Washington Trip - Part II

The kids and I were getting a bit restless around Quincy, so we set out for an Adventure.  We made a quick stop on the way to our Adventure to inspect a metal triceratops in Wenatchee.

Oh hey, yeah, your head DOES fit in there!

Second stop on our Adventure was the Chelan County Museum in Cashmere.  We had to eat some lunch first, and were very grateful for the nice warm day!

The cashier gave the kids a print out of things to look for and circle in the museum.  They took their job far more serious than I thought they would!

While I despise the word History, I really really enjoy visiting set-up towns like these--seeing all of the equipment they use, imagining how the people lived out their days...it fascinates me.  The kids liked meandering the inside of the museum more than this village though, so we didn't stay long.

"Mom wook!!  It's Chicka Chicka Bang Bang!! (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang)"

"I'm gonna beat you Sam!" 
"No you're not!" as he flipped the board upside down, sending the pieces flying...sigh.

Although born and raised in Quincy, I had never in fact actually been to take a tour at Aplets & Cotlets.  Figuring the kids love watching How It's Made on Netflix, I thought they'd get a kick out of seeing a fully-functioning factory in front of their eyes.  And one that made candy no less!!

While it was a short tour, I was right, they LOVED it.

While we were hanging out at Grammie's one day, Brooklyn told me she wanted to learn to play the piano.  Luckily, my mom still has any and all of the music that we used to learn with, including the VERY basic stuff.  After a few minutes of instruction here and there, Brooklyn blew through the first 15 pages of the beginner book!  Then she decided she'd had enough and didn't touch it again the entire time we were there, ha!

 

Russ's aunt Joy Ann came over from the west side for her Spring Break (she's a teacher).  Boy did the kids love her!!  She read and talked to them and snuggled and played.  It was a lot of fun having her around.

We had Sam's "first" 4th Birthday Party.  He asked for it the night before, "and can I have a cake wike Brookwyn's??"  Due to lack of time, all of his gifts came from Ace Hardware.  Ha!  But truly, what more could a 4 year old boy ask for??  Flashlight, rubber mallet, adjustable crescent wrench with different sized nuts and bolts...it was a good birthday.

On another Adventure day we went to the Ginkgo Petrified Forest Museum (it was closed) and saw the petroglyphs that I remember seeing when I went on a field trip waaaaay back when.  Then we went to a tourist shop to look around.  Then we made our way out into the literal middle of nowhere to the Wild Horse Wind Farm Interpretive Center (or something like that) where they had not only an AMAZING view of the valley, but lots of interesting things relating to wind power and a very beautiful building. 

Here's Sam, helping to "point out" some of the decor...sorry, I couldn't resist, lol.

Verna said she wants Russ to try and build this out of our blocks--it's the middle of the huge room in the interpretive center.

This is one of the blades that goes on the wind turbines--they are HUGE.

This is the end of the wind turbine arm--the part that connects to the body of the turbine.  See?  HUGE!

After we were done there, we capped the day of Adventure off with a hike up to see the metal horses at Vantage--the kids had been begging to do it since we got into town!  

Finally, towards the end of our trip, almost all of my siblings arrived back into town--Shelan from college, Dene', Kenny and Jackson from Tri-Cities, and Chris and Audrey from New York.  Even though it was only for a couple of days, it was SO much fun!!  Lots of trampoline jumping, golfing, cooking, eating...it was good.

Oh, and I had forgotten to snap a photo of how our LOVE! photos that we gave my parents for Christmas turned out.  I found the idea on Pinterest.

I loved hanging out with my little buddy, Jackson!!  Please excuse the whipped cream face...

Brook and Sam enjoyed having him around as well.

Gah, I miss those days sometimes!

Brave Uncle Chris challenged the feisty Brooklyn to a round of boxing...can you guess who KOed first??

My loves.

Our trip to Washington came to a close--it was great to see everyone, but we were eager to be in our own beds and see Russ again! 

We started our drive at 5am and stayed at a place in Medford, OR for the night.  I thought it would be awesome...it was okay.  It was worth it to see the smiles and hear the giggles that the kids (okay, and Lanny too...) got from the pool. 

We finished off the day with sushi for dinner, some Myth Busters, and lights out by 7:45pm.  Zzzzz...