Hsu Family Vacation!

For my dad's 60th Birthday, we gave him a Hsu Family Vacation. In the Chinese culture, turning 60 is a HUGE deal. It signifies a level of enlightenment and if you make it to 60 you should be honored because you have lived 5 rounds of the 12 zodiacs. Well, since we haven't had a Hsu Family Vacation since 2001 I thought it'd be neat. It was really crazy with 10 kids 6 and under, but it sure was fun. We got a rental house that fit all of us up in Sequim and had a blast from Fri-Mon. My FB will have a TON of pics if people want to see it.

The vacation started with seafood night. I never thought I'd get sick of crab, but apparently it's possible. We had 15 huge crabs with oysters and clams! Then Sat we had a really yummy breakfast at Oak Table Cafe before heading to the Olympic National Park. With the amount of kids we had, Mags just given birth to Carly, and me 5.5 months pregnant we chose hikes that were both fun and easy. We hiked roughly 4 miles to Sol Duc Falls and Marymere Falls. Then we went home and had the biggest chinese BBQ EVER! Sun we went to church, then (don't judge me, it was the only way I could plan it) we went to the Olympic Game Farm. You Drive through the zoo and feed wild animals! Then we went to the tidalpools at Salt Creek Park. Ron's family, my dad, and Luke had to leave us on Sun night. My mom and girls and Zeke's family stayed so we got to go to the Dungeness Spit on Mon. It was relaxing and beautiful.

Overall it was a FABULOUS vacation. I haven't decided whether I'm more crazy for planning this and hiking at 5.5 months pregnant or Mags for doing all of this with a 3 week old infant. I think Mag's is crazier. :) But, everyone had a great time and decided that we should make this a regular thing. "Eggs Benny" at the Oak Table Cafe. It's a mix of Eggs Benedict and Biscuits and Gravy. Makes my mouth water just looking at it!

Oak Table Cafe's famous Apple Custard Pancake. This is amazing and so huge and delicious!

Sol Duc Falls - 1.6 miles total hike

Sol Duc Falls.

Marymere Falls at Lake Cresent - 2 miles total hike.

Olympic Game Farm. Ron got to feed a Zebra!

Luke feeding a huge buffalo. It nudged him for more food after that one piece. :)

Luke brought his wetsuit and he swam out to the rocks and found this giant sea star at Salt Creek Park.

Salt Creek County Park.

Lily found a crab. These tidalpools were SO COOL. All the kids enjoyed finding marine life.

Dungeness Spit.

Discovery Park

Though we were all a little sick still from the 4th, it was NOT going to stop me from going out on the first really nice weekend in Seattle this summer. When I was single and living in the U-District, Discovery Park was one of my most favorite places to go with my friends. When the tide is out you can walk out forever on the beach and find cool things in the tidepools. This is the first time I've been since those single days and it sure brought back memories! The girls had a lot of fun playing on the beach finding little fish, hermit crabs, shells, dead crabs, sea snails, and of course, poking at the anemones. The jaunt down to the beach was longer than I remembered it being but it sure was worth it.

July 4th Weekend

Since the 4th fell on a Sunday this year, we did most of our celebrating on the 3rd. Luke went and got quite a bit of fireworks like he always does and we headed out to a friend of ours in Issaquah and lit off fireworks for 3 hours! The girls had a TON of fun and are more and more into setting things on fire and watching it go boom. Luke couldn't have been a prouder daddy for that. :) As you can see the girls were wearing their winter jackets and that's because it was FREEZING cold that night after which we all promptly got sick. I ended up being an "old" person and went to bed on the 4th at 8:30pm. Oh well, such is life and it was worth it.

Lily helping Luke light off a fountain.

Arya holding a party popper in the shape of a gun.

Luke got this really cool lantern/hot air ballooon thing and it just goes until you can't see it anymore. He ended up with two of them and one of them actually came down pretty close to where we originally set it off.