Seattle Vacation

We spent a week in Seattle with Doug's family and played, played, played. We packed a lot of stuff into that week, but it was lots of fun. Doug's brothers both came up and so his family was together for the first time in 5 years since his younger brothers missed each other on their respective missions.

Grandma bought a pool for the girls. It was really hot the first few days we were there (in the 90's and no AC...hot hot hot) so the pool was appreciated.

Evelynn preferred the hose, especially when she figured out she could spray us with it. :) I'm so glad I'm still faster than her.

This is the sunset view from their new deck. I didn't take a picture of it, unfortunately, but it is way nice. They built it themselves and Doug helped them finish up the last little bit when we got there. It was quite a project!

Eloise really liked being in the high chair because she could look around and see what was going on. We don't have a high chair at home, so I took advantage of it a lot.

This picture cracks me up. This was dinner one night, and Mom has a crown on her head (left over from cleaning up Evelynn's mess) and B.J. just looks awesome.

There's a lake right down the street from Doug's house and we went swimming. Evelynn put on that life jacket and she was off and swimming all by herself for over an hour! She kicked her little legs as hard as she could, bobbing along in the water (see video below).

Eloise liked the water for a little while, and then decided only Mommy would do.

Doug is trying to catch the little fish that swim in the shallow water.

Evelynn and Uncle Steven became quick buddies on this trip. She thought he was lots of fun, and I'm sure he thought the same of her.

This is one of Melinda's mom's dogs. Evelynn thought it was awesome that she could get the dog to go where she wanted....some of the time.

Steven and Eloise

At the park. It seems like no outing is a successful outing unless there is a park involved. I'm noticing more and more often my pictures include parks in them... I should start rating them based on how much fun Evelynn had.

Grandpa and Eloise in the swing.

We went to Seattle for an afternoon. We walked everywhere, and Evelynn was such a trooper for most of it. This is actually at the end of the day when we reached the dock. She was so tired she refused to smile, but that's ok.

This is at City Center park in Seattle.


This was a HUGE fountain that was set to all different kinds of music. Evelynn was very intimidated by it and so she refused to get very close to it, but I thought it was cool. Doug barely contained himself from running through the water, which was good since we didn't have any spare clothes.

I bought Evelynn one of those animal backpacks with the leash tail. she actually really liked it, and didn't even mind the tail being held by others very much. I got her a monkey... I thought it would be fitting.

Gross monk-fish at Pike Place. This thing had scary looking teeth. It reminded me of the scary fish on Finding Nemo...those of you who have seen it know what I mean. It's a good thing we didn't see any fish that looked like Nemo characters here or else Evelynn would have been traumatized. She loves that movie.

Evelynn on the pig at Pike Place Market.

We went to a town called Leavenworth one day. The whole town is themed after a Bavarian village and is so cute. It had lots of shops selling delicate figurines and pictures and other breakable items and I had a two year old who wanted to touch EVERYTHING.... it was stressful at times. But the town was really neat. This is the place we got Bratwursts at, and they were so yummy. I got a curry wurst which was surprisingly good. They didn't have ketchup for your wurst, just like 10 kinds of mustard and sour kraut.

Leavenworth street

In front of the ice cream shop.

This was the store that was made for Doug. It was a cheese store that had all sorts of specialty cheeses. We went in and had samples of a lot of them, exclaimed how wonderful they all were, and then left without buying anything. :) There were some excellent cheeses there though.

Kristen and Eloise

The last full day we were there we went to a water park. Evelynn tried to go off swimming like she did at the lake but without a life jacket and almost drown, but she figured it out pretty fast after that that she still sinks without help. I got to get this kid into swim lessons pronto.

Evelynn and Grandma played dress-up one afternoon. If you can't tell, she has on eye shadow, blush, lip gloss, grandma's necklace and clip on earrings. She thought she was so pretty.

I did something a tad bit rash on the vacation, which was to get my hair cut. Luckily I was sane enough to wait until after family pictures to do this, so those pictures are with my long hair. Those should be forthcoming soon, so stay tuned!