Horizons Math Grade 4 and K,The Reading Lesson, Sequential Spelling, Lifepac Language Arts 4, Apologia Astronomy, Veritas Press New Testament/Greeks/Romans
Prima Latina, Contenders for the Faith and various Winters Promise books, Live Mocha Spanish, Plants Grown Up
Last weekend we had a lovely time sharing our beautiful corner of Washington with friends!
We took them to Greenbank Farm, Fort Casey, Deception Pass and Mt Erie.
Mt Erie
Us at Ft Casey
Us at Deception Pass
Then we traded our minivan in for a truck, so we've been driving around in that a bit, we explored Anacortes last night and enjoyed the beautiful Washington Park with its gorgeous views of the San Juan Islands!
We are so blessed by this beautiful place the Lord has created!
Yesterday we picked up a fun "scavenger hunt" sheet to Tour Downtown Langley. It was about a pirate named "RedBeard' and his dog, and we followed clues to see the sites they saw. The boys had a blast and I enjoyed finally exploring the town I had heard so much about!
Today we went on the Deception Pass Boat Tour. I had received free tickets during Holland Happening when we bought the Klompen for the shoe boat race downtown. I was so excited to finally get to use them! The tour was wonderful. We saw a Harbor Seal, some Dall's Porpoises including a mother and baby, Lion's Mane Jellyfish as well as various fish and sea birds. We learned where Peregrines nest, and that there used to be a mine near the bridge, where we saw a mine prison! We learned about a real pirate, Ben Ure who lived here, as well as how many movies have been filmed here! Bull Kelp, we were able to sample some, and Abigail thought it was especially delicious!
Mt Baker in the distance, one of the many active volcanos in Washington
The last leg of our trip was stopping in Gladstone to visit with some great friends of ours. Due to traffic we didn't get there until 8PM, so we got a hotel in Oregon City with a gorgeous view.
Since we were just down the street he next morning we stopped at the End of the Oregon Trail again.
Then a not so quick stop at Cabelas. Then home again!
Then just 2 days later we headed BACK down to Tacoma to meet up with some friends from high school and their families! It was a long drive, but we arrived earlier than expected. We drove the BEAUTIFUL 5 mile loop through beautiful forests, Owen beach, the gorgeous display gardens and discovered Fort Nisqually Living History Museum. Sadly it was closed on Mondays, but we'll definitely get back eventually to check that out!
We met our friends at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium and had a wonderful day! The boys rode a camel
and Abigail LOVED the monkeys
We've had a great summer, but it is wonderful to be back! Home SWEET Home!
We had been wanting to go to Wildlife Safari in Winston, OR for years now, and on the way home it finally worked out!
It was so much fun! They allow you to drive thru the park twice, and you get to experience wildlife right outside our car windows! We had to wait for zebras to cross the road, we got to watch bears playing, we got chased by a flock of tiny baby ostriches!
They even have an elephant car wash (sadly, we were too late to sign up for that day, but we did get to watch). The elephant sucks water into it's trunk, rinses your car, grabs a sponge and washes it, then rinses again!
But this by far was the cutest animal I saw there!
We spent the rest of the trip visiting with our expansive family in Southern CA, and I met my 2 brothers for the first time! After 10 days in CA we headed home!
On the way back through the mountains of Northern CA, we stopped at the Lake Shasta Caverns.
Peter and Andrew panned for gold and gems and got to bring home their treasure to add to their rock collection, which Peter started there at Lake Shasta 5 years ago!
We actually attempted the tour of the Caverns when we drove down to CA the first time, 4 years ago. It wasn't a good idea with small children, so we didn't try that this time, but the boys still had fun there!
Friday we headed to our #1 destination for this trip... Legoland!
I hate Disneyland... Legoland is our FAVORITE theme park! Andrew had never been, but he's spent hours pouring over the pictures of when Peter went when we lived down there.
I dont think I have EVER seen that child so happy! We had a blast!
We got to see the Seattle Space needle made of Legos, look at the scale of this thing!
Then we headed over to check out the new Lego Sealife Aquarium and Grandpa bought the children sunglasses!
After a day full of fun we headed to a delicious Italian restaurant, and then we stopped at Moonlight beach since it was just across the street. It was the first time any of my children had been to a CA beach, and they fully enjoyed the WARM water and REAL waves!
We left home Tuesday morning, and drove through the day, stopping at a hotel in Mt Shasta in Northern CA.
We enjoyed the hotel pool, and watching cable TV (we watched the Duggars) and started again early the next morning!
Wednesday we drove through California, stopping to have lunch with a sweet friend and 6 of her 8 children in Bakersfield (one was due that very day, but still has not made her appearance!) Around 8pm in Los Angeles, the thermometer read: We arrived in Menifee late that night .
Thursday we had a busy day of visiting relatives in Riverside. We stopped at the March Air Force BaseMuseum on our way back to visit more family in Hemet. We'd been before but this time the boys were big enough to really understand and enjoy it!
At this point the thermometer read:
We are so spoiled here on Whidbey Island!!
Ok finally I can answer your questions! Yes, it was AWESOME! I was so impressed!
It took us 3 hours to get to the Great Wolf Lodge. The boys were so excited when we arrived. We were able to use the military discount, and paid only $219. When you think about how much it costs to get into a place like Disneyland this was a great price for a family of 5 to stay in a nice hotel AND have access to a full water park and so much more! When we checked in they gave us each wristbands. The adult wristbands were not only admission to the water park, but also were our hotel keys and were linked to our account so we could use them to purchase anything in the hotel.
After we checked in we went straight to the water park! It is completely indoors and kept at a warm 84 degrees. Nice during a cold Washington winter! There was a wave pool with inter tubes that my boys LOVED! They got to feel what life was like for Daddy out on the boat LOL
Abigail and I sat at the shallow end in the fountains playing and watching the guys. She enjoyed the giant bathtub, but was a little overwhelmed by all the activity.
They also had an awesome baby pool with tiny slides and things to climb on, a huge jungle gym with slides for the older kids, a pool with a basket ball court in the water, and some adult water slides. We spent a few hours out there, getting a snack of funnel cakes and churros in the pool area. But then we were really hungry so we went back to our room, the Kid Cabin Suite to change and then headed to the restaurant for dinner. The food was actually delicious and kid friendly, and priced the same as out in town.
Here is a peek of the waterpark from the Storytime lobby
Then we stopped in the MagiQuest shop. I was not big on the idea of a magic game at first, but was quickly drawn in. You buy a wand, and you use it on a Scavenger hunt adventure through the first 5 floors of the hotel. Almost everything is linked to the wands, pictures talk, statues light up. It was so much fun for all of us! And it was such good exercise. That first night I think we played for almost 3 hours, with Dad and the boys running up and down 5 flights of stairs more times that I can count! Abigail and I took the elevator because she was in the stroller, and even with that my legs HURT at the end of the night! So we stopped at the dessert shop and got some ice cream and a cupcake for me and headed back to the room to bed.
It was hard work for Abigail
The next morning we stopped at the Starbucks in the lobby, had a buffet breakfast and then went back to the waterpark for a few more hours. We checked out around 11 and then while we were waiting for the time we needed to leave to meet up with friends we tried to finish our quest and finally got a chance to try and slay the dragon.
After the dragon defeated us, the boys headed to the arcade while Abigail and I checked out the payroom, then we headed back to Cabela's.
We had a blast at the Great Wolf Lodge, and will definately go back again, next time we'll stay for 2 nights because we didn't have enough time to get it all in! They also had story time and a nature class that we missed, as well as activities and arts and crafts in the playroom. And we only did part of the Magic Quest but ran out of time! Definately go if you get a chance!
So a big part of our trip planning was around Big Peter wanting to go to the Cabela's they built in Washington. I told him if we were driving 3 hours just to go to a camping store he had to take us to the Great Wolf Lodge too, and he agreed!
I have to admit I was hugely impressed by Cabelas! As soon as you walk in there is a huge display of animals,and in the center of that an aquarium! My kids were in heaven. For a quarter we were able to buy some fish food and feed the fish then we finished making our way around to see all the animals. Then we headed upstairs to see the shooting arcade where they were able to shoot an interactive "town". We browsed around the store then started to get hungry.
So we decided to have lunch in the Cabela's cafe. Peter had an elk sandwich which was actually really good (I was less brave and had roast beef). We were there a full 2 hours, and we had so much fun we didn't mind going back the next day to meet a sweet friend and her adorable children. We were there another 2 hours before heading home!
Baby is up so I'll tell you about the rest of our trip later!
We didn't get our annual road trip vacation this year, so we substituted a trip to Seattle! I've never been a fan of big cities, but Seattle is actually beautiful in Autumn, and the weather was amazing for us!
First we headed to the Ballard Locks. It was a gorgeous site and we learned a lot!
Then we headed to Pike's Place. Again, it was so disappointing. I just dont see the fun in fighting huge crowds. Maybe I'm spoiled by the amazing SMALL farms here in my own town! We originally were going to do the underground tour of Seattle (Originally Seattle was built below sea level, but when it was destroyed in a fire they built the new town on top of the old ones, but there are still buildings underground) but once we got there we found out it was not a family friendly trip, so we did the DUCK tour instead! We had done the Seal Tour in San Diego when we lived there and had a lot of fun and learned a lot too! The boys even got to drive the boat this time!
Abigail just enjoyed a ride with NO carseat!
We ended our day at the airport, dropping Grandma off after a month long visit! I'll post some more pictures in a separate post!
We had an awesome time visiting Skagit farms today! We started off at Taylor Shellfish. We had never been out that way and the drive was gorgeous, especially with the fall colors.
The boys had a blast feeling the shellfish and I took a whole 2 tiny bites of a BBQ oyster (EWWW).
I think it was the boys favorite stop because Mike Rowe (from Dirty Jobs) had been there, and we had seen the episode but never realized it was right here that they filmed it.
We visited a dairy and some other farms and made our way to Sakuma Bros. This is actually our 3rd weekend in a row going there. They have so many varieties of berries that they have fresh strawberries from May to October! And they are one of only 2 tea growing farms in the US! The boys liked being able to play on their BIG tractors this time. Here they are inside of a wheel!
My new favorite was Gordon Skagit Farm. They had tons of beautiful and HUGE squashand pumpkins and a U Pick apple orchard at an amazing .80 a lb!!!! Up until this year we've picked from friends trees or wild trees, but most of those were taken down with the military construction, and while sweet Amy has blessed us with a lot of apples from her family's B&B, we go through them like no one would believe! We also found apple cider, which I have been looking forward to all month!
And we finished up at Hedlin Farms where Andrew enjoyed a pony ride and Abigail pet a horse.
Hope you had an amazing weekend too, and were able to enjoy the abundant beauty of God's creation as we did!
We finally made it out to Rosario Beach Tide Pools this week! It was perfect timing because the boys and I have been studying Swimming Creatures this year. And the last two weeks specifically, mollusks and echinoderms. We checked the tide charts online, but still ended up being there at the high end of low tide, so we didn't see anything exciting like nudibranchs
A hermit crab (with a stolen winkle shell) hiding in a mussel shell! and some more shells we were able to identify,
We didn't see any sea stars, but that is ok because we were blessed to see a ton when we were whale watching awhile back!
And we even got to hold some at Sea World a few months after that:
We're home. The trip was cut short a bit by the weather, but that's ok.
We headed to Vancouver WA and were greatly disappointed by Joe's Crab Shack (eww), but I found a Baja Fresh and that made my whole trip! I miss their food from CA SOO much!!!
We went to the Tillamook Cheese factory, not extremely impressive. (Yes my boys are goofs)
Andrew made friends with a baby cow:
Then the highlight of our trip:
The End of the Oregon Trail!
http://www.endoftheoregontrail.org/joomlaeotic/
Peter loaded the wagon
Andrew built a fire, then made dinner:
They even made Mommy dress up!
They had the most gorgeous dolls! I had to buy the yellow one in case baby is a girl, and we got a matching baby girl bonnet as well!
We stopped at Bob's Red Mill
Then the next day went to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) and were able to spend some time with some good friends of ours who had moved to Oregon.
We were headed to the Tacoma Zoo, but the weather canceled that for us! SO it was a fairly short trip, but we had fun!
Road Trip part 2 So the next day we head to little Peter's destination (Idaho!) He couldn't wait to add it to his list of states he's been to.
Here we stopped at a Mission and the boys LOVED exploring the settlers' cemetary!
I LOVED the fog in Idaho, it reminded me of Oregon!
Then as we read about the history of the Gold Rush in Idaho, we HAD to stop at a mine, and we were lucky enough to find one that had been hidden before it was depleted and actually still had more gold and silver inside!
Then we figured since we'd already come so far we might as well head into Montana as well!
Then we turned around, and headed back home on highway 20. Not as much to share about then. We did stop at another mission. We had a great trip though, another reason to LOVE homeschooling!
So we decided to explore this state of ours before Peter goes on deployment. We started on Route 2 and headed east. We couldn't leave till 3 pm Thursday, so we ended up staying in Leavenworth the first night.
It was GORGEOUS! I dont have any pics of the actual town though. While there we went to a fish hatchery we'd been wanting to see. It was a lot of fun and we learned tons about salmon and learned what piggies trout are when the boys were able to feed them! We hopped back on the highway and went to our main attraction, Cashmere! We toured the Applets and Cotlets candy factory and went on to the Pioneer village and museum. We are big history fans so this was a dream come true for us! We headed on to Wenatchee which was a big disappointment and after we paid at the museum found the had closed off the entire bottom floor which is what we went to see (the Apple history of Washington!). That lead to hours of hay fields.... b ut every so often a random cabin made my day! It really made me feel like I was out in the old west! (Yes most of the pictures were taken from the car,Peter isn't really a stop and capture the moment kind of guy )
We finally made it to Spokane the second night. We're not big city people, but we were excited to see a Carl's Jr again! That night around 7 pm we're sitting in the hotel while the boys were enjoying a treat of Animal Planet (we don't have cable!) and an emergency broadcast message came on that a severe thunderstorm was coming in! So we look at our window and see:
Luckily the storm lasted only half an hour, it came on strong and hard then just moved on!
I'm waiting for the rest of the pictures to upload, so I'll continue the next 2 days in a new blog! Thanks for reading and hope you've enjoyed our trip so far!
Bull Kelp, we were able to sample some, and Abigail thought it was especially delicious! 
The boys rode a camel
Around 8pm in Los Angeles, the thermometer read:
We arrived in Menifee late that night .
and some more shells we were able to identify,
Currently reading : 
It was GORGEOUS! I dont have any pics of the actual town though. While there we went to a fish hatchery we'd been wanting to see. It was a lot of fun and we learned tons about salmon and learned what piggies trout are when the boys were able to feed them!
We hopped back on the highway and went to our main attraction, Cashmere! We toured the Applets and Cotlets candy factory and went on to the Pioneer village and museum. We are big history fans so this was a dream come true for us!
We headed on to Wenatchee which was a big disappointment and after we paid at the museum found the had closed off the entire bottom floor which is what we went to see (the Apple history of Washington!). That lead to hours of hay fields....
b
ut every so often a random cabin made my day! It really made me feel like I was out in the old west! (Yes most of the pictures were taken from the car,Peter isn't really a stop and capture the moment kind of guy 
)
