Washington 2012 Day 7

This was the day that we went to Seattle.

It really is a beautiful city.

We started out with Pike St.

Mine and Gracie's favorite part was the flowers. She likes peonies cause it sounds like ponies.

Then of course there is the fish.

Gracie, Elliegh, Lilliegh, and Carileigh with the pig. Lilleigh looked like she loved it:)

Then we headed down to the gum wall.

I guess now would be a good time to mention that Kirsten gave William a Thor helmet.

My cute nice Emi.

It smelled really good down there.

He isn't actually licking it, just really close. His Godfather Abe said he would pay him $5 bucks to lick it so we pretended.

Call me crazy but I am thinking of having a gum wall at our house (outside). It would kinda be like a guest book and whenever you come you could stick some gum on it.

Then we were off to get some lunch at Pikes Brewing Company. It was delicious, even the kids food.

Russ and Ted love their seafood.

Then we walked around some shops. Grandma went inside the quilt shop and Grandpa was sitting in the chair labels "the husbands chair". 

Check out this quilt of the Puget Sound. It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g!

Then we went to play in the big fountain but Joseph fell asleep in the car so I sat in the car with him while everyone else went. Whenever he would start to wake up I would start driving so I got to see quite a bit of the city (at least surrounding the space needle). This was my view from the car.

Then we went to this place where we could watch salmon swimming. It was a beautiful place. Although Gracie said it smelled bad (it smelled like fish).

this is Joseph watching a boat.

And here are the kids watching the salmon.

"this baby one is my best friend." - Gracie

Gracie asked if she could take some pictures with my phone and I let her. Here is a small sample of what she took.

Then we headed to Sam and Neela's home. Sam is Ted's brother so it was my sister-in-laws brother-in-law's house. Make sense? They were so nice to invite us for dinner. My kids were in love with their dog. They had name tags, yellow watermelon, and some yummy veggie enchiladas. And they had some amazing view from their house. This is from their living room.

William really liked his name tag.

This is the view from two more stories up. This is their balcony that has a hot tub. 

Then we went back to Tacoma where we stayed up way too late talking. This is how I found Hal when I was on my way to bed. 

This is how we all felt.

Washington 2012 Day 6

This day was a special day. We got up early and went to church where Hal spoke, many of the family members sang a musical number, I Feel My Saviors Love, and Garyson was ordained a Teacher in the priesthood. It was also Clyde's (Russ' dad's) birthday.

Kirsten outdid herself on the lovely desserts.

He got a duct tape crown. 

 Chocolate cake with peaches is his favorite so that is what he got.

 Kirsten's best friend Heather came over and Jessie sketched her son Trey.

And Kirsten gave Joseph this little set of toys that came from Heather's store Best Loved Baby. He loves them. Aunt Kirsten is the best gift giver.

 This is his look of concentration.

 That evening a lot of the family took a walk around their magnificent neighborhood. Literally every house is amazing and the yards are so gorgeous and the views are unreal.

I can't get over the fact that Grayson is a teenager. Kids are always growing up, it is what they do so it should not be surprising. But there is something about being a teenager, the shift and change is so apparent. I know William will be there before I know it and I am pretty sure I won't have a clue what to do.

Washington 2012 Day 5

This was the day that we said goodbye to Port Townsend. After spending much of the morning gathering her belongings packing up dishwashing and generally straightening up the place I walked around and took pictures so that I would forever be able to remember this wonderful place. Let's start with the giant tree out front.

This is the best picture I could get, down from the ground up through the tree.

I loved all the quaint little fire places that were in most of the rooms.

 And here is the Harry Potter room under the stairs. William really tried to convince us to let him sleep under there one night and we probably would have except for the fact that what you see is all there is. It was just a tiny square that he couldn't lay straight in.

These are some of my favorite scenes of the houses. 

 I was really sad to say goodbye. 

After everything was packed up and we were ready to go we headed down to the beach one last time for family pictures.

Here was Ted set up.

And Ted took some great pictures of us but I don't have them yet so we will have to do with the ones I had my niece take with my camera of us by the lighthouse. 

Had to include this one because of William's awesome face. 

I also thought this would be a good place to add this drawing that is in my niece Jessie's sketch book. Isn't she amazing!?

And can you believe these little sweeties down on the beach?! I cannot tell you how happy I am that Carmen now lives in the same state as us.

With boys everything is a gun.

 Russ, Kirsten, Grayson, and Joseph waiting for pictures to happen.

 I will never get over how awesome it is to have a photojournalist as a member of the family.

And then letting the kids climb on this huge anchor that I thought was really really cool. 

Driving through Port Townsend. This is a place where I've learned that I really like boats.

 It wasn't long before the backseat looked like this:

and out the windshield looks like this I was holding Russ's hand and we were listening to Florence and The Machine and it was pretty much a perfect moment. 

We headed to Bremerton where we would take the ferry to Seattle. It was a little bit out of the way but I knew the kids (and I) would really like taking a ferry. We got there about five minutes after a ferry left so we were the first in line to wait for the next one and we had about an hour to kill. So we went and got some hot chocolate and went out on the pier and looked at some amazingly huge starfish.

See aren't those crazy huge.

And then we got to go on the ferry. 

Gracie was extremely giddy over the whole thing. See, look she's cackling in this picture.

Russ let Gracie fly. Watch out Leonardo DiCaprio I think Russ has you beat.

 It was a very windy on the ferry.

And William did have a good time, he just want to take pictures.

  Here he is spitting over the edge but don't worry I made him stop after I took this picture. 

 We are coming up to Seattle. Can you see the Space Needle in the background there?

  Here we are coming up to the city. It was kind of actually way cooler than it probably looks in this picture to just pull up to all of these tall buildings after you've just been riding around on the water.

 Then we drove back to Tacoma here is Ted getting ready to compile all the pictures into the family DVD like he does every year. 

Here are some of the nephews playing the piano and singing I wish I could remember what they're singing but I do remember that it was awesome. 

I also wish I had a picture of us watching the family video that night but I was too taken up by the video itself to think about taking pictures. Some of us also practiced a song that we would sing the next day in Kirsten's ward at church. It was really cool to sing with them. There is a lot of great musical talent in this family.