The years counting down to Ammon's graduation, we had planned that when he graduated, a cruise around the world (or the cheapest cruise we could find...doesn't really matter since we have never been on a cruise before ;) would be the perfect way to celebrate, especially since it would coincide with our 10 year wedding anniversary. I even had this in the back of my mind when we were "planning" how far apart and when to have babies. Then, we had Jarom. Even though Jarom was the perfect age supposedly for me to be able to leave (not nursing), he is Jarom. My son, who is the most clingy out of all of our children. My son, that even though he has been going to nursery for a year and a half, he still has a melt down every single week for the whole time. (Side note, last Sunday was a break through day. The first time he went into nursery and didn't have a melt down! WOO WOO). My son, who flips out even if we leave him with people he knows very well and loves. Yes, this son. We realized as graduation was approaching, that a cruise would not be possible (wanted to think about the sanity of whomever we would have left him with). We also realized that without a job set in stone, it might not be wise to go off on a vacation, spending all our savings.
Well, the day Ammon finally received a job offer letter, we realized he had about a week before he would be starting, so we planned a last minute trip and decided to go to Washington State. Ammon served his mission there and was
always talking about how beautiful it was there and how he would love to live there and every time he mentioned it, I just thought of rain and rain clouds and I got depressed even thinking about it. Well, we have some great friends that moved up there so I thought this would be a great time to visit them and see what Ammon was talking about.
You would think that after so many times making the drive to and from Omaha, that I would be a pro at road trips but nah, it aint so. For this trip, I knew we would be spending a large majority of it in the car since we also wanted to drive down the Oregon coast. I wanted to make all the time in the car a fun experience.
I made these little cards that had destinations along the way with fun activities inside to help break up the trip and stop the "are we there yet?" but instead, I just made that happen all the more since now there were multiples destinations that they were asking "are we there yet?" for. The activities inside were simple little things like writing on the windows with window crayons and making sculptures with pipe cleaners. It was fun but I'm going to have to tweak this idea for the next road trip.
The kids also each got a Road Trip Treasure Box that had glasses, stickers and a picture passport book where they could draw pictures of our adventures. Fun!
Hey dude, nice feathered hair.
We tried stopping and taking pictures by each state sign that we passes but this was the only one not on a bridge.
If you can't see it, it says "Washington or Bust!" I was excited to actually see some green vegetation after all this dryness.
It was a long day driving.
Funny little experience. Our first night, we got to a city named Yakima (which we affectionately named Yucky Muck) and decided we better find a place to stay. We got on priceline and nearly
everything was booked. Apparetnly there was a conference or something going on. Well, I didn't want to spend over $100 for just one night so we chose a place called the Yakima Valley Inn. It looked fine on Priceline. Learned my lesson! Read reviews, don't just look at the pictures. When we drove into the parking lot, we could tell this was...uh...not quite our choice destination. I went inside to check in and I knew something was not right when they checked the remote control for the TV out to me. Hmmmm...that's interesting. Then we went in the room...for about 1 minute, then walked right back out again. There were multiple badly patched up bullet holes in the wall, the bedspread had cigarette burn holes all over it, and it was seriously disgusting. YIKES!!! There was no way I was going to sleep there, especially since I got serious heebie geebies with the men that were watching us come in and out. We packed back into the van and the lady didn't even question Ammon when he went in to ask for a refund. After that, I was more than willing to spend the money for another hotel. That hotel was a much better experience
Here was our view.
sleeping peacefully...well Kimball looks a little squished but we felt safe
The next day we really got to start seeing the beauties of Washington and I began to fall in love.
We saw a little blueberry picking farm and had to stop. Blueberries for lunch? Yes please
We loved all the fruit stands along the roads. So yummy and fresh.
It was fun to go to some of Ammons old areas he served in, and meet some of the people he has kept in contact with.
This was a family that Ammon really loved while he was out there. Robin and Digger Jensen. They had us over for dinner and it was so fun getting to know them and their family.
That night was much better hotel arrangements. Thanks for redeeming yourself Priceline.
Our friends, the Hatch's live in Oak Harbor, so we took a ferry to Whidbey Island and drove up, stopping at beaches along the way. We thought it would be fun to try our hand at clamming so we bought a licence....yeah that was wasted money. We had no idea what we were doing and knew nothing about high tide and low tide and how to even know where to look for clams. Oh well, we had fun anyway.
The kids were having fun playing in the freezing water until....
Kimball spotted a JELLY FISH right next to them. I am obviously not very familiar with the ocean, because I didn't realize they come right up to shore. Luckily, it didn't touch anyone.
We stayed with Jason and Erin a couple days and had SO much fun. Erin and I were roommates in college and became even closer after she graduated and moved away. Luckily, she married one of my other best friends who actually grew up with Ammon. With a combination like that, we are bound to stay in touch right? So thankful we have.
We went to a beach and explored for several hours while the tide was low and found so many amazing things. Ammon went off exploring with the kids (well at least the kids who seemed to keep their balance while slipping on slippery seaweed.) He found this beautiful star fish and brought the (heavy)rock back that it was attached to, to show the rest of us. He had Jarom on his back too. He did slip once and cut his hand up pretty well on some barnacles. In fact, we all got pretty cut up that day on the barnacles and I think we went through a hole box of band-aids in that one day. It was worth it exploring those tide pools.
By this point, I was completely in love with Washington.
And I kept falling deeper,
and deeper in love with Washington.
We had to stop and pick more berries on our way home and get some yummy yummy ice-cream
That night, we went to a beach near the Hatch's house and had dinner. They also rented a kayak for us and we went kayaking on the ocean at Sunset ...PERFECT!!!!
Ammon even left me a message in the sand. Love that man of mine.
Jarom found a new pet that he hung onto for a while...a hard dead fish. Oh yay!
Erin and I took a little walk further than the rest to see if we could see any seals but no such luck.
Just amazing views
Then came the Kayaking
some of the marvelous Hatch family
The next day we started our trip down along the coast of Washington and found the cutest little towns. We stayed in Long Beach Washington and it was adorable. We had so much fun just walking around town.
Kimball really wanted to make some pancakes in this frying pan.
We found a great little restaurant to have some yummy clam chowder
Our hotel that night was right on the beach so we went down before sunset and had a blast playing on the sand. The waves were crazy so we didn't play in the water too much
this is when it is more beneficial to not have any hair.
We kept trying to get a fun picture of Ammon jumping with the sunset in the background but we were never able to get the timing quite right.
let's try again...
and again
DANG! Oh well, at least the sunset was beautiful
and the view looking the other way with the full moon..just as breathtaking
The next morning, we got up and went bike riding with the hotels bikes. So great...when the kids were
not fighting at least.
We continued our drive down the Coast. SO GORGEOUS!
We drove through Astoria where Goonies was filmed and had to stop at Haystack Rock that is on the movie. We had used up all our clean clothes and so I told the kids we would go down to the beach but to NOT GET WET! Uh huh. yep I said that. Right mom, right.
"just to our ankles mom?" ...fine
"Just to our knees mom...I mean whoops. Sorry mom"
These things were ALL over the beach and everywhere in the water. I never found out for sure what they were but someone said they were parts of dead jelly fish. They looked cool whatever they were and they didn't sting.
We went through Tilamook so we obviously had to stop at the Cheese and Ice-Cream factory.
Those are some big blocks of cheese
"Say Cheese"
Ammons sister Heather lives in Portland. We didn't really have a schedule for this trip and didn't know exactly what route we would be traveling but we called her about an hour before and told her we would love to stop by and say hello. They invited us over for a yummy dinner and we loved visiting with them. We love Heather and Ben and their family.
With all the fun of the trip, we had to book it home from Portland to make it back in time for the 4th of July. We drove the ENTIRE next day with no fun stops. YUCK! Talk about having TB (Tired Butt) but it was so worth it. We really loved our trip and after that trip, I told Ammon I would fully support moving there...until I read about a gigantic fault line that is supposedly going to wipe out a lot of Washington and Oregon, and then I changed my mind. However, we are definitely going to be visiting that area A LOT!
Congratulations, you made it through the end of the post. That was a Looong post. I started it this morning and it is now 10pm. I have been typing every time I get a little break. This is why it is so hard to try to catch up but I want these pictures on here.
