Thanks, Mom!

When it comes right down to it, the only you person I can always count on is my mom.  In fact, I can't remember a time ever in my life that either of my parents let me down.  They were at every concert, recital, performance I ever participated in.  And now that I am a mom, it seems like I need my mom more than ever.  Even though I am a  responsible adult functioning in society, I have desperately needed her to take care of me through my early years of motherhood!  She has been there for every birth, every major illness, and has even been around for almost every time I have gotten the uncontrollable urge to clean out every closet in the house!

Most recently, she spent over a week at our house running "GRANDMA CAMP" while Todd and I took our trip to the West coast.  We came home to a house filled with arts, crafts, prizes, treats, and of course, HUGE smiles from our kiddos.  They had a blast!

I seriously can't thank my mom enough!  Look at how adored she is!

Hil and C also spent a day in Boise on their back to Texas.  We had a great time enjoying the kids and the outdoors.  My kids were all pretty sad when the party was over!

We are now trying to switch gears from Summer to school! 

Day 1: Seattle and Port Angeles

(For the small number of you who like to stay completely up to date with my life, I have done a whopping 5 blog posts today.  So keep scrolling down until you get it all.)

A trip without kids has been long overdue for Todd and me.  As in, we haven't taken one since becoming parents.  So when we found out Hil and C would be spending some time along the western coast, we invited ourselves along.  We just showed up and they had it all figured out.  It. Was. Awesome!

We arrived in Seattle in the early afternoon, and our first stop was the EMP (experience music project).

We had a lot of fun trying out all the demo rooms.  The highlight was pretending to be a band on their simulated stage.  I was laughing and smiling so hard, my cheeks hurt for several minutes after!  :)

Next on the agenda was heading downtown to find a NON-kid friendly restaurant to eat at.  :)  Oh the joys of eating a meal without children.  After dinner, we boarded the ferry and headed to our home base of Port Angeles.  You know...  where Bella and Edward had their first date!

Day 2: Victoria

Day two started out early in the morning so we could catch the morning ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria.

As a side note:  Could Hilary be any cuter and trendier?  I am inspired.

Could this town be any cuter?  Answer is a definite "no!".

I really love aquariums, and had fun learning about the sea creatures common to this coast.  Fascinating!

We walked over a mile to tour the Craigdarroch castle, and it was a highlight for me.  It was so beautiful.  When I told Bronwyn and Magdalen about it they kept asking if it was a real story, or if I was making it up.  :)  Hopefully I will be able to take them there someday.  I really think I would have LOVED being a privileged young woman of the early 1900s.  Apparently they were encouraged to pursue music and play billiards all day.  I'll take it!

We capped off the day driving up the mountains of Olympic National Park to watch the meteor shower.  I have always been a pretty big, night-sky enthusiast.  I have always loved getting up watch meteor showers and just star gaze in general.  Somehow we lucked out and had a completely cloudless sky.  The stars were amazing, and totally worth the drive even without the meteor shower.  We didn't see as many meteors as I thought/hoped we would, but I'm estimating we saw at least 30.  Not too shabby.

Day 3: Forks and La Push

Have you ever thought that it would be really fun to go to Forks because of your obsession with the Twilight series?  Well, I have!  I was kind of wrong....  Actually, it was really fun, for the 30 minutes it took to see the town.  So unless you have other reasons to head to that part of Washington, I'd suggest counting this blogpost as your trip to Forks.  :) 

No lie, there is a reserved parking space at the Forks hospital for Dr. Cullen!  The entire town is Twilight crazy.  I think my favorite thing to do while there (other than shopping of course!) was take pictures of all the businesses using Twilight to get customers.  Here are some of my faves...

I have no idea how they can offer a THREE hour tour!  But honestly, Forks is pretty ghetto; so I'm glad to see that Twilight mania is bringing a little more cashflow to the town. 

I was really curious to see if La Push would be as into all the Twilight stuff as well.  Part of me wondered if they would find it offensive, so I was pretty darn excited to see this sign as we drove onto the reservation:

It totally made my day!  I know it's silly, but I just loved that they put up a treaty line!  What a sense of humor! 

Despite the high quantity of Forks pictures, we actually spent 90% of our day along the La Push coastline.  And it was truly amazing!  We walked for miles on the black rocks/sand, and had the most wonderful day.

The coast was definitely my favorite part of the entire vacation.  Who wouldn't want to skip rocks all day?

Day 4: The Hoh Rain Forest

By day 4 of our trip, I was more tired than I was when we left on our trip!  You would think that traveling without kids would help you feel rested, but not so much in this case.  :)  But we still had one day left of hiking to do at the Hoh Rain Forest.  "Hoh" is an Indian word for "rain" or "water".  And this forest sees more rain than most places in America, and it creates and amazingly beautiful and unique corner of the world.

The heavy rain causes moss to grow on almost everything.  The forest floor is also covered with fern.

The trees average 220 to 300 feet tall.  When they fall over, other trees begin to grow on top.  You see their roots winding around the fallen trees.  When the fallen trees decay away, large empty spaces are left underneath the living trees.  I did not explain that very well, but it was pretty neat to see.  :)

The perfect final destination for an awesome trip!  Thanks for everything, Hil and C!  We had a blast!