Family Vacation Day 2

 The nice thing about having a place that has a full Kitchen is that you save a bunch of money on food.  The kids got up fairly early in the morning but that was ok because I had breakfast planned and ready to go.  We had a breakfast casserole and sticky buns in the morning that I was able to prepare the night before.  I didn't plan too much for us on Saturday because this is a vacation, and I didn't want to tire us all out that we'd need a vacation from vacationing afterwards. :)
 On the docket for Saturday was the Hoh Rain Forest, and that's it!  So, after breakfast I packed our lunches and then headed out.  Forks is really a GREAT location to stay at if you want to hit La Push and the Rain Forest.  It's only a 30-40 min drive to both destinations.  We did 2 hikes and ate lunch by the river on our second hike.  It was GORGEOUS and it smelled heavenly!  Nothing beats the fresh air of a rain forest!
 We were done by about 3pm and then headed back into town.  We hit a garage sale and got a box of whatever we wanted for $5 since it was the end of the day.  The girls got a giant bag of my little ponies, some books and we got Michael a bunch of little cars.  They were so excited.  We then hit the local grocery store, got some frozen pizzas and ice cream and ate dinner back at our rental.  The kids had a great time playing with all their new toys.  We showered them off that night and sent them all to bed by 8:30pm and Luke and I chilled out and watched a movie on TV.  Though I was pretty tired and crashed halfway through the movie. :)

 We had lunch by the river and the kids really enjoyed throwing rocks.

Spring Break Vacation Day 1

 A few weeks back Lily had her first ever Spring Break from school.  I wasn't sure how our Summer was going to shape up this year with various things - Idaho, Hsu Family Vacation, High Adventure, etc., so I decided that we would do our mini family vacation now.  The weather forecast was sketchy all week and I was nervous, but it ended up being perfect!
 For our vacation we decided to head out to the peninsula and visit La Push and the Hoh Rain Forest. We got up and left the house Friday morning at 6:15am.  There's a restaurant out in Sequim we found 2 years ago called Oak Table Cafe that serves the BEST breakfast.  Luke really wanted to eat there so we got up early just for that.  :)  It really is a fabulous place albeit a bit pricey.
We arrived in Sequim at 8:30am and had our breakfast.  Then we headed off to La Push.  La Push was absolutely GORGEOUS!  We were extremely lucky that it was sunny though it was still a bit cold.  We went to First Beach and played in the sand.  They had REAL sand which is very difficult to find in Washington.  We stayed out there for a good 3-4 hours, had lunch and just enjoyed the ocean.  There was a giant log washed up on the side of the beach and the roots were amazing!  We played around on the tree and the kids had a fabulous time
 We went up to Second Beach next.  You have to hike down to Second Beach and it's roughly 1 mile I think.  By the time we got there it was a bit cloudy and cold but it was so amazing!  My pictures don't do it justice since it was dark and gray and late in the day.  There were rocks and "caves" at Second Beach for us to explore and play around in.  It was a bit tricky with Michael, but the girls did very well. We left La Push around 5:15-5:30pm and never made it to Third Beach.  Third Beach is a bit longer of a hike and it's just miles of sand from what I hear so we decided it was ok to skip it.
 We stayed at Forks at a place called the Olympic Suites Inn, which was basically renovated apartments.  We got a 2 bedroom apartment, full kitchen, bath, etc. for only $95/night. Talk about a GREAT deal!   Forks is only a 10-15 mile drive from both La Push and the Hoh Rain Forest so it was really quite the perfect location.  I have to admit, the whole area (La Push included) really tried to capitalize on "Twilight," and it brought me a  little bit joy making fun of things here and there.  :)  When we headed down to La Push there was a giant sign that said, "Treaty Line, No Vampires Allowed," followed by lodgings called "Jacob's Place" and "Wolf Den."  There was even a restaurant that said, "Bella's Bulletin Board."  In Forks there were lots of "Twilight" shops and tours there was even "Twilight Wood" for sale. :)
 Anyway, we went and got some Mexican food and then headed back to the apartment to call it a night.  I wanted the vacation to be fun and relaxing; NOT stressful.  The kids all went to bed by about 7:30-7:45 and we had a fairly early night too.
 

 The roots of the giant log at First beach.  Can you believe it?!

Second Beach

Easter!

 The Saturday before Easter was a busy one for us.  Luke and I had rehearsal in the morning for Sunday's performance, then we had a Hsu lunch with all the Hsus - Ron and Misty included.  Next, it was time for some non-religious Easter fun.  The kids and I dyed eggs and decorated them.  The girls had a blast though it's messy business.  We ended up with blue-green fingers but we soaked them in soapy water to get it nice and clean.  After decorating the eggs Luke and I made an Easter Egg Hunt in our backyard for the kids.  We were going to hit the community Easter hunt in the morning, but it was totally ridiculous!  They advertised 3000 eggs but I'm pretty sure there were 300+ people there.  The parking was insane and Luke and I decided that the eggs had about a 2 second life expectancy.  We didn't want the girls and Michael to get trampled in the mob so we did one of our own.  It was much better this way.

 Michael absolutely LOVED the egg hunt and the jelly beans inside them.  He was absolutely adorable.

After the egg hunt we had an early dinner because we had plans to go see Maggie and my mom in the Bellevue South Stake Easter Program that night.  The music was beautiful and we saw lots of people from the old stake that we love and adore.
 Sunday was no less busy.  We had church at 9am in the morning, but since Luke and I were in the specialty number and in choir, I went to church at 8:15am while he stayed behind to get the kids ready.  Church was fantastic and a wonderful reminder about the true meaning of Easter.  After church we came home and had lunch.  After lunch I started cooking like there's no tomorrow.  I was cooking strait from 1pm-5pm since my mom and Zeke and Maggie's family were joining us for dinner.  I had invited Ron and Misty too but unfortunately their family wasn't feeling well and they decided to drive home early.  But, we had so much food that we could've fed the Bailey family!  I enjoy throwing dinner parties and I tend to over do it.. It was fantastic though!  We had ham, green bean casserole, fruit salad, caesar salad, rolls, herb roasted potatoes, bruchetta, spinach artichoke dip, mango pudding and lemon cream cheese bars.  Needless to say we were incredibly stuffed.