3 Kids and a Rainbow: The Glorious Pacific Northwest

(Skipping over the obligatory 'my it's been a while' comments...)

So we took a great trip out to Portland and Seattle. We were gone from July 19-29. Stayed with Ellen in Portland and Scott and Melissa in Seattle. It was a fantastic trip. We loved every moment of it. Prepare for many photos.

First of all, it was the first plane trip we took where we purchased 5 seats. We strapped Frederick's car seat it on the plane, and it was so worth it. All 3 kids were great on the plane.

As soon as we got our rental car, we headed down to Portland to visit Ellen and her family. The kids got along great with Gretchen and Graham. Here they are eating breakfast under Ellen and Don's arbor on our first morning.

Ellen took us on a hike around Reed Canyon, behind the college.

Here's where I made Ellen point to her office. :)

Our next stop was to head into town (downtown? Uptown? I don't know what the Portlandians call it.) for lunch at Deschutes Brewery and a mandatory visit to Powell's bookstore.

That night, Sarah, Orion and Archer came over to Ellen's for some pizza. It was fun to see them! Next time we can visit their new house. Before they came over, we spent some nice time just hanging out on the porch and watching the kids play in the yard.

The next morning we went for breakfast at everyone's favorite Portland spot. It was delicious food, as always.

After that we went to the OMSI (pronounced Ahmzee by the locals) which was an awesome Science and Industry museum.

Frederick and I visited the children's room early, because he was not a fan of the realistic animatronic dinosaurs downstairs. The children's room alone was worth the price of admission (which was actually free for us, since Ellen renewed her membership. Thanks Ellen!!)

We spent several hours at the museum. The entire place, though not geared specifically towards kids, was very hands-on and kid friendly. Here Ellen and I tried to create water towers out of Legos. Our goal was to make them strong enough to withstand the 'earthquake' produced when you pressed a button. We did pretty well.

On a recommendation from a work friend, we went for ice cream at Salt and Straw. I'm so glad we did, too! Might have been the best ice cream I've ever had. Here, Frederick enjoys some vanilla while I munch on goat cheese, marionberry, habanero. Sounds weird, but it was SO good. We liked it so much we came home with a t-shirt and a new mug.

That night we had a chance to visit Barb and Larry's new house in Portland. I like Frederick's photobomb here, but don't let him distract you from the loveliness of their new home! It was nice to see more of our Iowa City friends!

The next morning I'm not sure what we did....had breakfast at Ellen's....Oh! I know, Pete and I took the boys back to Toast to have lunch with an old friend of Pete's. Clara stayed with Gretchen and Graham and played. Later that afternoon we went to the zoo, which was very woodsy and pretty.

I took this picture of a store window on the way home, because it seemed so quintessentially Portlandish to me. Keep Portland weird.

That night we dressed up a bit and went out for dinner. Don was back from working a music festival, so he was able to join us. It was nice to spend time with the whole family, even though we had worn Graham out a little too much at the zoo.

We actually spent one more night at Ellen's house than we had planned, because we were having such a nice time, and she seemed okay with having us. Here are all the kids before we left on our last morning.

And Ellen and I, trying to get a nice shot.

And our gracious, lovely, amazing people hosts.

Upon leaving Portland, we drove up to try to see Mt. St. Helens. I say try, because that day held the only crummy weather of our trip, and this was our view:

We decided to soldier on and hope for the best. We ran through the rain to get into this little spot to eat. Pete thought it was pricey, but the food was decent and the spot was lovely.

After stopping at the next couple learning centers (the kids became jr. rangers again at the first stop) we got to the final learning center, where, after watching the movie and trying not to feel sad that we couldn't see a darn thing, the clouds started to break and the mountain started to slowly reveal herself to us...

It was beautiful and powerful and majestic and all of that. The clouds only stayed away about 20 minutes. We were so lucky to be there at exactly the right time.

Our stop that night was the only hotel of the trip. We stayed at a McMenamins hotel in Centralia. It was a pretty cool place. If you want to read more about it, you can check it out with this link: Olympic Club.

There were small, European style rooms (only a shared toilet/bath in the hall) so the kids ended up with their own room! They were thrilled, and did just fine. Frederick stayed with us, of course.

Here we are outside the Olympic Club door, which states that women are not welcome and minors are not allowed. We're total rebels.

From there we drove up to Seattle to stay with Scott and Melissa. We headed out to the market first thing.

Even with the crummy weather, and it being the middle of the week, the place was pretty crowded. The kids enjoyed seeing the fish being thrown.

I liked all the lovely flowers.

Here's a view of the very first Starbucks. The line went out the door and down the block. I wish I had gotten a picture of the original version of the logo. You might Google it up, it's interesting to see how it's become cleaned up and thinned.

We had a nice dinner of grilled fish at home that night. Scott and Pete had a hilarious conversation about kale being "hipster lettuce" which Scott may or may not have taken offense to.

Next morning (can you tell I lost track of the days?) we drove up to a ferry that took us to Whidbey Island.

The kids really enjoyed the short ferry ride.

We spent a little time at this cute small town on the island. Watched a glass blower, visited a couple cute shops and had some lunch.

Then we drove to a different part of the island and hiked down to a great beach. The kids played and played. The grown-ups drank beers, played with the kids, and napped. It was glorious.

For those of you that may not know or remember, Henry and Chloe were due exactly one week apart, but born exactly one month apart, Chloe being a month older than Henry. They got along great.