We spent Thanksgiving with the Friesen side this year. The first week was filled with family fun and cousin time. The second week we surprised the girls with four days at Disneyland with Grampa & Gramma. We thoroughly enjoyed our two week vacation and always look forward to our next time together.
Our first couple of days included a stop at my favorite Cabazon dinosaurs and seeing the beautiful fall colors up at Oak Glen.
Another fun adventure with our van crew. The kids enjoyed petting goats, finding pretty birds, and eating ice cream 🙂
One of our many summer adventures was a visit to a lesser known zoo on the outskirts of Seattle. We rode down with a group of friends and had a really fun time seeing the animals and getting to hand-feed a few of them.
At the end of June, Matt, Cherise and the boys flew up for a week long visit and we had so much fun! It had been a couple years since our last time all together which is just too long. All five kids slept in the same room which was great and challenging all at the same time (a lot of trekking up the stairs to get them to go to sleep) 🙂
We traveled all over the place. We visited Fairhaven, played at Mindport, went to the movies, sledded on Mt. Baker, played at the creek in Lynden, and crossed the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver. I really did not want our time to end and neither did the kids. Until next time 🙂
Todd took the day off way back at the start of May for my birthday. We spent the day as a family in and around Fairhaven. We started the morning by taking the kids to Larrabee State Park to explore the beach and tide pools. We found starfish, sea anemones, crabs, tiny shrimp and a deer. For lunch we headed to one of my favorite places, Fairhaven Poke, then shared a giant donut at Rocket Donuts (Ruby got her own). Afterwards we enjoyed the boardwalk and Boulevard Park, it was a gorgeous day!
Todd and Ada had fun taking a surfing lesson right across the street from our condo. They got the hang of it pretty quickly for only a two hour lesson. They also got a free rental for the next morning, which was also the day of our flight home…so sad to leave.
The first few pictures were taken by the surfing school, couldn’t pass up their awesome angles.
The girls also made friends with our neighbors’ dog Nugget. He was very sweet!
Our last big excursion with Tom & Cindy was driving up to Haleakala National Park. Along the way we stopped at a goat farm where the girls enjoyed petting and feeding a few goats.
The crater was beautiful for about 3 minutes, then the clouds rolled in and we couldn’t see a thing. It was also extremely cold and windy, so we didn’t last too long outside with the girls.
This was our other favorite beach for snorkeling, swimming, and exploring the beautiful resorts.
Ada also enjoyed trying out my camera, although we learned my best lens was broken and would not focus properly.
Kapalua was one of our two favorite snorkeling beaches to visit. It took about an hour to reach it, a bit far considering other great beaches, but totally worth it. The beach is beautiful and sheltered with a nice walking trail around the resorts.
We also stopped in Lahaina on our way back to see the banyan tree and get ice cream 🙂
The third day into our vacation we decided to drive to Hana. It was a beautiful drive with lots of windy roads. We also learned Ruby gets car sick on windy roads. Thankfully I brought 2 outfits, a swimsuit, and lots of baby wipes because we needed all of it! She got sick going and coming, poor thing. Despite the car sickness we had fun stopping to see turtles, an old church, a black sand beach and then finish the day with donuts 🙂
La Casa Blanca 