Seattle

Our Seattle visit is coming to a close.  My sister and her family have been fantastic to us, and we've had a blast seeing Washington from their perspective.  

Saturday I spent the day sick in bed, but Sunday we got to get out and explore a bit.  We headed out to Saint Edward's park and checked out the hike and the water from there.  Quite a lush piece of forestry, right there.  The kids were excited to check out the enormous banana slugs that were there. HUGE.  And quite unattractive.            

J was happy to get his feet wet again.  All the kids splashed about for a little while, then we took a killer hike (steep incline) back to the playground for a bit.  I am woefully out of shape, plus I was recovering from being sick, so the short hike really took it out of me.  Need to keep up with my allergy meds!!!!!            

Monday we hit Brackett's Landing in the morning to check out low tide.  Check out my niece and see how smart my sister is--rain boots.  Sweet.  But we have none of those, so we wore either water shoes or, in my case, hiking boots.  But it all worked out the same, and I got to test out the waterproof-ness of my boots.  They kick butt, by the way!        

All the stuff we found was so cool, but I was wishing I had brought along an expert.  I don't know what I'm looking at!  BUT, the kids were super excited to check everything out, and they got to experience a habitat they had never really experienced before.  Their curiosity was piqued, and I couldn't ask for anything more.  Truly some great things were witnessed this day.        

Simply amazing.  Once again, I gotta look this stuff up, cuz I have no idea what I'm looking at.  But it blows my mind that the tides leave this out for us to observe, and then take it all back in again.              

NS exploring the inside of a crab.  He was all proud of himself, touching "crab brains."  The shell was pretty much intact, but a bird had been feasting on this poor guy.  I wanted the kids to have crab for dinner, but all the kids were grossed out by that suggestion after seeing this guy.  Oh well.              

Before dinner, Tanya and I took five of the eight kiddos berry picking.  We got pretty good at figuring out which blackberries would be the best, and we got enough to make a blackberry crisp and have plenty leftover for eating with ice cream.  Bill discovered a place here that makes a killer blackberry milkshake.  YUM!        

Tuesday we headed out to Mt. Rainier.  Where it rained.  And was only 54 degrees.  And snowing at the Paradise Visitor's Center.  But we did get a hike in, where the kids were delighted to take in the wildflowers and such.  Those kids who were willing to last the hike, that is.  We had a group break off and head back to the visitor's center a bit early.  Like halfway through the hike.  Slackers.            

My nephew, H, took this picture.  He was very taken with showing me the really cool flowers, so I asked him to take a picture for me.  He was happy to oblige.           For some odd reason, we felt that we could go to Rainier on Tuesday and head out Wednesday.  Didn't happen.  It's Thursday morning, and we really have to take off today.  We're hitting Olympic National Park today, and then heading to Oregon next week.  Yeah!!!!