Surprise visit

We got a phone call from Clay's 2nd cousin, Steph, saying she was in town for just a couple days. So right after church we drove out to DC to pick them up and take them to the Iwo Jima memorial. We had a great time catching up.

 While we were chatting Rebekah was taking selfies:

 After our visit we drove back and went to a farewell open house for a couple of young men in our ward leaving to serve full-time missions. They had a great house with a wrap around porch and a great porch swing. Clay & I enjoyed the breeze as we sat on it. Then Emma and my visiting teacher joined me on the swing.

Mud Kitchen

Iluma had a little mud kitchen in the backyard. Rebekah and Iluma loved playing in it. 

It was good MESSY fun!

Iluma also had this pretty cool little fairy garden.

Canoeing

Clay had told the girls we would go canoeing on Crescent Lake when we were on the Olympic Peninsula. However, the weather made us have to switch our plans around and canoeing got left out. The girls were very disappointed. So, being the great Hero Dad that he is, Clay called around and found a place for us to go. We went down to AM Beach (just on the east side of PM Beach). 

We had a good time. Though we had to make some adjustments to the seating arrangements to balance out the boats. Deanna and Emma had a hard time getting around the island. The wind blew really hard, so unless you had two really strong people at the oars you were not going to make it. We switched it up again and were finally able to get Emma around the island. 

These two fell asleep as soon as they got buckled into the car. We had to wake them up for lunch.

Rebekah and Iluma enjoyed playing with the jukebox at the A&W Restaurant.

We must have done something else between lunch and dinner. I can't remember. Maybe it was just getting cleaned up. But here they are at dinner. It's Fairhaven Fish & Chips. All your food is served out of this old double-decker bus.

After dinner we drove down to Marine Park.

Here's Deanna with all her grandkids!

Hurricane Ridge

There was this great little bay where we stayed in Sequim. We didn't get to enjoy it much because of the rain. But it was finally nice and sunny so the girls ran down to look for shells.

On our way in and out of town each day we passed by this lot with a bunch of old train cars parked on it. There was a sign, but it was too small to read from the car what it was all about. On the first day I called it a "Train Car Farm!" And we laughed and laughed... Guess you had to have been there.

Anyway, it turns out it's a Bed & Breakfast! So you can stay in an old train call and then have breakfast in the dinning car. Not really sure how they worked in the showers and potties...You can look into that if you want to.

 This is Hurricane Ridge!

Check out my cool panoramic I took (looks just like the info sign). 

Looking at those mountains and the grassy field made we want to run out there and have my own Maria von Trapp moment. Kind of like this little guy...

We saw a lot of deer out there. They are all black-tailed deer. 

 Group shot!!

Cousins!

In the entrance to the lodge they had this cute black bear. I told Emma to hop up into his arms. Then everyone wanted to take a picture with the bear.

I gotta say a bit about Emma on this vacation. At first we were going a bit crazy with Emma & Rebekah in the backseat with all the driving around we were doing. And Kerry was having similar challenges with Iluma & Lyric. Then we got the great idea to switch them up. We had Rebekah and Iluma in our car and Emma sat with Lyric. Finally, everyone was happy. Well, Rebekah and Iluma were still quite energetic, but they weren't squabbling. Emma really took to looking after Lyric. She was responsible and helpful. She took time to play with him and read books to him. I was amazed at what a great job she did. And she was much happier than her usual self of late. It was just a really great change and transition to see in her.

 Here's some more mountain and wildflower shots.

Yes, that white patch is snow. 

 Deanna with her grand-girls. Where's Lyric?

 Caught this mother-daughter moment :)