Our lovely adventure

We saw and did so much over this past week, I feel like I am already forgetting -- it went way too fast.

We were supposed to leave for the westside of the state on Thursday, but Levi had an asthma attack and the doctor gave us a no-go to travel.  It worked out better, we left early Friday morning and made a stop to walk across the Deception Pass bridge.  We typically travel at night, so our kids have never had a chance to stop and walk on it.

This is the bridge that connects the mainland to Whidbey Island. You can be jealous, this is the scenery I grew up with.

We made great time and were able to go to City Beach before meeting up with Grandma Ritter to attend Peter and the Wolf.  The kids loved it!  Seth's favorite instrument was the French Horn.

Next day we were surprised to find out that you needed to make a reservation for the ferry, so... ixnay on visiting the Capitol Building, but we compensated with slurpees and going to a favorite beach.

Went on a ferry, and the boys were incredibly excited, they were a spectacle.  They had so many questions (and were so loud) that people around us were laughing, the man next to me joked, "I wonder how many question you'll have to answer before they're twenty." We ate dinner at the Melvin's, it was fun visiting with them! -- Traveled to Astoria, OR and spent the night.

We took the scenic route the next day and traveled down the coast of Oregon.  It was so lovely!  We stopped off at a beach for lunch and just enjoyed the winding roads and watching the waves.  Lots of books on CD and Raffi, thank goodness for our library!  My boys favorites were Chicken Little, Dr. Desota, Jump frog Jump, Anansi and the Magic Stick, and This is the House that Jack Built.

The rest of our vacation we stayed in Crescent City, Ca.  My ideal living arrangement, snugly nestled between ocean and forest.  And not just any forest, but an ancient forest!  It was awesome being able to stand by something that had been around since the Crusades. 

(Merry Christmas from the Ritters!)

Raya did so well in this backpack.

I love this picture, end of a long day and our kids in tears... you think we should probably call a halt?

Nah, one more trail.

The next day we spent a couple of hours at The Trees of Mystery.  We met Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox, saw many interesting trees and rode on the Sky Trail.

Along the trail there were carvings done by a chain saw, including the story of Paul Bunyan.  The boys really liked this Mamma Bear carving.

 I was actually pretty nervous riding on this, it is a lift that takes you to the canopy of the trees.  We were so high we couldn't see the ground and it would stop every few minutes, just dangling in mid air.

At the end of the trail there was an interesting Native American museum that we browsed through before our next tourist trap.

After this we ate lunch and went on a scenic drive.  We stopped at a vista look out, and we were lucky enough to see a group of whales and an eagle, also a Park Ranger was there with extra binoculars and giving commentary.

The next day was rainy, which was fine with us -- the kids were pretty hiked out so we went to the local Ocean World.  I was feeling pretty wussy about the sky trail so I felt I needed to redeem myself and volunteered to lick the sea anemone -- my tongue was numb for almost an hour.

 Pet a shark.

Eaten by a shark.

Finished the day by eating at a popular sea food restaurant that was on a dock.  We had a great view of the sea lions playing in the rain.  

It was still cold and rainy for much of the afternoon so we opted to buy some family games and play them in our little sea side cottage for the remainder of the day.  

And there is our lovely little adventure in a nutshell... well except the 12 hour car trip back home.