family vacation

For the Memorial Day weekend we went on a little family vacation. For several years, my parents have traveled to Bremerton, WA to celebrate my Grandma Lola Cummings' birthday and also my Grandma and Grandpa Cummings' anniversary. Over the years we've gone with them. And since Grandma was very sick and in the hospital during her birthday we didn't get over there last year, so we really wanted to go this year. We also decided to make it a weekend trip. This was one of our first family vacations where it was just our little family and my goodness were we excited to share with the kids what we had planned!

Friday after Allen got off work and dinner was cleaned up and the car packed up, we drove the 3 hours to my parents' house. We stayed the night there and then headed out early Saturday morning to Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma. I remember going to this zoo when I was a kid and also for a field trip in high school. It has changed a lot! The kids loved every minute of it. Tigers, elephants, sharks, penguins, walrus, camel rides, seals, polar bears, and so much more. We happened to be passing by the bird habitat when they were doing the feeding. You could go in and buy a stick with bird feed on it and then you went in and tried to get a bird to stand on your stick and they ate the seed on the stick. The kids LOVED it. There was also a kid zone that we saved for the end that was pretty much a zoo playground just for kids. It was a beautiful day for the zoo. Sunny and warm. 

After the zoo we trekked back to our car--it was very busy that day--and headed over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge to Port Orchard and our hotel. We got all checked in and then we surprised the kids with a night swim. They couldn't believe that the hotel had an indoor pool! We were the only ones at the pool, so it was great fun. Isaac was a little scared of the echoing of the indoor pool and the screaming and laughing from his siblings, but he finally calmed down and loved splashing and watching the kids jump in the pool again and again.

After getting ready for bed we popped popcorn and had a movie night in our hotel room. How To Train Your Dragon was a big hit. Although we all fell asleep before the end of the movie! 

Sunday morning after breakfast we drove over to Bremerton to Illahee State Park. Again this is a place that I visited several times with my family as a kid. It was so fun being there with my own kids again. We went down to the water first and the kids loved picking up shells and throwing rocks and sticks into the water. They pretended the big trees on the beach were ships that had been shipwrecked. We headed back to the hotel for lunch and to get ready for church. I had packed a cooler of food and also a bag of dry food (we called it "the pantry") for snacks and lunches. Saved us a lot of money. After church we came back to the hotel and then met my parents at my Aunt Diana's house in Port Orchard. They had traveled up from Oregon from my nephews wedding. We had some time before Grandma's birthday dinner so we went to a park and let the kids play. I don't have any pictures from that park because I used the video camera instead. Sorry. :) But my dad took pictures of the park and also at the dinner so I will post some of those when sends them to me.

Update since I started this post last night...

Meghan was giving us a good beat on the drums and she turned and my Dad captured the perfect moment.

This has to be the best thing to do at a park ever. The red part spins around. The kids, and even grandpa loved it!

After the park we met all the family at The Pancake House in Bremerton for some yummy food. My mom's sister and her two daughters and their families were there and it was fun to see everyone and chat. Meghan made quick friends with the other 4 year old in the family. :)

This is my Grandma Lola. 4 Generations. Happy 93rd Birthday!

And of course a picture of our Lola with her Great-Grandma Lola.

Monday morning we packed up our stuff and checked out of the hotel after breakfast. We met my parents at my Aunts house and then we went over to Bremerton to the boardwalk at the Naval shipyard. This is another place I remember visiting as a kid a lot. We didn't have time to tour the USS Turner Joy before we had to get on the ferry, but the kids loved just seeing them and walking along the marina. It was neat to be there on Memorial Day. We saw lots of veterans walking around with their families. And driving through Port Orchard and Bremerton there were flags lining the streets and little flags by the headstones at the memorial cemetery there.

Dylan was having a hard time figuring out the ferry ride though. "Mom, how are we going to get the car after we get off the ferry? Do we have to come back for it?" He was thrilled to hear that we got to drive the car onto the ferry! The kids loved the ferry ride. It was pretty windy, so they were having a lot of fun trying to walk around.

We traveled back to Ephrata and we had the afternoon to spend there at my parent's house. The four-wheelers were quickly found and ridden most of the time. Isaac was still a little nervous to ride them, but he did much better and seemed to enjoy them this time. I did some yard work with my mom. It was nice to hang out and relax before our last leg of the journey home that night.

Our family vacation was wonderful. We are so glad that we were able to go and have some fun family time together. I think Allen and I were more excited than the kids were before we left because we knew how much they'd love everything that we did and how much fun they would have. And we knew they did have fun because of the things that they would tell us along the way...

"This is the best vacation ever!"

"We're going to the zoo!"

"I can't wait to see Great-Grandma Lola"

"There is a pool INSIDE the hotel!?"

"This is so fun!"

"Mom, I'm going to miss this vacation."

         Me too.