cousins. My kids miss their cousins. Hopefully at some point we will not live so far away. 

 "Someday we will all be buff like Uncle Ryan!"

Other things we did: Trampoline jumping, tire swinging, sewing (mostly skirts), playing with the dogs, feeding cows, digging in the dirt, and watching movies the kids hadn't seen before. We just chilled, which is always nice coming from our busy life in California. 

Grandma Chickens House

 We made it to Idaho after an 11 hour drive through the middle of nowhere Nevada. It wasn't a bad drive, and only one mishap of Gordon peeing on his car seat toward the end. Thunderstorms helped break up the endless expanse of desert. 

 A favorite story book Grandma keeps at her house. 

 It was around 100 degrees most of the time we were here, with Ben venturing out in the heat of the day. On this particular ride, he didn't make it far. It was just way too hot. 

 Trying out Grandpa's guitar. 

 Thank goodness Grandpa and Grandma bought this pool for everyone to play in. The kids were in it almost everyday. It was as good as swimming lessons, considering how comfortable all the kids got in the water. The girls were going underwater, and Evelyn is doing a pretty good doggie-paddle. 

 Grandma found some flashy fabric scraps and the girls created their own dresses with them. 

 Grandma bought tickets for us all to attend the Starlight Mountain Theater, where we saw a production of Roger and Hammertstein's "Cinderella." Here's the Fairy Godmother. 

 Here is Cinderella. During the intermission, you could pay a small fee and have a ride in Cinderella's pumpkin carriage. The girls were in awe when meeting the actors. Jilly's favorite actress was one of the stepsisters. We all had a good time, and didn't get eaten alive by mosquitoes. One memorable moment of the outdoor play was a bald eagle flying over the stage with a small sparrow or other fierce little bird chasing the eagle off. Gordon's favorite parts were the musical portions with lots of actors moving across the stage. Otherwise, we had to keep re-directing his attention. 

 Evelyn's birthday occurred during our stay, and she requested a Brazilian dinner of feijoada (black beans and rice) and pao de queijo (cheesebread). 

 She also wanted eclair torte for her cake. 

Evelyn asked for science/chemistry kits for her birthday, and was excited to see this one. 

 While I was putting Gordon to bed, the girls thought they'd take care of the last piece of eclair torte. I guess it's more fun sucking the pudding off the base and eating with your fingers. 

 Grandpa Chickens likes making homemade soap, so that's what we did the last few days of our stay. It was a cool process. I chose a citrus blend for my soap, and it turned out really well. 

 Smoothing out the soap mold. 

 We visited some old friends who live in the mountains north of Grandma and Grandpa, around Lake Cascade. It was hot enough to do some swimming. 

 There were little minnows swimming in schools near the shore, and Gordon and Jilly had fun chasing them. The bigger kids headed out to the edge of the marked swim area. 

Jilly's my sunbather. 

Gordon was in heaven with all the dress-up stuff 'Tank' had. 

Thanks for letting us crash your afternoon! 

Other memories: The kids gathering the eggs out of the chicken house every day and feeding the chickens food scraps, eating dinner with the Gurneys (why did I not take a picture?), and hanging out with Uncle Nate, Aunt Chelle, and their chihuahuas. We also spent time helping get the garage cleared out. 

Las Vegas, take two

 Gordon enjoying the map on the drive. 

We got there a bit early, and so we found our way to the monorail and Ben led us over the Bellagio to check it out. 

 This was so, so, so, cool. From a distance, it look like a fancy glass sculpture, but upon getting closer, I saw that it was a very fancy chocolate fountain. 

 Gordon was trying to figure out how he was going to get into all that yummy chocolate. 

 The fun botanical garden. 

 Gordon's favorite Chihuly glass sculpture in one of Bellagio's many little shops. 

 Shortly before we arrived at the main entrance to Bellagio, I figured out why Ben had wanted to come here. I really like the glass sculptures and he remembered the large one contained within this hotel. :)

 On the monorail.

 Gordon wanting to pose with the glass but not wanting to look. 

We got two fireworks shows right outside of our hotel window at the LVH. Very cool. It made up for the fact we waited in the hotel check-in line for an hour. (Ben waited, I entertained the kids). And then there were the 7 year old exhibitionist dancers in the swimming pool. That was not awesome. We think we've had our fill of The Strip for a little while!

June Remnants

 Grandma Chickens had some business to take care of in Southern California about two weeks before we left on vacation, so we headed to the beach as an after-dinner treat. 

We saw a small pod of dolphins that played quite close to shore for a few minutes, which was fun to watch.  

Soon it got a little too cool to be wet and sandy, so we headed home.

Ben was gone for about 10 days on a trip to Mexico during the middle of the month, and I was busy with all the usual stuff, like the garden. 

I was a little sad to leave it while on vacation. 

Dad came home, and we were all happy. He took Jilly and Gordon on a shopping trip while waiting for the new tires to be put on the van. It took quite a while. 

 This is at Lowe's. 

 Giant Costco pizza. 

Giant Costco hot dog.