Sunny Seattle

This past weekend we decided to take a long weekend and head up to Seattle to visit Auntie Cindy and cousins Amy and Paige.

We started the trip off right with a visit to an airplane museum and a trip to one of the girls' favorite playgrounds near their school.

Among all the fun things we did while in Seattle, we headed to the Children's Museum. Some of their favorite things there were the grocery store...

...the motorcycle rickshaw sidecar fun looking thing to ride on...

...and of course the fire truck and fire fighter outfits.

Then we headed out with the girls to lunch.
They were all best buds.

We were so lucky to have fabulous weather (it was sunny and in the 50's!!). We spent several hours at this rocky beach right in downtown Seattle. The boys were very excited that it was a rocky beach and probably threw rocks for about 2 hours straight.

Dylan's rock throwing technique. He's bound to hit that log if he throws enough rocks.

Dylan was also obsessed with dragging around all the very big and long drift wood. Strong and determined boy.

Amy and Paige let the boys use their clip boards and the boys kept saying they were having a meeting. When Mom and Dad tried to get their pajamas on they would tell us "we can't right now we are in a meeting, but it will be a quick one." Where have they heard this before?

On our last day we got to have a quick visit with Amy and Paige's Dad at these very cool boat locks. We lucked out and had another fabulous day!

On our way home we stopped at IKEA in Portland to let the boys run around. They quickly made themselves at home.

Thanks for a wonderfully fun visit Cindy, Amy & Paige!!

Beautiful day in February!

We had a beautiful day today and decided to take advantage of the sun shining. We headed out to a beautiful spot in the foothills of the coast range.

Here is the start of the hike...the boys were so excited they started running across the bridge. And no they don't have glow in the dark bunny tails...I guess their rain jackets have a reflective spot at the bottom of the coat. I never really noticed that before.

The boys and their friend Jonah at the base of a huge old oak tree.
Much of the trail was in the forest but there were spots that opened up to beautiful meadows showing dramatic cloud formations and nice views of the mountains.
The boys taking a contemplative moment at a bench rest stop. For some reason Dylan thought that pose under the bench was more comfortable.

This was the longest the boys ever hiked before without being carried or pulled in a wagon or stroller...and with absolutely no complaining! We did a nice loop trail that was about 1.5 miles. On the way back Dylan and Cole had so much fun holding hands. Since it was such a nice day there were other people out on the trails and the boys liked to stop and tell the other hikers all about the things we saw along the way.
All the boys are holding hands for the last push before making it back to the car.Once we got back to the car we enjoyed a nice picnic lunch together...except that mom never seems to have it together enough to be able to pack food for herself, so I end up just feeding on their scraps! The boys LOVE picnics especially when mom packs their lunches in their very own lunch box...it's just like the big kids at school that stay all day and eat lunch at school! Hopefully we will have more nice sunny days!