Vacation All I Ever Wanted

This week we loaded up the car and headed off for our big vacation of the summer.  The fun started at Great Wolf Lodge.  You may remember my past blogs about Great Wolf as this was our third visit, but it has been three years since our last trip.  We had booked a trip for last summer but then Merrick broke his arm and obviously casts and water parks don't mix, so we had to cancel.

Thankfully this year everyone stayed whole and we got to spend two magical days at Great Wolf.  Given that the main attraction is a water park, my pictures are a little lacking but rest assured everyone had a blast.  This year Merrick was tall enough for all the slides and while Carrigan was tall enough for all but one slide, she stuck to the kiddie area, the wave pool, and the hot tub.  Because of their differing interests, Jeremy and I divided and conquered so both the kids could have just the trip they were hoping for.

While the water park was where we spent most of out time, we also made time for MagiQuests, face painting, and story time with the Great Wolf mascot.

We had so much fun that a certain little boy, who shall remain nameless, shed actual tears as we pulled away, but our fun was not over yet.  Instead of heading home, we headed to Seattle for one more day of fun.

In downtown Seattle we explored Pike's Place and visited the uber gross Gum Wall.  Then we took a boat ride across the harbor to West Seattle.  Across the harbor, the vibe is completely different.  We took a leisurely stroll along the water, watched jellyfish, and watched people catch crabs.

Finally we headed home as exhausted as could be.  Now we have just a couple of days to rest and catch up before the excitement of  the 4th of July.

Graduation!!!

It is FINALLY summer!  Carrigan finished up a little over a week ago and Merrick finished on Tuesday.  Carrigan got to have two "graduations" since she attended both classes this year, but technically still has another year before she really graduates onto Kindergarten.  Each class got to do a little performance before being given a certificate and graduation cap.

Merrick didn't have a big graduation since they don't make as big of a deal about moving on from 1st grade, but his class did put on an end of the year play (The Three Billy Goats Gruff), where he played a troll, and they had a cake to celebrate.

It has already been a great start to summer with park trips, splash pads, play dates, and the Children's Museum.  We have a short summer this years so we gotta pack it all in quickly.

P.S. Just in case you were wondering about the lack of post last week, I spent the day in the Emergency Room with my grandma.  She is doing better now, but I didn't get a chance to wish very happy Father's Day to Jeremy.  We sure do love him and appreciate all he does for our family.

Almost Summer

Summer is so close we can almost taste it.  Carrigan and my last day of school is Thursday and Merrick has until next Tuesday.  That being said, with all piano, dance, homework and now baseball (Saturday was the last game) wrapping up it feels like we can already start to enjoy the first bits of summer.

As mentioned Saturday was Merrick's last baseball game.  I won't go into details but Merrick had a really rough game on Thursday.  As a mom, Saturday's game was really stressful for me because I needed the game to go well for Merrick almost as bad a he did.  Luckily, he did great and had some really great hits, including a line drive out to the outfield.  It was a great way to end the season.  After the game we had a team party with cupcakes and trophies to wrap everything up.

The other highlight of the day was picking strawberries.  We went to a new farm this year about 25 minutes away and picked a new variety of berry (Sweet Anne's).  I think that they are the best strawberries I have ever had.  We picked about 11 lbs and I intend to make jam, but we will see if they last long enough for me to do that.

And what better way to end a busy day that included picking strawberries than with homemade strawberry milkshakes.  If this is what summer tastes like, count me in.

Memorial Day

This past Monday was Memorial Day.  On Friday late afternoon the weekend started with the discovery that our brand new air conditioning was not working.  The game plan for the weekend quickly changed to doing whatever necessary to stay cool.

Our mission to stay cool was aided by the fact that our community pool opened the week before.  Saturday we spent the day in the pool and the kids couldn't have been happier about it.  It was the first time I didn't have to rush the kids out of the pool before they were ready.

Monday, our mission to stay cool took us up the gorge.  We started with a hike to Wahclella Falls.  It was a fairly easy one mile hike up to the falls and the pay off was great.  Along the way, Jeremy and I were talking about how spoiled our kids are.  We have access to countless waterfalls and other amazing things within an hour of the house.  They don't even realize how good they have it.

After we finished the hike we went up to the Boneville Dam.  We took a tour, watched the salmon swim up the salmon ladder, and had a picnic overlooking the spillway.

We capped off the day with some dinner and ice cream.  In hindsight, a hot fudge sundae in the car for the kids may not have been the best idea.

We ended up having a great weekend despite the no AC and thankfully our new, brand new AC unit was installed yesterday.  Hopefully we won't have any more hot house days in our future.