The Redwood Forest

The Redwood forest is much smaller than I thought it would be. The trees are huge, but the park is relatively small. If you were a hiker or a backpacker you would have miles and miles of trails to go on, however. It is very pretty. It looks exactly like the Endor forest. I wonder why?

Paul Bunyon and his big blue ox, Babe. It's kind of creepy when Paul Bunyon starts talking to you as you walk into the gift shop. He even hears your response.

We had a wonderful trip and are still trying to get back to our routines and to reality. We are so glad we had the opportunity to see everything we saw and to spend time with Kason, Sara and Zoe. We had lots of fun with them and they were great tour guides!

Tillamook and Cape Meares

This is the lighthouse and view at Cape Meares. It was pretty fun to be able to go inside an actual lighthouse.

We went to the Tillamook cheese factory. Doesn't Nathen make a good looking farmer? Annie makes a pretty cute cow, too. It was fun to see lots of cheese being cut and packaged, but the best part was the giant ice cream cones and squeaky cheese. I LOVE squeaky cheese. I may have to go back and get some more.

Cannon Beach and Seaside

One of our favorite days on our whole trip was they day we went to Cannon Beach and Seaside. We played at Cannon Beach and stayed in Seaside where it wasn't so expensive. The pictures of Annie on the swing are actually on the beach at Seaside.

Sara, Kason and Zoe playing in the ocean at Cannon Beach.

We had so much fun at Cannon Beach searching for sand dollars, giant starfish and building sand castles. We definately want to back there again someday.

Forks, La Push and the Hoh Rain Forest

On Sunday we started our trek around the Olympic Peninsula and headed to Forks. This would be the beginning of our trip down the Washington and Oregon coasts. Now, I have read the Twilight books and have so far enjoyed the movies, but I am by no means fanatical fan. I swear.

As you drive into the Quilute Indian reservation there is a great sign noting the treaty line. From the picture I'm sure you have no doubt as to which team Nathen is on! The other picture is me standing on Jacob's log at La Push.

There isn't much in Forks really except for a coffee shop, a pizza shop (which was yummy by-the-way) and a store dedicated entirely to Twilight. Our main reason for going there (I swear) was to go to the Hoh rain forest. It is a temperate rain forest and they measure their annual rainfall in feet. The pictures above are of Sara and Kason with us at the rain forest.

The drive to Forks was beautiful, but the most beautiful part was a lake we came upon called Lake Crescent. It was smooth as glass and crystal clear. It was a cloudy day but you could still see far out into the water and the water had a turquoise tint to it. We would love to go back and spend some time there someday.

Our 4th Day in Seattle

We had our best view of Mt. Rainier on Saturday. It is massive and beautiful. I believe it is just over 14,400 feet in elevation which is higher than anything in Utah.

We took Nathen and Kason to the International Fountain. The girls had so much fun the night before we thought their daddy's would enjoy playing with them in the fountain. However, before we walked over to the fountain Kason bought them both Slurpee's and they were more interested in those than the fountain. Actually I think the real reason they didn't play in the water as much was because the night before they had to walk all the way back to the car in their cold wet clothes. (we had a change of clothes for them at the car) So of course this time we were more prepared and brought the towels and clothes with us, but they weren't needed.

This is a troll under a bridge. Can you spot us? Some artist made it out of cement. There is a real VW bug under his hand. Pretty neat.

We went to the zoo on Saturday. It was huge. The girls had fun looking at the apes and spitting their tongues out like the komodo dragon.

Our 3rd day in Seattle

Nathen and Kason ditched us on Friday night so they could go to the Mariners vs. Angels baseball game. Truth be told, we actually planned our whole trip based on this baseball game. Nathen is a big Angels fan and has always wanted to see them play in person so this was his chance. Luckily they won. So while they were off having fun, Sara and I took the girls to Red Robin and then to the International Fountain and the Space Center. They had a ball and got completely soaked.

We went to the famous farmers market. You know, the one where they throw the fish. The first picture with Annie and Zoe on the pig is right in front of the fish place where the throwing takes place. It was quite fun to watch.

Friday morning we went to a park called Point Defiance in Tacoma. It was amazing. It was thick, lush forest and a beach at the southern part of the Puget Sound. The girls had lots of fun building their sand castle and Nathen and I enjoyed hiking through the forest.

Our 2nd Day in Seattle

Nathen and Annie were goofing off on the monorail. Seattle has a monorail that takes you from the Seattle Center (where the Space Needle is) to downtown. I believe that like the Space Needle it is a remnant of the World's Fair.

Nathen and Annie make pretty good fish faces, don't you think? This is at the Seattle Aquarium which is quite a great place. This picture was taken in front of the Nemo and Dori tank. See the little Nemo's and Dori's swimming around?

Annie absolutely loved watching the sea otters. I have to say, they are very cute and very fun to watch. They would swim down to the bottom of the tank, pick up some shrimp then head back up to the surface where they would swim on their backs and put the shrimp on their bellies just like it was a table.

This was a giant Pacific octopus at the aquarium. Apparantely they are found in the Puget Sound. The octopus was pretty much the highlight of the aquarium. Annie liked it so much that we got her a cute little stuffed animal octopus that she still sleeps with every night.

The aquarium had some little ponds where you could touch star fish, sea cucumbers and sea urchins. I think Annie just enjoyed playing in the water.

We went up to the top of the Space Needle the second day. Annie's favorite thing was looking through the "telescotes", but as you can see, she was a little too short. She got a great view of the sky, though. I think we have held her up to every telescope on the top of the Space Needle. Oh, and something else very cute... My neice, Zoe, calls it the Space Noodle.

This is at Kerry Park. It is where most of your pictures of Seattle are taken from. We are sitting in a sculpture that is there and it was impossible to get the girls to sit still at the same time.

Annie loved spinning around in this cup thing at Kerry Park.

Ahhh, Seattle

On Memorial day we headed up north to visit my sister Sara, her husband, Kason and my cute little niece, Zoe. They recently moved to Puyallup, WA which is a little ways south of Seattle. After visiting them I am so ready to move up there too and I'll tell you why. It is so amazingly gorgeous. There is nothing but green and ferns and wet which are some of my favorite things. I absolutely love the rain and there is also plenty of that up there too. We had a lot of fun visiting with my sister's family. She was very kind to show us around Seattle and take us to all the most fun places. The first day we were there we went to the Air and Space museum which Nathen says he could have spent all day in, but we were mean and drug him out of there after a couple of hours. Later that day we took a one hour boat tour of the Puget Sound. A one hour tour. The next three days all kind of blend together in my brain, so I'll post a whole bunch of pictures of what we did.