Outdoor Adventures on Father's Day

 For Father's Day weekend we decided to go camping at The Dungeness Recreation Area.  It has the longest sand spit in the country.  It was a great campground with trails along the coast.  The temperatures were in 60's during the day but the campground was in the shade and we were cold! 

 Avery was really interested in learning how to build a fire this time.  He helped keep the fire tended.

 We took a day trip and visited Lake Crescent to bask in the warm sun.  

From there we hiked to Marymere Falls. 

 The trees on the hike were really big.

 The next day we headed to Mt Ellinor which is in the Olympic National Forest.  The peak is at 6,000 feet.  We started at the upper trail head at 3,500.  The drive up to the trail head was pretty scary with drop offs on either side of the van.  We ended up hiking 2,500 feet up to the 6,000 foot peak.  It was a pretty intense hike up the mountain.  The kids were amazing and were hard to keep up with.  

 The trail is described as "heading upward at a character building grade through the trees into rock strewn meadows".

 There were mountain goats all over the mountain.  The one Avery was looking at was not really afraid of people.  

 The views were amazing!  Lake Cushman is in the background.

 She made it to the top!  

Northwest Folklife Festival

 We enjoyed a great day at Seattle Center enjoying The Folklife Festival.  It was a really great place to experience the arts and culture of the Pacific Northwest.  This event is donations only and put on by volunteers and a nonprofit.  It was fantastic to see so many people be able to enjoy music for free.  We stopped for lunch in front of the international fountain.  The fountain and the space needle were from the 1962 World's fair. 

 The Seattle Center also opened up a brand new park this weekend called Artists at Play.  The area was just a concrete slab left over from the World's Fair and they created a really cool musical park for kids.  Here the kids are making music pulling pool balls against pipes.  Each pipe was a different tone.  

 We enjoyed the music of The Local Strangers.  They are a local band who plays soulful Americana.  

 The kids enjoyed watching these dancers and drummers from Olympia Washington.  

There were a lot of street performers.  Avery loved the gentlemen behind him that was a statue.  He was fascinated with how much he looked like a statue. 


 
Ferry rides are always fun!

They are growing up!

 She lost her first tooth!  It actually fell out during snack time in her peach while she was at school.  When I got there to help in the classroom she ran up to me and told me she lost her tooth.  When I asked her teacher about it, Alia didn't even tell her she had just lost it!  Ms Selland thought she lost it on the weekend.  When I asked her where it was, she said, "It's still in my peach in my snack container."  

 Yay!  She was very excited for the tooth fairy to visit.

She left special instructions for the tooth fairy.  Her note says, "Please leave tooth."  She really wanted something left under her pillow but didn't want to lose her tooth.

 We had another crazy hair day, this time it was at school.  Avery has spiky, glitter green hair with bugs in it.  I glued the bugs on barrettes and put them in his hair. 

 Alia has 2 birds, one on each side.  I just made buns, added feathers, pipe cleaners and eyes.  The eyes are attached with a bobby pin.

 The glitter was added by mixing glitter with hair gel.  It worked really well and washed out fine.

Avery was studying Native Americans in school and was able to learn about basket weaving.  He really enjoyed this activity and took the opportunity to teach Alia how to weave as well.

Alia is reading.

Mother's Day 2015

 We started out the weekend with a trip to the zoo.  The kids enjoyed a zipline and obstacle course.  This was Alia's first course and she did really well.  She was so proud when she finished the course.

 

 

 Spinning and giggles!

On Sunday we went out for brunch to celebrate Mother's Day.  When the bill came, 2 chocolate bars came as well.  When Dianne and I opened the chocolate we saw 2 golden tickets and a picture clue.  It looks like we were beginning a scavenger hunt!

 On the ticket it says, "You have been chosen."

 The first clue was tricky.  It was a picture of what looked like a flag in the background and a rusted metal plate that was stuck into a rock.  There aren't many flags on Vashon so once I narrowed that down, we headed to the fire station where there is a memorial to the firefighters who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.  The clue was stuck in a toilet paper tube that was spray painted.  

The next picture clue took us to island center forest where we found a lilac candle.  At first we were stumped until we realized there was something in the candle.  We raced home to light the candle.

Inside the candle, we found our mailbox key so we raced off to the mailbox.  Inside the mailbox was a box that required a magnet to open.  We opened it and found the clue which brought us to the sheep across the street.  The sheep led us to our final clue which was at KVI beach.  

 Once we found our Mother's Day cards we enjoyed the afternoon at the beach.