Mount Washington Real Quick

Saturday morning, bright and early,

Jim and I went to the Langley airport to wait for Joe to pick us up in his airplane and take us to the island for a day at Mount Washington. 

I didn't have a sunrise to sunset day this summer, and here we are - watching the sun rise from the air. 

There was fog on the rivers, 

and the prettiest light on the mountain range. It was like someone painted the layers in light blue to darker blue. 

We met up at Mount Washington.

I love this vibe - gear spread about, everyone suiting up for an adventure. 

They all went mountain biking all day, 

us three moms went hiking around Lake Helen Mckenzie. 

At this bridge a ton of whiskey jack birds came swarming at us to get fed. They have been domesticated. 

At the lake we debated getting all the way in - but a quick foot dip was refreshing enough. 

Lunch meet up, 

then we rode up the chairlift. 

For one minute we thought about climbing the mountain, but it was way more better to sit and enjoy the view from our comfy lift. 

At one point I had to look on google maps to orient myself to where I was. 

How was I just suddenly on the island? Real quick? 

Every single time I ride up the chair lift while at Silver Star, one of the Black children talk about the bra tree here at Mount Washington. And here I am, seeing it in real life! So exciting. haha

And then we hustled back. 

With the sun setting, we drove down the mountain, 

to the airport,

up and over from the island back to the city. 

The light changing again as we came in for a landing. 

It was the coolest day. 

Home by bed time. 

 

Spruce Goose

We had a four day weekend, so we hitched our wagons to the Black's vacation and drove down to Oregon.

The main objective was to see the Spruce Goose, with a side of adventuring with our buddies:

Eat giant donuts for dinner, pack all the children in the photobooth for 5$ printout, explore the hotel without parental guidance, eat free yogurt from the breakfast room, midnight McDonalds... 

So I don't totally care about airplanes, but I do love going to a museum: we all kind of scatter and wander around and look at things. I start out reading the information, but then my eyes kind of glaze over after a while. 

Some of us are stoked and others are content and others are hoping to buy stuff from the shop. 

We took turns touring the Goose. 

It is so giant! People in this world are so creative and inventive. They think of everything.

After a few hours, there is the stage of a museum when not one more thing can be read/looked at and everyone sits around, the children roll on the ground or sit on laps and start revolting. 

Which means it's time to go to the gift shop and beg for all the unnecessary merch. 

Between the airplane museum and the space museum is this playground for the kids to play on. 

Meanwhile we sat in comfy chairs and quietly looked at constellations on the wall.

By the way, Lauren and Kyle's family were also with us this whole time, but they do not appear in any of these pictures. 

We had so much fun with the addition of their family. 

Evan bonked his head on the playground and insisted he had a concussion. 

He didn't. 

OK OK we ended up getting Avery a bomber jacket. 

I'm just so excited for her to wear a warm coat. It's been years since she's done a thing like that. 

After the Spruce, we ate tacos and chimichangas and then the kids got ready to hit the airplane water park. 

That building behind us is the airplane water park, right next to the airplane museum. 

They were there for 4 hours and had so much fun. 

Jim Joe and Kyle changed into shorts, went down two slides, then changed back into street clothes. A quick big boy romp in the water park. haha

Then we all moseyed around the museum and ate the rest of Lauren's donuts (Grape Ape is maybe my favorite! or banana cream pie or mango madness) while waiting for the kids to finish. 

See that cool log cabin with a rock steeple back there? It was pretty. 

That night back at the hotel we ate pizza in the dining area, and then the kids played games in their rooms. It was the best most laid back hotel. They let us take over the place a bit. 

The next day, after big debates, we decided to go the long way home to see some more Oregon things. 

Like the Tillamook factory:

and  Cannon Beach:

Except Cannon was socked in by clouds! You can't even see Haystack Rock. 

It was also raining so we got DRENCHED - wet down to our underwear just in time for the last 5 hours of roadtrip.

But it was so fun and I don't know why hiking up slippery muddy slidey rouge trail seemed like a good idea, but you have the tiger by the tail so why not go to the top where it's roped off due to a land slide. 

We made sure not to fall down there. 

If Evan can do it in crocs, anyone can do it. 

We changed into dry clothes inside the car, wadded up the pile of wet clothes on top of my pillow (Andrew) and hit the road back home. 

**Honorable mention to Astoria! That little town is the coolest. Let's go back and hang out there some more!

We watched The Aviator the next day. 

To Orcas Island

Saturday we flew Joe's airplane to Orcas Island. 

I get very nervous about flying in a little airplane with a motor that sounds like a lawn mower. 

But they say it's safe - if the engine dies it becomes a glider! you get to glide gently down to probable death! 

But it was fine. And beautiful and fun. Lisa held my hand when it was time to land, and that was comforting and warm. 

Landing on Orcas was the most pretty. The sun was setting and the light was ambient. 

We walked to a restaurant to eat the most delicious pile of handmade pasta. 

You know what I will never do in my whole life? Fly an airplane. I will never. Even in the eternities forever and eternally forever, my soul will never get in an airplane and be in charge of flying it. 

Jim was talking on the radio to the tower or whoever is out there listening, and he was speaking another language. So much so, that I questioned, "was that you Jim just now on the radio?" it sounded kind of like him but foreign. I'm glad to have him around in the eternities if I ever need to fly somewhere.