vacation!

We left on Wednesday for a vacation/family reunion/wedding in Victoria BC. Given the ferry schedule, we decided to stop in Tacoma for an overnight before making the noon ferry from Port Angeles over to Vancouver Island.

  

Our VRBO had this lovely high four-poster bed with a step stool to get in. It was magical - for Liesl, and for me too!

 

We drove up to Point Defiance park and walked around the trails and down to the beach, and then had fish and chips and cioppino at a fish shack on the water.

 

 

Our VRBO was right next to the University of Puget Sound and we spent an hour wandering the campus, running the track, and exploring. It's a beautiful place with gorgeous lawns and trees.

 

 

On Thursday morning we drove to Port Angeles to catch the ferry - yay! At first Sebastian was worried about the ride - about becoming seasick - but then he managed to overcome his anxiety and enjoy the sights of the Olympic mountain range and the city of Victoria.

Salmon River hike

We headed toward Mt Hood on Saturday morning, with Anne and Camille, to hike a section of the Salmon River trail and splash in the river. It's been hot in Portland this week.

We hiked about 3 miles on a trail that followed the river through glorious old-growth forest; Seb hid in trees and stumps and cracked us up with his funny faces. The kids pretended they were characters in Paw Patrol - Seb created his own narrative plot in which he and the girls were the protagonists. We ate lunch and got in the water, more or less. (Anne and Liesl more than the rest of us!) Seb practiced skipping rocks and managed to get five skips, a personal record that made him very happy.  It was a gloriously beautiful day to spend with friends.

playdate with Nina

Liesl's sweet preschool friend Nina came over to play with us on Friday. We picked her up from her mom's office at PSU at 9:30 and she played until we dropped her off at 4:30. It was a wonderful day for the two girls and hopefully the first of many more playdates to come - I'd like to encourage this lovely friendship to last. (It's interesting to me to realize, as a parent, how much we are responsible for who she gets to play with - I have to commit to the friendship too - make the arrangements and do the driving and supervising. She gets to decide who she likes, of course, but it's up to me to connect with the parents and allow the friendship to flourish outside of school/class situations. I don't think that as a child I really understood how much influence my parents had.)

Our first stop was at Blue Star, where the girls split one blueberry and one chocolate doughnut. Big messy grins all around.

Then we drove up to Washington Park to play at the playground - some hide and seek, some following the leader, the swings, clambering around.

Then we came home for lunch - grilled cheese and blueberries and carrots with hummus - and the girls disappeared into Liesl's room for a few hours. They played with their babies (I think) and were happily tucked away up there, chattering away. I got some work done and Sebastian got to watch Paw Patrol (a Nickelodeon show about dogs solving mysteries, which is their current screentime obsession). And then, because it was 94 degrees out there, we turned on the sprinkler and they got to jump through and spray each other with water guns and dump water on their heads and everything else.

secret handshake

This is the best.

Intro from B. Avery on Vimeo.

Seb's handshake from B. Avery on Vimeo.

Liesl's handshake from B. Avery on Vimeo.

Sunday morning at the beach

Sunday morning dawned just as early - we fed the kids a quick breakfast (learning from Saturday's oversight) and headed back down to the beach again. It was gorgeous out there, not windy at all, and sunny.

Serving up ice cream cones!

Sebastian made a make-shift surfboard from a piece of plywood.

Found a crab scuttling back under the waves and sand.

Post-beach - roasting apples and drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows!

On the way out of town, we stopped in Depoe Bay at the whale observation deck and got to see a bunch of orcas in the bay. It was a cool last experience before the drive home - everyone fell asleep about an hour in and the kids slept nearly the whole way - the late nights and early mornings finally caught up to everyone.