During the summer months our more popular tourist attractions see a glut of outsiders.  Those that carry umbrellas and cross against the lights.  During the winter months things are quiet and they let us enjoy our rain in peace.  Then there are years like this year where Mother Nature dumps a bunch of snow on top of us and we have no clue what to do with it.  Hell… the city of Seattle only owns 23 snow plows, and city workers in Olympia don’t know that the blade of the plow actually goes on the ground, not on top of the snow.

We said a little prayer that the snow would melt enough for us to make it up north so we could spend a few days sleeping on a futon that was too short for the trusty husband and me sneezing my brains out.  Turns out we were lucky and every road was clear from our house to the bustling town of LaConner, WA.  You’ll recall that we spent part of our spring break there as well.  It’s just that we don’t have tons of money (*cough* new stove) to spend on a fancy bona fide vacation so we go stay with friends.

Despite the fact that Sam and Cari had to work while we were there we had a great time.  We took the Wii and that provided hours of entertainment and got us away from the usual cards and drinking.  My liver thanked me.

We had a lovely meal in Monday night and were left to our own devices most of Tuesday.  We took the opportunity to visit a local art store that has the best prices on canvas and then drove further north for lunch.  I would have to say we are some of the only people I know who would drive an additional 30 minutes north just for a bagel sandwich.  It was worth it.  It was even better to take the boy to his first Bagelry experience.  He wasn’t overly impressed, but I had a grand ol’ nostalgic time.  On the way back to La Conner we took the scenic route down Chuckanut drive.  The most beautiful road in Washington State if you ask me.

The vacation was going quite well until Tuesday night while playing a rousing game of Wii tennis.  BLAM.  No power.  Lemme just say that it is mighty dark out in the boonies.  I don’t mind power outages that much, but this one was the result of a fairly major wind storm.  When you are in an area with giant trees and strong winds it is a bit scary.  The wind finally died down and the power came back on around 1:30 and I finally got some sleep, even if it was with both of my arms being numb from my back hurting.

Despite the power outage the vacation was lovely.  We had a nice visit with friends.  I couldn’t ask for more.

I want to wish all of you a Happy New Year.  I am working on the direction of this blog and posting will continue to be light for a while.  January is a tough month for me and I’m trying to keep my thin grip on sanity.  That means more Lincoln Logs and less stat counters.

Since money is tight around Chez Elle we can’t get out to do fun and fantastic vacations like we would really like  (which would include a trip to some tropical beach or a country where they don’t speak English).  And since United Airlines stole all of my miles I can’t pack up and take a solo anywhere.  I’m still bitter about that, but what can I do at this point?  Not much.  So we folded ourselves into our most fuel efficient vehicle (the bug) and drove to the booming town of La Center, WA.  Consequently, this is where one of the trusty sister-in-laws lives.

La Center is one of those cities that earns it’s city revenue from speeding tickets and doesn’t have a grocery store, but does have 3 tribal casinos.  Cute place, but I wouldn’t want to live there.  However, La Center is about 20 miles north of Portland, OR.  Handy.

We spent our Saturday at the Portland Zoo.  I love this zoo.  It’s big, lots of animals, and an all around fun time.  We packed our lunch, but with the heat my bread free lettuce wrap was a little nasty.  From the zoo we went down the hill to the International Rose Test Garden.  Portland is known as the Rose City for a reason.  The roses were simply beautiful.  If it weren’t in the 90s I could have stayed there all day and used up all 1400 available shots on my camera.

From the test garded we drove to the Pearl district to find refreshments at Peet’s Coffee and then on to REI so I could get a new water bottle.  I was hopin for a metal one, but since SIGG is suffering a shortage of stock I was out of luck.  They had a few, but none I was in love with.  If I’m going to pay $21.95 for a water bottle I sure as hell am going to buy one that I love.  So I ended up with a new BPA free Nalgene in Lime.  Now that I love.

After the Pearl we headed to the Cinetopia in Vancouver to see Wall-E.  OMG this is just about the cutest movie of all time.  We had a slight moment when the boy thought the seat was going to fold up on him so he spent the whole time on his dad’s lap, but other than that and 40 pounds of popcorn he was fine.  Go see this movie.

Saturday was a bit much for the three year old.  Tons of stuff, no real nap and a food schedule that was all kinds of screwed up.  The air conditioner turned off in the condo and at 1:20 in the morning the child fell out of the bed.  Didn’t help that the bed he was sleeping on was about 3 feet off the ground.  It ended up being a good thing because it woke G up too and she turned on the AC.

Sunday we went to the even bigger (read one building makes up this town) of Yacolt.  There we stopped for snacks at the Trading Post and hopped on the Chelatchie Prairie Railroad.  This is a 10 mile ride along the Lewis River through the forest and through a 300′ rock tunnel.  A fun ride, but the boy rode most of it with his ears covered.  He was so afraid of the train whistle.  I thought this child would be giddy to ride such a big train after the major meltdowns we had in Sacramento at the train museum.  He said he liked it, but his favorite part was on the way back we stopped at a trail that went down to Moulten Falls.  The rocks by the falls were such that you could go down to the water and wade in the river.  Ice cold, but at 95 degrees outside… it felt good.  This was the first time the boy has ever waded in a river.  He loved it.  I loved it and we have lots of video.  (I’ll show you later)  We will be making plans for a camping trip to a river shortly.  In the end a good time was had by all.

We got home around 6:30 Sunday night and we were all so exhausted from all of the fun.  I think we fell asleep the second our heads hit the pillow despite it being 81 inside of our house.  Now we have to get back into the groove for 2 weeks before our really big super spectacular vacation at the end of July.  Now that’s going to wear me out.

This week is full of fun and frivolity.  Monday I had an acupuncture appointment, drove to Parkland to go pee*, worked and came home to prepare dinner for Tricia, Michael and Rita.  Tuesday the boy and I accompanied the Kenny family to Mt. Rainier.  I love that they wanted to do something besides the usual Seattle stuff.  Not that Seattle isn’t fun and we won’t be doing that later in the week, but there is so much more to see in Washington besides Pike Place Market.

After a struggle trying to figure out how to hook a car seat into the rental car (thank you Michael for driving… I would have lost my shit along those roads before we even made it to the park) we were on our way.  We thought we were smart and would stop early at the Copper Creek Inn for lunch.  Sadly they weren’t open until 11:30 and it was only 11.  We were hungry so we continued on.  Eventually we made it to Longmire for lunch (also too early).  Lunch was mostly mediocre.  Certainly not worthy of the $14.75 I paid for my Cobb Salad (that had tomatoes on it so I might die of ebola or something by the end of the week).

The plan was to continue up the “hill” to Paradise to do some “hiking,” but when we arrived there was still 12′ of snow on the ground.  We had a small boy in shorts, a lady in flip-flops and a little girl with a nasty cough so we did a National Lampoon’s moment and said, “oooo, look at the snow” and continued on down.  My child was all too disappointed that he didn’t get to play in the snow.  I was all for throwing him into a snow bank, but thought better of it.  I don’t want to cost the trusty husband any more in therapy than I already have.

On the way up to Paradise we stopped out a viewpoint to admire the vista and snap a few photos.

(There is a photo of Tricia and I, but I’ll post it tomorrow.)  Right after I took this shot

we tried to get the kids to stand together so we could take a photo.  Rita thought it would be a good idea for the boy to sit on the little rock wall and proceeded to “assist” him onto the wall.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen two women move so fast in their lives.  That girl is strong and the boy weighs nothing.  And on the other side of that wall… oh, a 300′ drop straight down.  Honestly!  Who puts a 2′ ledge between people and a sheer cliff?  Poor Rita was so confused as to what all of the fuss was about.  Needless to say we didn’t stay long at the Viewpoint.

We did stop at a waterfall on the way down.  That was only slightly less scary.

We finished off our afternoon walking along a little trail at Longmire.  Perfect length for two kids, easy to do in flip-flops and full of history and wildlife.

This has been a nice mini-vacation for me and the boy.  I’m so inspired by yesterday’s adventures that I hope to keep up the activity level.  So if you don’t hear from me for a few days, well, I’ve either died of ebola or we’re out having fun.

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*I’ll tell that story another day.

I thought I’d have a few more delurkers. I’ll forgive you. It was the weekend and spring break and I’ve been a little boring. Really. It’s ok.

Our vacation was fantastic but a little short. Short as in time wise, but also in the bed we slept in. We’re broke so we stayed with some friends and their guest bed is a futon. Futon+6′4″ husband=cranky. Sadly, the futon was the only thing the entire weekend I didn’t take a photo of.

The weekend started with a lovely lunch with Suzanne and the kids. Her children joined us too. We were treated to home made bread, wonderful soups and delicious mac and cheese. The children toured us around the house and took us to see all their animals. Dandy and Chickadee tried to teach the boy to jump off of a giant spool, but my child was having no part of that. He did succeed in rolling around in dirt and goat poop. This was not the last of the animal feces my child would roll about in.

From there we drove south to Sam and Cari’s. They live in a great house on 5 acres out in the Farkleberries. Complete with cat, fish, giant dog that looks like a sheep and a horse. We spent our first evening doing what we always do with Sam and Cari. Drinking and playing cards. This is the couple that we would invent random drinking games with. (consequently, I don’t recommend drinking Uno unless everyone is drinking the same drink. reverse can be a little hazardous.) We added taking stupid photos of each other to the festivities.

Cari had a conference to attend all day Saturday so she abandoned me with a bunch of boys the entire day. We drove around in Sam’s giant truck mowing down up river Skagit county folk. (if by mowing down you mean going to Best Buy and eating Teriyaki then yeah… that)

We did do our “country” duty and visited a farm. The trusty husband had read about this farm and figured since we were within spitting distance we should check it out.

Thus we ventured into the farmland to visit Skagit River Ranch. We browsed through the farm store, bought beef and eggs, pet the dog and had a nice chat with the lady inside. Since we brought along the token child she asked the guy in the egg room if he had any baby chicks. No, but he did have a baby goat. Close enough.

I took the child to the potty for the second time and come out to find myself abandoned in the Toolies on a farm. Come to find out the guy from the egg room is George the owner. He took the trusty husband and Sam back to the garage to get the goat. Out come my husband and Sam carrying a 6 week old goat. And to think I didn’t get a photo of that either.

We pet the goat, talked to George and the boy rolled around in some more animal feces. Good time was had by all. Although my truck still smells like chicken shit.

Since we went all the way to Skagit County to see flowers we did the token daffodil field photos. Tulips aren’t blooming yet so we might take a trip in a few weeks when they start.

We spent Saturday night again drinking and playing more cards and taking more stupid photos of each other. Oddly, the majority of the stupid photos are of me.

Sunday found us packing up a little early and stopping by the outlet mall. I slobbered over some handbags and bought the child a few things.

All in all it was a great weekend. Not exactly relaxing, but fun. There were too many photos to link so here they all are in a slide show.