After our stay in Boise we continued further west to Eastern Washington to visit Jon's family for the duration of our trip. The kids were so excited to see their Grandma and Grandpa Cardon, as well as their cousins Sophie and Isaac!
Auntie Kylene was good enough to extend her vacation a little longer so could see them before they headed back to Colorado. Little Sophie and Isaac had grown so much since we'd seen them last summer! Sophie was sure a cutie pie!
Zach is definitely outnumbered with all the girl cousins in his life so he is SO happy Isaac came along to help even things out. I'm sure when Isaac gets a little older they will have a blast getting into all sorts of trouble together, but for now Zach just likes to make him laugh.
Our first day in town we got lunch at Miner's, home of the Big Miner burger and some killer onion rings. The kids had fun buying all sorts of 25 cent vending machine toys--one of which was this hilarious stick-on-mustache. Silly Leah!
Friday we decided to get the kids out of the house to go burn some energy riding Go-Carts and Bumper Boats at Meadowbrook in Yakima. Zach of course loved the race track and wanted Jon to go as fast as possible.
Next up were the Bumper Boats, which Lucy was old enough to drive by herself. I opted out of this one luckily, so I didn't have to get wet! Watch out!
Jonathan had an old score to settle with Auntie Kylene from last summer when she trapped them in a corner and thoroughly soaked them all.
Nice and cooled off on a wonderfully hot day. We love the weather in Washington as it is a nice, dry heat compared to the wicked humidity of the South! They dried in no time.
That night we got dinner at one my favorite places in Selah, "El Caporal" for some seriously authentic Mexican food. Zach is definitely a Grandma's boy and loves to tease her by wiping off all the "mesitos" (besitos) she gives. Secretly he likes them!
Nothing like a big huge platter of Mexican food with the real deal beans and rice! We miss this food all year long. We've yet to find any good Mexican food here on the East Coast.
Saturday it was time to let the kids play on Grandpa's boat! We headed over to "Desert Aire" which was about an hour away and immediately got the boat in the water and the kids ready to go!
Leah couldn't wait to get on the boat and enjoy some sun and water and didn't mind wearing her life jacket in the slightest!
Cheese! The kids loved going fast.
Once we got settled out on the water, Grandpa started giving the kids rides in the tube. Zach was a TOTAL daredevil and you could hear him whooping and hollering over all the bumps and yelling to go faster (he even went by himself a couple of times), while Lucy was a bit more timid and would only go with her Dad. Even Leah took a turn!
After the kids got their fix, we headed back to the beach for a picnic lunch. The kids couldn't wait to get their feet in the water and swim out into the shallow part for a little while.
We finished up our picnic and loaded everybody and everything back onto the boat and gave the kids all one more ride before heading back to Selah to see Grandma who was waiting for us at home.
That night Jon and I got to go on a hot date while Grandma and Grandpa watched our kids! While the others played outside, had a BBQ, and roasted s'mores, Jon and I went to see "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" at the movie theater and get dinner. It was awesome especially since we didn't have to pay a babysitter!
All the kiddos ready for bed in their jammies and washed for Sunday! We attended church in Jon's parent's ward the next day, and relaxed all afternoon before Kylene and the cousins flew out the next morning from TriCities. It was sad to say goodbye, but at least we'll get to see them again soon when we meet them in Orlando this October!
Monday afternoon Jon and I decided to quickly visit the little TreeTop Visitor's store located right next to the factory in Selah. I think it's pretty cool all of the TreeTop products say Selah, WA on them, because otherwise most people have no idea where it is!
Thanks Grandma! For Jon and I, that was our last night in Selah. The next morning we planned on driving to Seattle to spend the afternoon and evening kid-free! Jon also had a meeting set for Wednesday afternoon to meet with an AFTCO representative and loan officer to talk about the possibility of buying a practice in Western Washington.
We started our day of freedom off by heading straight to Pike's Market in downtown Seattle. Our first stop was to the Piroshky stand in honor of my sister Whitney and her Russian roots. We shared a delicious nutella piroshky, then snacked on some homemade Beecher's cheese. Yum!
It was a gorgeous blue sky day in Seattle and we had a blast walking all over the market and looking at the fish, the flowers, the farmer's stands with all the produce, the spices, and all the yummy treats! I could spend forever walking around there.
Selfie in front of the famous fish stand in Pike's Market!
Yikes! Monk fish are seriously freaky looking and HUGE.
Before heading away from the market we bought half a dozen maple bacon donuts from the Daily Dozen Donut Co, and they were sooooo good! My personal fav.
Despite that there were some serious wackos wandering around the park near the market, it was so awesome to be able to spend one on one time with my significant other. You can almost see Mt. Ranier in the background-- it was so beautiful and clear!
Next up was the Space Needle. I'd never paid to go up to the top and neither had Jon, so we decided that when in Rome, take advantage of doing something you normally wouldn't, despite the pretty penny it cost for tickets!
We both ended up being really glad we paid to go up to the top. It was a beautiful panoramic view and we got some great pics of Puget Sound and Mt. Ranier.
We decided we'd better get some Indian food for dinner since again, it's a little harder to find here in the South, so we googled it and found "A Taste of India" which had really great reviews. Even though the GPS said it was only 4 miles away, the problem was you had to get across a bridge in order to get there, and oh my goodness! Seattle traffic is NO joke at rush hour. An hour later we found the restaurant, got seated, and had no problem devouring our chicken tikka masala!
They brought us out our naan and it was literally bigger than both our dinner plates! It was HUGE and delicious! It was definitely worth the crazy stressful drive getting there.
Thankfully the rush hour traffic had died down by the time we'd finished dinner, so we had no problem making our way to the freeway to find the original REI-- Jon's mothership for all things camping, hiking, and backpacking! He was in heaven with three stories of gear to look at!
Wednesday we spent in Bellevue for Jon's dental meeting where the next 2 1/2 hours we were schooled on the dental market in Washington. I spent the time mostly silent and just listening, and my head was spinning afterwards, but I was glad I got to go. We have some seriously big decisions to make in the next 6 months, so a little gelatto at the Bellevue mall was just the thing to tone things down a bit!
Jon's parents met us with the kids at the mall for a last supper at the Cheesecake Factory (I think it's kind of becoming a tradition) before we all headed back to the hotel. I am SO grateful to them for watching our kids so we could have that little kid-free breather before we all headed back down South! It was just what the doctor ordered and more. After some delicious cheesecake, a dip in the hotel pool, we were ready to pack up and head to bed for an early 6:40 a.m. flight back to Raleigh.
Although the kids were all sad to leave they did really, really well on the plane. Leah spent most of the first flight napping, Lucy read her Harry Potter book, Zach watched movies and played the iPad, and Jon napped on his row all alone away from the kids, ha, ha. I am so glad we took the time and spent the money to vacation back West this summer. We had so much fun, the kids were lathered with some much needed attention, and we made some great memories. The magic of "Grandma and Grandpa's house" (both respectively) lives on, and it still ranks number one on our kids' vacation destination list!
3 comments:
What a fun trip! Looks like you had so much fun in Washington and I'm so glad you got to have a little "getaway". We love your visits out west.
Nothing wrong with that trip: maple and bacon donuts, boating, space needle, Miner's, REI mothership and free haircuts. Maybe that should be my next trip.
We had so much fun having everyone here and must say that we miss you all terribly! Grandpa Tom Tom, we would love to have you and Grandma Joanie come visit anytime--we can even arrange a haircut, a trip to Miners and Seattle, and some boating too 😄
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