400 Miles in 24 Hours

Not only do I haul 5 1/2 kids to the grocery store and other crazy places all by myself, I take them on 400 mile road trips in 24 hours. 

Our first destination was The Museum of Flight:

We saw some airplanes...

...and more airplanes...

...and MORE airplanes.

We played in the kids area where we sat in an airplane...

...and pretended we were famous...

...and spaced out.

I think if I were ever to take the kids to the Museum of Flight again, I would go by myself, read everything, and then answer their questions as we walk through.  I just don't know enough about airplanes and space craft to read the information before the kids are off looking at the next display.  The kids expected to sit through a class where someone boring talked to them the whole time, so they were thrilled with looking and looking...but I don't think they learned anything new.

Our second destination was our Old Town where we visited older sister A and her fish and dogs:

And two families that we absolutely love and can never ever forget even though we live so far away from each other:

IJ and his buddy from the toddler years!

These two haven't seen each other for almost three years, but they picked right up where they left off, much like their mothers do!  We (my 5 kids and their 8 kids) played at their house all afternoon and then headed out to our other favorite family for dinner and a sleepover!

More friends we've known since the toddler years!

We had such a great time!  I don't think my kids have had such a great time since....well, I just can't think of a time...  The boys disappeared as soon as we pulled in to their house and got busy trading Pokemon cards and doing who knows what else.  They stayed up until 10:00 giggling (not like girls) and us moms stayed up until 2:00 chatting!  Here is her blog post with more pics!

We just loved going back and seeing all the beautiful sights that we miss so much.  And smelling the (odorous) breeze as it passes over the freshly fertilized farmland...Although we don't live too far away, only three hours, the landscape is so different.  There, it looks like this:

Mountains and Farmland

And this:

More Mountains and Farmland

Here, we are surrounded by the Puget Sound on all sides and tall trees block the view.  It's not bad, just different.  I felt like I was back in Little House on the Prairie instead of Little House in the Big Woods...it was a little weird!  Anyway, after an awesome breakfast, the kids and I loaded back into our minivan and headed to destination three:

Visiting older sister L's barn...

...her rabbits...

...and her new chicks.

Destination four was picking up M's order for 200 baby trees to plant on our property.  That was the whole purpose for our trip!  He had to work, so I offered to pick the trees up for him...with a few other stops on the way.  Aren't I a good (and efficient) wife?

First plum blossom on Twin Firs Farm!

After sitting in crawling traffic all the way home (D napped for only 20 minutes)...our long trip was finished and we came home to clean counters, washed dishes, our chicks moved to their outside home, the smell of salt water in the air, two dogs who missed us, and a grateful Daddy/Husband.  Grateful because his debit card, checkbook, and baby trees were safely home... and us too of course!