olympic game farm

My parents stayed another week with us after my dad's conference. I was so glad to have them there. (Even though I know I was a stressed out lady a lot because girls camp was the very next week and there was a lot going on so I kinda feel bad about that). I know my kids were extremely happy to have them both around. It meant a lot of one-on-one time and a few fun family outings. 

We spent one saturday over on the olympic peninsula.

We went to the olympic game farm. It didn't seem like one should be able to do what we did there, but it was quite the exciting experience.

You sign a release and then drive on and approach this tower. That's when it felt a little Jurassic Park-like to me.

From the top, you had great views of the bears! in one direction and in the other direction was (our car and) a whole bunch of deer and couple of peacocks wandering around.

We thought that was pretty cool, but then we drove on and got to the good stuff.

Hello there, big guy!

Yep, that's a zebra just a few feet away from us.

We bought three loaves of the bread. If you go here, you must buy the bread. We made friends with the llamas this way.

I purposefully chose the very back seat with no windows for this very reason.

Then we got to the bears. We couldn't feed the bears, but there was only our car and a little short electric fence between us. And there were quite a few bears.

We passed by cages with tigers and mountain lions and other animals and then the real feeding frenzy began. It was a big elk that started it all.

Most of them got real close and personal. They wanted that bread.

Kacin jumped out of his seat a few times when the big ones kept coming back for more and more.

It was a lot of excitement in the car feeding all those animals.

When we were done, we did the walking part of the game farm. We saw lots of bunnies, fish, reptiles, a donkey, a petting zoo, etc.

Perry was much more interested in playing on the train then at looking at any more animals.

If you are ever near Sequim, this is a good one to visit.

father's day 2015

The official holiday may have been weeks ago, but the man of the house deserves a little shout out here. As a father and a husband Eric is tops. In my eyes, he is quite perfect.

Layla has him wrapped around her fingers. He knows how to turn Perry's grumps into smiles. Kacin adores him and there's no one else he'd rather spend time with. Kyler respects, honors, and tries to emulate all that he does.

I fall more and more in love with E as I see him playing with and teaching and helping our children. He tries so hard to be a good dad, and does a pretty amazing job of it, I must say.

We celebrated him on father's day with waffles for breakfast and a few gifts and cards. We love this man!

the blog remembers (with help from my iphone)

We were climbing over driftwood at Kalaloch beach last week when Kacin asked a question about something we had done. He couldn't remember if we had done it or not. Part of Kyler's response to his question was "The blog book remembers for me."


I laughed at that answer, probably because it's true! And it made me pleased that writing on this blog is doing some good for our little family. Our kids devour our yearly blog books over and over again.

I have been so busy these last few weeks, but I know it's important that I sit down here and play catch up. Because apparently this blog serves as Kyler's memory. :)

We will start with an exciting friday when my dad flew into Seattle! We found out he was coming just a few days before and we were thrilled. His plane was a bit delayed so we waited for awhile at the airport cell phone lot until he arrived.

We took him for a walk through the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. Kyler's head got a bit off of the trail . . .

The next day we went on a hike that leads to the beach. We had to wade through cold water to get to the beach.Nobody minded too much.

This was our first hike without a stroller! We only had to carry little bodies for part of the way back. Thank goodness for Papa who kindly volunteered his shoulders for Perry to ride.

My mom joined us on Sunday, but then my parents went to a hotel to be closer to my dad's conference. We drove down to see them twice and we took advantage of the warm weather and the hotel pool.

This is also the week Layla and Perry had their first swim lessons. They both loved it. It was only on the last day that Perry kept running away from his teacher and then dropped himself on the ground and refused to move. I was glad it was the last day!