Seattle/Vancouver Vacation 1: Wenatchee with Ryan and Karen

It's here!  Finally here!  Our much anticipated trip to the mainland this summer was to Seattle and Vancouver, B.C.  Brady had a work site visit in Vancouver, and we were very excited to visit somewhere new.  We missed seeing our Utah family on this vacation, but with our flights covered for this trip, we had to jump on it.  

We took the red eye to Seattle, getting less than an hour of sleep on the way.  Those flights never get easier!  The minute we landed, I told Brady this trip was going to be hard to leave--I knew I would love the the Pacific Northwest, and I was sure to get a major island fever itch.  

We ate at iHop for Zachary, slept in the car for an hour, and then hit the road to Wenatchee to visit Ryan and Karen.  Ryan is starting a new job in Idaho Falls, and they were moving days later but told us they still wanted us to come.  That was hard to believe, but we were eager to see them.

Before our trip, we noticed that all our cherries from Costco came from Wenatchee.  As we came close to their home, we stopped at a farmer's market fruit stand, and picked up unbelievably ripe peaches, plums, apricots, and a huge bag of cherries--all for $8!!  That was a win for Washington.  We are used to waxy fruit that was shipped across the ocean a week before.  Kate is our fruit lover, and gobbled up cherry after cherry.

The kids were thrilled to see their cousins.  Zachary loves to entertain little kids, and Kate was in love with Allison and Miriam.  They played at the house, and then we went to a pirate park.  Another win for Washington: they have amazing parks.

Karen took the kids for a ride:

Kate and Allison ran around together.

That night, Ryan showed us his office, which is now his old office.  He is a speech therapist, and his office was loaded up with fun things for kids during their therapy sessions.  After the trip, Zachary ranked this in his top 3 vacation experiences.

Kate and Zachary loved the climbing wall and by the end of the night, Kate was climbing to the top alone.  We also took turns in what looked like potato sack swings.

You would think after 2 hours of sleep and a three hour time difference, we'd sleep in the next morning.  Kate and Zachary did--until after 9am, but I can't sleep in on vacation.  I'm a jack-in-the-box, and was ready to go at 5:30am.  (That early rising never stopped the entire trip, but did allow me to get the runs in before everyone woke up.)

That day, the plan was to visit Leavenworth, where our favorite stops were the Christmas shop, Hat shop, and Taffy shop.  The town was charming and the taffy was delicious.

Kate loved the hanging baskets of flowers everywhere.

I think Ryan and Brady look so similar now, especially since they own the same t-shirt.

I think I'm going to regret not buying this hat when it's Dr. Suess day at school.

This was Kate's favorite:

I promise we tried hard to get a picture with Allison looking at the camera, but that wasn't happening.

Ryan and Karen mentioned feeling intimidated trying to come up with activities people from Kauai would like, since we have the ocean, beautiful scenery, etc.  Our comment is we have nothing like this and it was very fun to play tourist in this little town.

We ate at Fresh Burger for lunch, and my chicken was spicy and delicious.  We finished ready to walk it off on a hike.

We quickly learned that Allison is a firecracker.  Our kids had an awesome time hiking, running, and holding rocks on this trail.  (Since coming home, Kate has named one of her dolls Allison, begged us to name the baby Allison, and asked why she wasn't also named Allison.)

Miriam was really, really happy to be out of her pack.

We stopped for a while at the river to throw rocks.  This was absolutely the kids' favorite part, and possibly the adults, too.

The best part was finishing up and coming back to find our car window wide open.  Yep, my purse was in the car, too.  It reminded me of doing the same thing in Spain at the Alhambra.

The next morning, we took off for Lake Chelan for a picnic lunch and some more rock throwing.  We also got introduced to Bocce ball.  Zac thought it was "the best game ever."

This is when the kids were saying, "Oh my!  Oh my!  This water is so cold.  We are going to turn into icicles!  There is no way we are getting in this water!!!"

And this is five seconds later when they both decided to go for it.

Kate napped in the shade while the boys threw more rocks.

We finished off the afternoon with a splash park less than a mile from their house.  It was 90 degrees, so the water was perfect.  I can say pretty confidently that this was the only time on our trip we were warm.

Another super park.

We came home, cleaned up and headed out for Cafe Rio.  Coming back to their place that night was the highlight of Wenatchee.  The kids danced and sang pop songs for an hour, and it was so sweet how fast they bonded and how cute they were together.

We all got dried out on our trip, and Brady and I couldn't possibly track the number of times we told our kids to "stop digging."  It's pretty cute to see Miriam go at it, though!

We left Wenatchee so grateful for the few days we had with Ryan and Karen's family!  Thanks for hosting us, especially at such a busy time for your family.