Throw back-If I Had to Chose
Our Anniversary trip to Newport Oregon happened right when school was completing. It was a wonderful get away together with a trip down the Oregon Wine Coast. We stopped at 4-5 wineries, purchased tastings, purchased wine, and enjoyed the silence, views, and uninterrupted adult conversations. We rented a cute little Air BNB and spent the days and nights enjoying the beach, the hot tub, and each other’s company!
One of my favorite spur of the moment trips to meet Shannon, the kids, and Luke in Portland Oregon. We rented a hotel in Vancouver Wa and lucked out by only paying $28 for a double suite! The hotel wasn’t bad at all (minus a few I welcomed ants in the girls’ sink). We met up with Shannon at Powell’s and ate at Alder Street Market. We later left and stopped at Mount Ranier Visitors Center. Ethan unfortunately was doing the same tour but with his girlfriends family. so we missed him this trip. We started a new tradition of playing 20 questions Movie version in the car! The first picture was of a Rest stop geocache that became my all time favorite ever!
How Charlie and I like to spend our time together...geocaching! We even got her her own account. SushiKat7 is her handle name. Valerie has been surprising us all summer with extra amazing meals. The Crab 🦀 pot style dinner was my absolute favorite so far. She helps us out so much by cooking plus it’s like eating out but with extra yummy food!
Mother Son date for some frozen yogurt after spending time practicing driving. He is nearly ready for his license but we haven’t gotten him down there to take the test, mainly because it means having a tough conversation with Val about paying for insurance and placing Ethan on our insurance. On the upside Val is killing it at work. She loves her new job as Pet care associate and is almost able to pay all of next semesters tuition before school has started (she will save herself the $25 payment plan)!! She is motivated and focused to finish this year strong with some fun classes that are up Her alley.
Camp Cascades was a change for us this year. A tad more expensive but so worth the extra dollars. She got horse lessons each day, a sunset horse ride, and cooking classes. The camp was clean, the meals were great, and her cabin was air conditioned. She WILL go back next year!
A fun trip to Sequim to see the Lavender fields a week before the Lavender Festival was the best decision ever. There were no crowds, beautiful drive, beautiful views and we visited a different field this time which had tasty ice cream and lavender lemonade! My camera roll was full of purple fields, ice cream, and one of the fields had a chicken coup, so lots of pictures of chickens and a cocky Peacock. We ended the day at Port Townsend Washington.
Occasionally I get wigged out of Mark and I haven’t had time alone so he planned this date for us. He took me to Geocaching Headquarters in Seattle. I loved it. Geocaching is the most amazing hobby. I love knowing there is secret treasures all around us just waiting to be found. The lobby of the GC headquarters is a GCer’s dream. Lots to see, a lot to log, an electronic board that posts when a geocache is found (it updates every four seconds). The best was a picture of a geocache that was placed at the space station in 2008 (I think). We got the HQ GC map (multiple GC in the area placed by HQ), geocaching tools to place our own GC from their store, and a travel bug before we left. It is a beautiful Japanese coin that arrived from Japan with a mission to see the world. It has a beautiful cherry blossom on the front of it. Mark took us to yet another cute restaurant with street tacos! The best so far. We walked 11,000 steps that day
One of my favorite spur of the moment trips to meet Shannon, the kids, and Luke in Portland Oregon. We rented a hotel in Vancouver Wa and lucked out by only paying $28 for a double suite! The hotel wasn’t bad at all (minus a few I welcomed ants in the girls’ sink). We met up with Shannon at Powell’s and ate at Alder Street Market. We later left and stopped at Mount Ranier Visitors Center. Ethan unfortunately was doing the same tour but with his girlfriends family. so we missed him this trip. We started a new tradition of playing 20 questions Movie version in the car! The first picture was of a Rest stop geocache that became my all time favorite ever!
How Charlie and I like to spend our time together...geocaching! We even got her her own account. SushiKat7 is her handle name. Valerie has been surprising us all summer with extra amazing meals. The Crab 🦀 pot style dinner was my absolute favorite so far. She helps us out so much by cooking plus it’s like eating out but with extra yummy food!
Mother Son date for some frozen yogurt after spending time practicing driving. He is nearly ready for his license but we haven’t gotten him down there to take the test, mainly because it means having a tough conversation with Val about paying for insurance and placing Ethan on our insurance. On the upside Val is killing it at work. She loves her new job as Pet care associate and is almost able to pay all of next semesters tuition before school has started (she will save herself the $25 payment plan)!! She is motivated and focused to finish this year strong with some fun classes that are up Her alley.
Camp Cascades was a change for us this year. A tad more expensive but so worth the extra dollars. She got horse lessons each day, a sunset horse ride, and cooking classes. The camp was clean, the meals were great, and her cabin was air conditioned. She WILL go back next year!
A fun trip to Sequim to see the Lavender fields a week before the Lavender Festival was the best decision ever. There were no crowds, beautiful drive, beautiful views and we visited a different field this time which had tasty ice cream and lavender lemonade! My camera roll was full of purple fields, ice cream, and one of the fields had a chicken coup, so lots of pictures of chickens and a cocky Peacock. We ended the day at Port Townsend Washington.
Occasionally I get wigged out of Mark and I haven’t had time alone so he planned this date for us. He took me to Geocaching Headquarters in Seattle. I loved it. Geocaching is the most amazing hobby. I love knowing there is secret treasures all around us just waiting to be found. The lobby of the GC headquarters is a GCer’s dream. Lots to see, a lot to log, an electronic board that posts when a geocache is found (it updates every four seconds). The best was a picture of a geocache that was placed at the space station in 2008 (I think). We got the HQ GC map (multiple GC in the area placed by HQ), geocaching tools to place our own GC from their store, and a travel bug before we left. It is a beautiful Japanese coin that arrived from Japan with a mission to see the world. It has a beautiful cherry blossom on the front of it. Mark took us to yet another cute restaurant with street tacos! The best so far. We walked 11,000 steps that day
Between the streets of Seattle, the Bellevue Gardens, and downtown Bellevue. The evening ended with a viewing of Ant Man and the Wasp at a theater that was 21 and over and served us drinks and dinner to our seat. Awesome date with my guy. Favorite date so far!!
I included three pictures because sometimes it’s hard to just chose 2. We took the kids to the Tricities for the preliminary hydrospeed races. Mark went to these as a kid and he always loves driving to Pasco where he grew up. We visited his childhood home, church, looked at the surrounding area, drove by the Hospital in Richland, swam in the pools at the hotel, seam in the river watching the races, took in a air show or two, geocached (1st pic near snoqualmie), visited the 911 Memorial, watched the kids enjoy a very old carousel (one of the highlights of our trip thanks to Dave the retiree who was operating it that day) ride, and catch an impromptu visit/swim/dinner with Mark’s Aunt/Uncle/ & cousins.
That leads us to the end of July. A final trip to Camp Gilead might very well be the last one if Charlie is happy at Cascade. Ethan wanted to complete his final year here. The photo above is the Seniors who went for their last time as campers! His ex girlfriend was there and apparently they had no problem during the week. An answer to prayer most definitely.
I included three pictures because sometimes it’s hard to just chose 2. We took the kids to the Tricities for the preliminary hydrospeed races. Mark went to these as a kid and he always loves driving to Pasco where he grew up. We visited his childhood home, church, looked at the surrounding area, drove by the Hospital in Richland, swam in the pools at the hotel, seam in the river watching the races, took in a air show or two, geocached (1st pic near snoqualmie), visited the 911 Memorial, watched the kids enjoy a very old carousel (one of the highlights of our trip thanks to Dave the retiree who was operating it that day) ride, and catch an impromptu visit/swim/dinner with Mark’s Aunt/Uncle/ & cousins.
That leads us to the end of July. A final trip to Camp Gilead might very well be the last one if Charlie is happy at Cascade. Ethan wanted to complete his final year here. The photo above is the Seniors who went for their last time as campers! His ex girlfriend was there and apparently they had no problem during the week. An answer to prayer most definitely.
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