Last Friday we made the rest of our trip back home to Boise from Yakima. We stopped at every rest stop and arrived home around 4:30pm. Before coming home we stopped to pick up Nico's race packet from Papa (Capitol Classic Children's Run), who picked it up for us on Thursday. Thanks Pa!
Friday after arriving home, Allicia offered us all food out back on the porch. She had family coming into town that night and had made a big pot of sloppy joes.
Final count on the license plate game:
Nico: 19
Guy: 10
Joanna: 9
We have 13 states unaccounted for, license plates that we didn't see on our trip.
Saturday was the Capitol Classic Children's Run. While we were on our trip, all of us caught colds. Nico caught his early on and it wasn't too bad. Guy and I caught ours later, but it didn't really hit us both until we arrived home. Saturday was the worst day for us, but we powered through the Children's Run in the morning. We dropped Nico off around 9AM at the train depot just like usual.
We drove downtown to find a parking spot and then waited for the race that started at 10AM. Nico's time was 13:29, he beat last year's time by more than a minute!
Check out this great shot from one of the race photographers
All the kiddos got free TCBY yogurt, so we stood in line for that, then we headed back home. I got into bed and didn't move for the rest of the day with a fever and body aches. Guy was a little better off, but still wasn't feeling too hot. I think him and Nico played 6 games of Pokemon that day! We had no energy to make pizza that night so we delayed it until Sunday.
Sunday Guy chose The Emperor's New Groove to watch while we ate pizza. Great movie!
Nico had been asking me for a long time to do "homeschooling" where I give him work to do during the day like he's at school. So I told him Monday we were going to start the homeschooling and he was so excited he could barely contain himself. He kept begging me to let him start working on his homework Sunday night.
Monday was back to work for Guy and back to normal life! We both were functioning pretty well by then.
There's a variety of things I had planned for homeschool. He rocked it the first day and stayed super excited. By Wednesday he was done with it and told me he wanted "to have fun this summer". Ha! Sounds good to me, so we've stopped most of it. I told him there were a few things we were going to continue doing every day (things we were already doing every day even while he was in school) like him reading out loud to me. Regarding the workbook: I told him he could just pull that out whenever he wanted to. He's already pulled it out to work on stuff. He LIKES doing the work, but he likes to have freedom to choose whether to do it or not.
Tuesday we took Evelyn with us to the library for Pokemon Club, they both had a good time. I sit right outside the room in the kids area and do work. It works out really well. They both checked out a book (they each chose a graphic novel), and then we headed home.
Tuesday night was the first Cub Scout meeting this summer. They will meet every two weeks. They talked about rocks and geology, and Nico came home with two new rocks. I think the whole theme for the summer will be geology!
On Wednesday, Allicia offered to take Nico to the dollar summer movies with them in the morning. The movie was Puss in Boots. They got popcorn. Nico loved it. Allicia said they will do it again next week.
Today we went to the Scouts shop to get his new uniform.
Nico also went to visit Merek several times this week. They are moving from their house in a few days. I'm not sure I updated here or not about the house - we re-evaluated our budget and saw that we wouldn't be able to rent the house even if she doesn't raise the rent. So we're going to look for a different place in a few months.
Looks like the only pictures I have are from the race on Saturday! How's that compared to the picture-heavy post last week? At least I have a video! Check it out - the first part is from the race and then it's what our house looks like when you come home from a trip sick and can't clean up after yourself. Ha ha.
Nico had an early release last Friday from school, his last day! He brought home binders and folders full of school stuff.
Saturday morning we packed everything up after breakfast and headed to Yakima where we stayed overnight. We stopped at almost every single rest stop, which is very beneficial for my motion sickness, and also beneficial for the license plate game we played. There are a lot of license plates at rest stops. Final report on how many different license plates we saw will come next week, since we are not quite done with our trip yet!
Guy and Nico also played travel bingo while I drove, and Nico was very content to listen to Parry Gripp on his headphones the entire way. It kept him entertained and happy!
At a View Point right before Pendleton
Playing Bingo at the View Point
We stopped in Pendleton for treats. Candy and coffee.
The license plate game.
On our way into Yakima I had set my phone with GPS to tell me how to get to the hotel. It told me to get off at the Union Gap exit which was peculiar, so we pulled over after out exit to see where it was taking us. It was taking us to the hotel, but, not the one I thought I had booked for us. The one we normally stay at is at the opposite end of Yakima. The one I booked us for was a new hotel just constructed last August, kind of out in the middle of nowhere in Yakima. It was new and modern, and it still had a pool, so we adapted!
We found a gluten free pizza place in Yakima called Abby's Legendary Pizza and we ordered a meat lovers for Nico. We also went to Miner Burger to pick up something for Guy.
Swimming in the pool
The next morning
Our view from our hotel room
Grandma Salisbury's banana bread, bacon, turkey sausage, and yogurt for breakfast. Guy had biscuits and gravy, plus a cinnamon roll and some pancakes.
We arrived in Seattle Sunday morning around 10:30 AM, where Grandma and Grandpa Russell met us at the Woodland Park Zoo!
Giraffe in the background
The Woodland Park Zoo is a lot different than Boise's, look at the size of those trees!
Grandpa is showing Nico how to take a picture with Grandpa's camera.
The small zoo theater showed short films (3-7 minutes long) about various topics.
After the zoo, we went to the playground just outside the zoo for some snacks and to wait for 3pm so we could check into our AirBnb.
Grandma brought snacks and we munched away while we watched Nico on the playground. Watermelon, strawberries, carrots, peanut butter, celery, cheese, and some macaroni salad. Perfectly refreshing.
After we checked into our AirBnb we walked down to Green Lake. Nico rode his scooter.
Green Lake has a path just like the Greenbelt in Boise, but a bit larger and with more people. The path itself surrounds a giant lake (Green Lake).
We came to the Boat House and Nico asked if we could go out onto the water in a paddle boat, so Grandma and him went out on the water. Guy and I found a nice place to sit and chat while they were out on the water.
After their hour was up, we walked over to Spuds for some Fish'n'Chips.
I took Nico down to Zoeyogurt which was just a block away and got him a frozen yogurt.
Walking back to our AirBnb.
Our AirBnb was great, but in the middle of the night at about 11PM there was a fire alarm that started making a single very loud beep every 1 minute. It was running low on batteries and Guy and I went searching for it. With Nico sleeping on the couch right in the living room where the alarm was, Guy and I started looking. And looking. You'd think it would be easy to find a fire alarm, but it turned out to be impossible. The ceiling was made of removable panels, with insulation stuffed above them. The fire alarm was nowhere in sight, so we started moving the panels around, peeking above them to try to find it, all to no avail. We moved Nico from the living room into our bed, and Guy slept on the couch, so that Nico wouldn't be disturbed by the alarm.
Snuggles the next morning (Monday). Beeeeep.
Dance Party! Beeeeep.
Nico trying to escape Grandpa's camera
Gluten free french toast!
After breakfast, we checked out of our AirBnb (Beeeeeeeeep) and drove to Archie McPhee's, a specialty gift shop in Seattle. Unfortunately, they were closed for the holiday (Memorial Day!). We had failed to account for the holiday on our trip. Oops! We decided from there to head to Mill Creek to the University Bookstore. There was a Memorial Day Parade so parking was scarce, but we found a spot at the post office (closed on holidays!) and we walked over. We caught the last part of the parade.
After visiting the University Bookstore, we went to the Central Market (in that same shopping center). Central Market is like Whole Foods... but with more! If you can imagine. They had everything we needed to stock up on before heading back to Arlington. Nico drove with the Grandparents Russell and Guy and I drove together. Once in Arlington, we decided to drive by our old house. It is painted yellow now, and being lived in!
Home sweet home.
To everyone's delight, we watched a lot of Count Arthur Strong while we were there.
A visit to Haller Park that evening. Baby Ospreys were in their nest.
Haller Park has a new snack shack whose first day open was that very day we were there. We told Nico we would come back in the next few days to play on the splash pad and maybe get something at the shack. It was too late in the day to do it then, and Nico didn't have his swimsuit. (Consequently, we heard a few days later that this new snack shack had already been broken into! Still up and running though!)
The next day (Tuesday), we laid low in the morning and then went to visit our friends Rusty and Ellen in the afternoon. It was a good visit. Upon returning home, La Hacienda was on the menu. Nico ordered Carne Asada and the Super Nachos.
BEFORE
AFTER
Reading and snuggles before bed
Wednesday was another adventure day. We drove to Everett to the Imagine Children's Museum. After getting inside I realized why they call it the Imagine Museum - it's basically a bunch of imaginary play stations where kids can do a variety of jobs and be a variety of people. Bus driver, vet, singer, airplane pilot, airplane passenger. It was amazing. And Nico couldn't get enough of it. He went from activity to activity with urgency.
He spent a lot of time at the trains. The train setup they had was huge!
Being a vet.
Taking the owl's temperature
Watching glass blowers after leaving Imagine Museum. I headed back to Arlington to get some work done while the crew went to see the Schack Art Center down the street. That's where they saw the glass blowers.
After the museum, it was time for Korean BBQ at Pyeong Chang's in Mount Vernon.
Nico learned how to use chopsticks.
Nico: I can't eat another bite!
Also Nico:
We went back to the splash pad that afternoon.
Eating breakfast this morning
This morning we drove down to Seattle to go to Archie McPhee's before heading to Yakima for the night. Grandma and Grandpa came with us in their own car. Nico got a Narwhal stuffed animal and a bottle of nuts that actually has a snake in it that pops out at you.
After Archie McPhee's we went to Bol Pho Bistro in Seattle.
"I really like these noodles, I don't know why"
From there we said goodbye to the Grandparents Russell and started our trip to Yakima. We stopped first in Issaquah to go to Boehm's Chocolate shop to get some chocolate for us and Jeff and Allicia.
Right before Yakima we stopped at a view point. Nico opted to stay in the car. It was delightfully warm, and a beautiful view!
After checking into our hotel in Yakima (we opted for the new hotel, on purpose this time!), Guy went and picked up another pizza for Nico and a Miner Burger. After dinner, he went swimming, and now we're all back in the room relaxing!
When you need a charging station but there's none over by the couch.
All these pictures and video clips was a group effort, contributed to by myself, Grandma, Grandpa, and Guy! It was an amazing week, we'll see them again when they visit in July for Nico's birthday!
I hope I didn't forget anything!! Now for the video... enjoy! (Please excuse the "Title Text Here" shot.. ha ha)
