San Juan Islands

The next place we went with my family was to the San Juan Islands. I had never been before but J. had, and he said it was really pretty. We took a ferry from Ancortes to Friday Harbor. I have to admit that the main reason we were going was because we were going to take a boat tour, and go whale watching (to hopefully see some Orcas). The weather did not cooperate with us and we were basically freezing. So much for that July summer. Also the whales did not cooperate with us either because we didn't get to see any. Sniff, sniff. I was pretty disappointed but what could I do about it. We did get to see some seals and bald eagles, so that was pretty cool.

My mom and Kaiden on the ferry.

While we were in Friday Harbor, Kaiden got to feed some fish to the local seal that hangs around the docks. Her name is Popeye. I was bummed that I didn't get a picture but Kaiden loved her.

You can't see it, but there were some seals on the rocks out there. Man I wish I had a camara with a better zoom.

Snowqualamie Falls

I was excited when I found out that my family was coming to visit us. So I started thinking of places where we could take them while they were here. The arrived on the evening of July 3rd, so on the grand foruth of July we decided to go to Snowqualamie Falls and hike around.

Sorry, I know that this picture is kind of dark and Kaiden wasn't even in it. We kept trying to get her to look at the water fall but she wouldn't. We thought she was just scared of the heights or something, oh no, she just REALLY needed to go to the bathroom. No worries though, I got her to the bathroom in time.

While we were walking down to the river, we saw this doe and her two fawns. They walked right in front of us on the trail. It was pretty cool.

My Dad and my brothers Taylor and Daniel.

Carson Turns 1!!!!

I simply can not believe that my sweet little guy turned 1 year old!! How did time go so fast? I guess when he was an infant ,that 3 in the morning feeding routine did seem to drag on. Now woosh it's one year later. I will say it again, I can not beielve that he turned 1. I love you buddy boy!!!

Trying out his new birthday present from Dad. It was a very thoughtful gift but obviously J. didn't think that all those buttons on it would become annoying after a while. I get to hear 'Little Einsteins' all day long. Lucky me!!!

We had a small birthday party for him with some friends. He was hilarious to watch, when it came time to eat the cake. I remember that when Kaiden turned one she didn't even want to touch the frosting but daintily picked off the sprinkles instead. Carson, however, had no problem digging in up to his elbows.

Pick, Pick, Pick

O.K. it is official. Kaiden is addicted to picking the dirt out between her toes. I have no idea how this little obsession started, all I know is that the past few months it has got steadily worse. She does this little ritual of sitting down, and then carefully going toe by toe and removing whatever it is that is between them. One day she told me, "Mom look at this dirt, it is so disgusting". She has even started doing this toe picking addiction during opening exercises of primary. Yes it's true. Yesterday I saw my child carefully take her shoes off and begin (yet again) this toe-picking obsession. Meanwhile sitting in such a way that she is flashing her panties to all to see. I teach the CTR 5 class, so I had a full view of her one row ahead of me. Her primary teacher told me she noticed that she does it in class all the time. Just great. If that is not bad enough, I have caught her pinning Carson down by sitting on his stomach so that she can remove the dirt between his toes(while all the time he is screaming bloody murder). I sat down with her yesterday and told her that she is not allowed to pick her toes in church anymore. As for the rest of her toe-picking, I can only hope that she outgrowns it soon or at least it doesn't get to the point where she wants to start doing it on me.

La Push and First Beach Baby

Yes, this is the treaty line where Edward would drop off Bella to go and see Jacob. Though I didn't realize that it was sponsered by Pepsi. Interesting. In fact, we ate at the small restaurant behind the sign. I had myself the Wolf Burger, it was quite tastey (it wasn't actually made of Wolf meat, you know, it was named for the wolves in book, oh forget it).

Kaiden loved the beach! She was really upset that we forget to bring her beach toys, so she could play in the sand. Sorry Kaiden, you'll have to make do with your hands.

Forks Cont.

Dr. Cullen has his own parking spot at the extremely small hospital.

O.K I have to hand it to J. at not laughing (to much) at all these bizarre things the town of Fork's does. Oh, you know like giving the Cullen's thier own mail box. Shoot, maybe I should have opened it and see what was inside. Dang.

Edward's house, I admit was a bit of a dissapointment. First off, it was like a block from the high school. I guess, the house they were orginally saying Edward lived in burned down last winter (mmm, I wonder if there are Edward haters out there). It was supposed to be a more accurate representation of the Cullen house, because it was set in the middle of woods like Edwards, and much bigger (it had 18 bedrooms, crazy!). Oh well, I need to remember that he doesn't exsist anyways. I have to say that Forks was fun and crazy. They really made it seem like the Cullen's lived there. At one store, I went in, the cashier, was an Alice look-alike. She told me she was the towns Alice. Well, what I want to know is where is the town's Edward. Where is he?

Forks OME (Oh My Edward)

O.K so here's the deal, I (like every other woman/girl on the planet) REALY wanted to see Forks, Washington. I probably wouldn't have ever make the trip if I still lived in Arizona, but since I am convientaly living in Washington and it's a mere 4 hours from my house, I say what the heck. Plus our boat to and from Victoria left from none other than (drum roll please) Port Angeles. I did have one slight reservation about going to Forks and that was the fact that I would much rather go with girls, who love the books like me. Not my husband and two little kids. Plus if gorgeous god-like Edward did truely exsist (sigh), I would definately not want my husband and two little kids ruining my good time. Oh well. I have to say in J.'s defense though, he has read the first 2 books, so I ended finding that worthy enough to accompany me to Forks (we had to bring the kids because apparently it's frowned upon to just leave them alone somewhere).

"There, parked on the street in front of the house that never changed, was my new- well, new to me- truck." (Twilight pg. 8)

"Evetually we made it to Charlies. He still lived in the small, two bedroom house that he'd bought with my mother in the early day of thier marriage." (Twilight pg. 8)

See they do exsist. Here are thier student cards.

"Finding the school wasn't difficult, though I'd never been there before. The school was, like most other things, just off the highway. It was not obvious that it was a school, only the sign, which declared it to be Fork High School, made me stop." (Twilight pg. 12)

Buschart Gardens Cont..

Buschart Gardens

While we were in Canada, we decided to go and see the famous Buschart Gardens. It was only about a 40 minute bus ride from Victoria, and it definately worth seeing. They had so many different types of gardens. There was the Italian Garden, the Rose Garden, the Japenese Garden, and the Sunken Garden. My only fear while we were there was that Kaiden would start picking the flowers behind my back (she has been known to do this). So I had to keep reminding her not to pick or even touch the flowers. She did great, she did pick up an occasional stick or two, but who cares about that, right?

Victoria Cont..

I don't know what was with the Totem Poles, but they were everywhere. It was kind of cool.

There was a beautiful park, part of Becon Hill.