Tue Aug 9 - Sat Aug 13: This was our longest stop of the trip. We stayed with Eric's sister Erin and her family in Fall City, Washington (about an hour inland of Seattle). It was a beautiful area...and his sister was a wonderful tour guide and took us to many interesting places. I took over 100 pictures in just these few days. Eric's sister probably took 1000 -- I wish I had her eye, her camera & her patience but I don't. So you'll have to put up with my photos. My pictures may not be fine art but they are telling a story, nothing more, nothing less. I have to add that my kids were in heaven. Even if we had only sat around they house, they were just happy to finally all have cousins their age (or close to it) to play with. From dawn to well past dusk they were off on one adventure or another.
Wednesday we went to Rattlesnake Lake to have a picnic. It was a beautiful and remote area. They even had a hill or peak on the far side called Rattlesnake Ridge. My kids thought that was so cool because their old Elementary School in Arizona was called Rattlesnake Ridge.
The kids just loved skipping rocks (or in most cases just throwing rocks) into the water
It was no small miracle that we made it out of there without anyone getting wet.
As you can see by the jackets, it was a bit chilly.
My 4 kiddos.
We took a nice walk halfway around the lake on a trail that used to be a highway.
Craziest story: there used to be a town where the lake now is.
They built a dam farther upstream and it raised the water table so much
that water started seeping up out of the ground and flooded the town.
This was over 100 years ago. Weird, huh?
A small little waterfall that we saw as we hiked around the lake.
My niece Shalene generously posing for me. Thanks Sha!
The next day, Thursday, we saw some more local sights (these were all about 10 minutes from where Erin lived). We saw the sights of the Snoqualmie and North Bend area.
Snoqualmie Falls was breathtaking.
And even from our distance you were getting wet from the mist/spray off the falls.
The 4 boys: Mason, Kyle, Braedon and Colby
Eric loves trains. He was in heaven as we walked around and saw this old train graveyard.
A few of them were restored, but most were in original condition.
He took dozens of pictures which I will not share here. (You're welcome!)
This was the train depot. It was cool -- it had some fun stuff inside & neat history --
but mostly I just remember the meltdown Renae was having.
She had to be grounded to a bench outside (lovely Victorian era bench).
Friday we made the trip into the city of Seattle. It was a really pretty, clean and relatively uncrowded city. I liked it. What I didn't like is that it cost $10-$20 to park everywhere we went. Horrid! We debated about what to do: ferry rides, aquarium, Duck Tours, etc but finally decided on just doing free stuff and wandering the city. Thankfully we had Erin & Nathan as our guides.
Pike Place Market...so much to see. But hard to get through with 9 kids.
The famous fish stall where they throw fish --
yes, we were classic tourists and stood around until we say them throw some fish.
Then, just by chance, we saw this ship docked just 1/2 a block from where we were parked.
Most of the gang went off to explore it.
Sadly, I stayed in the car with Renae and Sadie who didn't want to go.
They met Jack Sparrow
They actually let them board the ship and explore it.
It was a Russian ship that was just about to head out to sea.
Miracle of Miracles -- Eric's sister had FREE tickets for all of us to go up the Space Needle.
It was a L-O-N-G line....but we all thought it was a neat experience and worth the wait.
Here is Eric's amazing photographer sister -- with camera in hand, of course.
Look at that view!
When we got back from Seattle the kids needed to unwind. It was finally a warm and sunny day (the first we had seen in Fall City) so we got out the mega-ultra-extreme slip 'n slide. This thing was so awesome. The kids had a blast. When just regular sliding got boring they added soap, tricks & tandem sliding. It was so fun to watch too.
Neither of my pictures really capture how long it is. But it was long.
Other memorable things we did in Fall City that are not pictured: card making (Erin you are my card making idol), late night movies & chatting, eating nachos and pizza (my kids love to brag that they had pizza for 5 days straight -- which may or may not be true), going out on an adults only date night to dinner & the Lego Store (did you know there was a science to filling your Lego bucket??), and just watching cousins play. I'm sad that I didn't get a good cousins picture. What was I thinking? Erin, I'm sure you can hook me up.
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