Picture I Don't Have

I'm all sorts of annoyed because when I want to blog some family fun, I can't. We had a couple fun filled days over in Seattle at Kyle and Heidi's house and I left my camera there! Who does that?!! What's most annoying about the whole thing is that when I get it back on Thursday.... I wont have internet access because we're going camping this weekend. Grrr, this does not make me happy.

Anyway, I don't want to forget what we did so here's what I would show you and eventually will when I get that dang memory card back. Picture this....

**A trip to Jetty Island Friday afternoon. We caught a 3 minute ferry (that was free) to a man made island in the Puget Sound. We had so much fun playing in real beach sand (Reed ate at least 4 mouthfuls of sand), fighting off disgusting seaweed, playing with drift wood, watching the kids taste salt water for the first time, running to catch the return ferry ride, people watching and leaving 4 people behind waiting standby for the next boat. We made it back home and ate a delicious homemade Cafe Rio dinner, thanks Heidi!

**Pacific Science Center. 6 acres of fun, interactive exhibits of all kinds. Dinosaurs, tide pools, kid play area, space, butterflies, Animal grossology (so gross and so funny), TV/radio station setups, large chess set, cranes, no way can I list them all. More about a few of them below and if I could, photos to go with them, grrr. My favorite quote from Kathryn (in her most excited voice), 'I had no idea science could be so fun!' It was definitely worth it the crowds and traffic.

**We took the kids to an Imax movie for the first time. It was Under the Sea and showed all sorts of sea life in 3D which was amazing. Reed kept his glasses on the whole time and occasionally would reach out to grab the animals, fish or bubbles that would float towards us, it was so adorable! It wasn't until more than half way through the movie that they started to hit you with what we are doing to our earth and all we are killing. I know everything has an agenda (even me with some things) but why can't we just enjoy a movie about sea life with amazing photography and the beauty of the animals and their surroundings without the barage of negative info? Maybe I'm just not political enough (I know I'm not) but it would have been nice to not have the lecture thrown in. Of course the adults were the only ones to 'get it' so it shouldn't bug me but it did. Kat caught on though and was really sad for the sea lions. It was cute. Kyle said the brain washing worked, ha. Don't judge if you like those agendas.

**I loved the butterfly house. I would show you some gorgeous photos in this post but remember, they're still in Seattle! I will next week. I'm still not over the fact I don't have a camera, can you tell?

**The science center had the best skinny mirror ever! I didn't ever want to leave it. I looked at least 5'9" (maybe taller) with the slimmest legs, no stomach and fabulous looking arms and butt. Seriously, it took away all the bumps and lumps one can't stand to look at. How did that mirror know exactly what I hope to look like in the next life? Kyle made fun of me for taking a photo. It's super blurry but I'll take it because in this life I'll never be that tall and probably not that skinny. Oh yeah, I'm posting it.

**Animal Grossology. I ripped this from the internet and it pretty much explains the exhibit and much of it's content. Notice what the bird is doing? Let's just say we learned quite a bit about animals, their diets and their 'other' habits. I was laughing like a little kid reading about all sorts of poo. So gross, funny and informative at the same time, ha.

**Walking around Seattle Center and lots of photos of the Space Needle. Seattle is so gorgeous! But when it's hot, it's HOT. It was over 90 degrees on Saturday and while that doesn't sound too hot, with the humidity, trust me it was. We ate snow cones and watched people go crazy at their fountain park and had some very, very tired kids as we walked back to the car. Dane was begging and bartering for a shoulder or piggyback ride because his legs didn't work. He is one difficult kid when his legs don't work. Just before we got back to the van, Dane asked he could take a nap after he buckled his seat belt. You better believe I said yes!

**Kat and kids passed out from fun. I have some of the funniest pictures of Kathryn falling asleep in the car. Of course she did it when she was little and I guess that's the funniest part, she still lays the exact same way and she's almost 9. The girl hasn't figured out how to sleep in a car. At first, she bobs her head like crazy, then flops it backwards and sleeps with her mouth wide, wide open. We didn't even make it to the freeway (sure we got a little lost from not being in the right lane) before she was fighting her eyelids. We didn't make it to the van before Reed fell asleep in the stroller and before we were down the street Dane was out. In fact, that's why my camera is still in Seattle. I took it back in the house even when I knew I wouldn't need it because I was going to show them the funny photos of Kathryn. I guess that's what I get for teasing about her car sleeping habits!

**Dinner out with Kyle and Heidi. I'm pretty sure we wiped my mom out too because right away she offered to watch all the kids so the four of us could go out to dinner. We took her up on it and headed to Outback.

It was a great, fun packed day and a half. I've been wanting to do something, anything this summer with the kids. A bit of cabin fever if you will with all of us in our house. We talked about a few different options but ulitmately talked ourselved out of it because we both knew spending $$ on vacations or getaways just wasn't/isn't practical in our situation. We make it just fine but the extras don't get to be factored in right now. So we came up with Plan B and thanks to loving family, it worked. Our perfect solution is to bombard family, pack their house with our family of 6, raise the noise level to extra loud, clutter up the place our stuff, stay the night, eat their food (which I still feel bad about) and head home in time for church the next day. Not many take us up on that offer, ha! I know it doesn't have to be a week long deal or huge production to build memories or make the kids happy so I'm glad we took the couple days to have fun with them. It was worth it.

Thanks for taking us in guys, we loved it!