First Day of School - 2019

Carolyn is in 6th (with Ms. Moore).  Lizzie is in 2nd (with Mr. Hackman).

Both are at Indian Hill.  This is the second and last year that they will be at the same school together.

The big 6th grader is on safety patrol.

Summer Vacation 2019 - the Pacific Northwest Tour

First, we flew from SLC to Spokane.  Steve visited his uncle, and we all enjoyed a hotel with a big pool.  We had fun renting scooters and exploring the riverwalk area where we saw the trash-eating goat and the giant radio flyer.  Lizzie started her brochure collection, and Carolyn said she wants to live in Spokane some day.

Next, we drove 90 minutes north, across the border into Canada, to Rossland, BC.  We visited our old neighbors, the Mammons (Brenna, Maciej, Oliver, Fella).  Their home was beautiful. They were gracious hosts.  And, they took us to some of the most beautiful lakes in Central Kootenay.  The kids had a sailing lesson from Oli and Fella. Lizzie spent a lot of time on the little yellow kayak.  Steve and I rowed a canoe across the lake. While there, we also picked a lot of berries (huckleberries and thimbelberries were our favorites) and enjoyed Brenna's homemade pies and cakes and cobblers.  Our favorite day was the all-day adventure on Slocan lake,with a hike to Nemo Falls.

From there, we had 2 nights to drive around 8 hours and no real destination in mind.  We decided to drive through highway 20, through the northern cascades and Mt Baker national forest.  The scenery was beautiful, and we stopped a few times for short hikes or viewpoints.  Night 1 we stopped in Winthrop, Washington. We were surprised at dinner with an aria sang by the dishwasher at the restaurant.  We walked around the town, which looks like it might have once been a movie set for an old western movie. 

 

Night 2 we decided to make our way over to the peninsula.  We had a hurried lunch with Steve's cousin, and then rushed over to take the ferry over to Port Townsend, Washington.  We stayed in a historic building called the Palace Hotel, which was a brothel at one point.  We had a fairly large apartment, and the girls loved roaming around the hotel into all of the shared parlors and living rooms throughout. We played board games in our room. I was pleased to find one of the best community movie theaters I have been to - the Rose Theater.  Carolyn joined me for a showing of The Maiden, a story about the all-female team to sail the Whitbread around the world race. 

Next, we headed to Forks, Washington, where we rented a house for several nights.  That was our home-base to explore the Olympic National Park. We hiked around the Hurricane Ridge area, the Hoh Rainforest, and La Push beach.  It was great to have a whole house, where we did laundry and cooked our own meals. Lizzie enjoyed her first twinkie, after she was singing a song about twinkies and did not know what it was.

From here, we drove into Seattle, where we stayed two nights.  I did not take any photos, other than the view of the space needle from our hotel room and random photos of the kids at a mural.  We walked to the Public Market (Pike Place).  We spent a lot of time in the parks and museums close to our hotel.  One evening, Steve and I enjoyed cocktails and Vietnamese food, while the kids chose to eat Top Ramen and watch a movie in our hotel room.  

We woke up early on Sunday to board the Amtrak train, for a slow and scenic ride from Seattle to San Francisco.  It took about 24 hours.  Lizzie says this was the favorite part of her trip, and that she wants to take her family on a train some day!  It was fun, but perhaps not an adventure that we will repeat.  Amtrak is less-than-efficient, but the sleeper car was pretty novel.  The meals in the dining room, the commentary from the park ranger in the observation car, and the snacks in the lounge car were other highlights of this part of our trip.

And, finally, we spent 3 nights in San Francisco.  We saw Jessica and Kristin.  We walked a lot.  We ate dim sum.  We enjoyed our tour of Alcatraz.  And, then we spent a whole day riding bikes across the bridge and into Marin Country.  Carolyn says she never wants to live in a city this big because she thought it was dirty.  

What a trip!