Summer vacations

I have not updated this blog in awhile...we have been busy!! Mostly with fun stuff. We took a weekend trip up to Lopez Island in mid-August. Erik's parents took the kids up on Fri. night (I had a wedding to go to) & then Erik & I came up Sat. morning. We stayed until Tues. It was a WONDERFUL weekend to be on the island, as that is the weekend it was in the 90s here in WA. I don't know what the official temps were up there, but it was hot. Hot enough that all my kids went into the water (which is cold).:) We had a great time!!

This past week we drove down to Eagle Crest in Redmond, OR. This trip created memories, unfortunately, like our Palm Springs trip...SICK!:( We got down there on a Sat. night, & Sun. morning Kellen woke up with a fever of 103.5. This lasted for 4 days. On Monday we were on our way to the swimming pool, & Kaarin threw up in the car.:( She threw up 3 more times, but fortunately that was the end of it. Thurs. morning I woke up sick with the flu, & we decided just to head home early since no one else was sick (yet) & to just be on the safe side. Bummer!!!! I'll make a brief list of the highlights & lowlights of our trip:

Highlights:
*We got to go to a really cool petting zoo, where they had a zebra, a wallaby, pot-bellied pig, goats, alpacas, etc.!!
*Annika & daddy went in the spray park!
*We did go swimming a couple of days...
*We had really good weather
*The kids did great in the car both ways
*All 3 kids slept in the same room, & did a great job!


Lowlights:
*Kellen's fever
*Kaarin throwing up
*There were fires in the area, & the winds picked up on Thurs. & the smoke smell was REALLY strong!
*We were (attempted) scammed by 3 kids who were about 8-10 years old at McD's our first night there...they told Erik they were hungry & had no food at home & wanted him to buy them some food. Erik talked to the workers at the counter who said that was not true, & that those kids were in a lot...she finally came back & talked to them & told them to leave or she would call the police!
*We couldn't take our bikes with us -- we discovered the night before we left that our back rack doesn't work on Honda Odyssey vans...:( Turns out it didn't matter, anyway.
*We spent A LOT of time in our room watching movies.:( Again.
*We didn't get to stop in Portland on our way home to visit our friends Tom & Karin.:(
*Coming home early from vacation, that didn't really feel like vacation...:(