Tuesday in Victoria!

We got up really early and took the ferry into Victoria on Tuesday. The girls were so excited to go on the boat and it was a gorgeous day. We were there all day (my dad left after lunch) and were able to:
-visit the Royal Museum, where we enjoyed the dioramas, ocean exploration room, exhibit about life in BC and (Charlotte and Mirissa only) the native peoples exhibit.
-hunt for cute tshirts and souvenirs (this took too long in Chris' opinion)
-have lunch
-visit Miniature World with all it's tiny displays of battles, storybook lands, historic places and doll houses
-visit the Empress hotel and read and nap in the garden
-finish souvenir shopping
-eat hot dogs and cotton candy on the grass overlooking the harbor
-take the ferry back (and try to stay warm)

Pictures coming soon!

Monday on the Olympic Peninsula

Sunday we packed up and headed to the Olympic Peninsula to camp at the Salt Creek Recreation Area (about 20 minutes from Port Angeles). We have two beautiful spots surrounded by trees with a view of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I can hear the waves crashing on the rocks below us.
(sorry it's so dark- I don't have time to fiddle with it)

We went out on Monday to look at tide pools. There's a long, rocky strip that was very hard to get to and very hard to cross being covered with loose rocks and millions of mussels. It had a few shallow tide pools that weren't very good until we got to the very end of the point. There we saw starfish, anenomes, purple and red sea urchins, little fish, all sorts of crabs and something we'd never heard of- chitons.

A lady was all excited that she found a gumboot chiton, which is this oval shaped reddish thing with a big foot and a mouth on the bottom.
After that we found regular chitons, which are covered with armor-like plates.

We then walked to the beach and the girls had fun in the sand.

Saturday, part 2

The flaming geyser turned out to be past it's heyday. It currently is about 6 inches tall, instead of about 6-8 feet. Down a short trail was the "bubbling geyser", which was really just a greyish, murky puddle with a few bubbles coming up. I don't know how they ever discovered it, it was so small. The forest was beautiful, so the walk was worthwhile.

When we got back to the car, I changed Frankie's bandage and discovered that her nail was not still attached at the bottom. Because the doctor had said that her nail might not grow back, or have difficulty breaking through the skin if the nail wasn't re-inserted, Mirissa took her back to the urgent care. Frankie burst into tears when we arrived back at the urgent care, but was very brave. They ended up removing her nail as it was 80% detached.

Poor Frankie found it very painful, despite their efforts to numb her finger. The prognosis is that 9 times out of ten it will grow back, but the doctor also said if it doesn't, it will become shiny and kind of look like a nail (small consolation when she wants a manicure).

Chis took the girls fishing while all that was happening, but they still weren't able to catch anything. But they were able to enjoy their last night on the river.

Saturday at K-P

No Rain!
I guess it rains a lot in the Northwest. Who knew? ;)
Today we went out to the Black Diamond historic museum. That's in the town of Black Diamond for you out-of-towners. On our way there we came across a one-lane bridge going over the Green River Gorge. We stopped on the other end and walked onto it. The gorge dropped below us about 200 ft.

It was spectacular. On the other side of the bridge was a gate that opened to this nice little private park with a creek running through it. There were some noisy geese floating in little pools created by some clever damming that had been done on the creek. The girls loved running around in this cute little park.



The museum was a cute little tribute to days-gone-by with all sorts of Americana. It had an old doctors office, general store, old tools, a flashlight collection, a button collection designed into a neat mural and tons more stuff. The old dears who were running it loved the girls and gave them some complimentary candy from the old-fashioned candy counter. However it was totally offset by Chris' $20 donation to the museum. We went across the street to a pizza/deli. It was a nice place with good cheesy pizza for the girls, pasta and a sandwich for Chris and Mirissa and a Wisconsin brat for Robert. You could also get a Packers pizza if you really wanted to stay in the cheesehead groove. They had all sorts of brain teaser puzzles that kept the girls entertained while we waited for the food. It was really a cute little place.

Our next stop was Flaming Geyser State Park. We were excited to see this geyser of flame shooting out of the ground. It sounded spectacular.

Friday at K-P

We woke up Friday to more rain. We all squeezed into the tent trailer for breakfast (that's 6 people, two dogs and a rabbit in a cage), played about ten rounds of Husker Du (a memory game) and then decided we'd had enough of feeling soggy, so we hopped in the car and headed for Enumclaw. By the time we got there it was lunch time, so we went to Charlie's Cafe that advertised giant cinnamon rolls. Turns out Charlie was a Charlotte and her granddaughter was our waitress. Our Charlie was very pleased to tell her her name. It was a very cute little family-run diner and we really enjoyed our lunch. Alas, they no longer make giant cinnamon rolls, but there was an old car club that was eating there at the same time, so we got to check out their cars.

We also poked around a grocery outlet store and that was fun seeing all the bargains they had on organic and odd foods. I wish we had one closer to us as I'd definitely shop there. As it was, Chris and my dad had to drag me out of there.

Back at camp we started up our campfire and made ham and sweet potato packets. They were pretty good, but the girls' favorite part of the meal was when I remembered I'd bought crescent rolls. We cooked a few of them in the pie iron, then started rolling them around our special metal biscuit-making stick. Then my dad had an idea of rolling them around chocolate and marshmallows. It turned out looking like a meteorite, but tasted good. It was a fun ending to the day.

Thursday: Day three at Kanasket-Palmer

Today was a nice, sunny day! We took advantage of the sun and went down to the river before lunch. The girls had a great time playing in the water, although it was impossible to try to keep Frankie’s thumb dry, as instructed. Chris took Cleo upstream to throw her floating “octopus” in the water for her. It was her first time having a real water toy and she loved it. She would swim till she drowns if we let her.

We’ve also been spending a lot of time reading

and hanging out in our spacious, double campsite.
Julia loves to build fairy houses and Francesca likes to dig holes. Charlotte goes back and forth between her sisters and really likes to snuggle in the tent trailer when it get a little cold.

Before dinner we went back to the river to fish. We have two "Little Mermaid" fishing poles for the girls and a small tackle box with a few bobbers, hooks and bright, glittery, stinky fish bait. We could see some little fish jumping out of the water all over the place. The girls became expert casters and were very patient fishergirls. Alas, no bites, but a successful expedition anyway. The girls were so happy to have fished it was cute.


We were starving when we came back and, unfortunately, it started raining again. We quickly made hot dogs and ate inside. Then, it started to clear, so we went back out and baked a pumpkin crumble in the dutch oven (it was good!). Soon after the rain came back an we had it hammering down on us all night long. Supposedly, it should clear by morning.

Kanasket-Palmer State Park, WA

We left Oregon and headed into Washington for the first leg of our camping trip. We drove for about 3 ½ hours and arrived at the campground around 3:30. The weather report predicted rain, so we decided against going grocery shopping and just started setting up. Mirissa’s dad was meeting us and arrived about 15 minutes after we did! We started setting up, and about an hour into it, it started to rain! (It would last all night) We have an awning on the tent trailer, so we set up our kitchen, made mac n cheese and chili (all we had left in the food box) and then had one of those experiences that make my blood run cold. Francesca was going into the tent trailer and closed the door on her thumb. Chris looked at it and told me it was bad and I started having flashbacks of when Julia hurt her thumb (she essentially severed her left thumb when she was 11 months old by closing it into a built-in bench). Poor Frankie had also hurt her left thumb, but just peeled back the skin from the cuticle to almost the knuckle. We got her some ice and bandaged it up and debated whether or not to take her to the ER. We decided to wait and take her in the morning, if needed. We had dinner and she seemed to be fine. Then we went to bed and Mirissa stared worrying that we’d made the wrong decision and what if her nail never grows back? (it looked as if she’d pulled out all of her nail bed). So first thing in the morning we went to a local urgent care. Luckily we picked a great urgent care. It was set up like an ER. They had 5 doctors working. They looked at it and said that although it looked bad the nail bed was OK. They patched her up and gave her a bunch of stickers and lollipops. Francesca was great throughout the whole thing. She barely cried at the urgent care. They were all very impressed by her calmness. Robert and the other girls met us at the urgent care and afterwords we went out to breakfast at Shari's and a marathon grocery shopping excursion. Back at camp we explored around. We found our way down to the river and hung around for a bit. Cleo of course wouldn't stop whining until we let her in the water. We didn't have her ball so we threw rocks in the water and she would swim after them.

Back up at camp we made a big dinner of flatiron steak, mashed potatoes and broccoli. Naturally we made S'mores for dessert.

More to come...

The Oregon Zoo

We arrived in Portland Monday afternoon and after an infuriatingly long wait, we checked in to our room. We’d lost almost an hour of the time we’d planned to spend at the zoo, but decided to go anyway (we only had two hours before closing). It turned out to be a great decision as we were able to get in free with our Santa Barbara Zoo membership, the weather was perfect and the crowds were gone. We’d been to this zoo last year, but hadn’t had time to explore it all. It’s a wonderful zoo and the girls really enjoyed our time there.


They had an exhibit that focused on the African rain forests that the girls loved. They climbed all over the Land Rover and Julia loved the filing cabinets filled with bug specimens, gem stone, cultural artifacts, etc. Charlotte said her favorite part of the zoo was the typewriter!

We also really loved the fruit bats, which were just waking up and eating fruit and broccoli! The girls coined a new phrase, “bat manners”, after watching the bats eat with their mouths open.

After the zoo and dinner, we headed back to the motel and swam and did laundry. We all felt so recharged and ready for camping.

Butterfly Forest

We left Tahoe today and took the scenic route back to the 5. It involved a not-so-scenic leg in Carson City, NV where we bought gas for $3.95 a gallon! Then we looped back around to California and started to notice cars covered in orange bugs. Turns out there was a huge cloud of butterflies near Lassen (northern CA). We drove through butterflies for about 8 or 10 miles. It was really neat, but sad to kill so many of them. At one point we pulled over and got out so we could see them better. The ground was covered with dead butterflies and they were just flying all about. We think they were Painted Ladies.




We're staying in Medford tonight (about 30 miles into Oregon) and will move on to Portland tomorrow. We're planning on going to the zoo and the girls are so excited. They're definitely getting restless without any real exercise, so a few hours at the zoo will be wonderful. But I doubt we'll see anything as interesting and exciting as a bunny in a hotel tub.

Ashley and the Giant

We went to Ashley and Mike's wedding today (Ashley is our niece). This was our first time meeting her husband Mike. He's a good guy, and very, very tall. So is his Dad and all the rest of his family. It was like walking among redwoods. It was a very pretty location on a terrace overlooking Lake Tahoe. Julia and Charlotte enjoyed counting the kayakers and Canada Geese as we waited for the wedding to start. Frankie quickly made friends with Chris' Aunt Arlene and kept busy nesting her polly pocket doll in Arlene's hair. She was such a good sport about it. His aunt is 80 and does line dancing, golfs, plays tennis every day and is learning Spanish. Really she embarrasses us all. Chris had to suck in his gut around her!

Ashley was a beautiful, happy bride and Steve and Kathy looked so proud of her. Mirissa and the girls looked lovely as ever. Mirissa had cute little dresses for each of them and did their hair up all fancy. Everyone thought Mirissa was going to give birth any second. She's so huge! No, no October 13th...


The wedding ended at around 4pm. We went back to the Seven Sneeze Inn and relaxed for awhile then went to dinner. We walked up to a BBQ place on the main strip. The traffic here is unbelievable. South Lake Tahoe is not your quite little ski town. It's a mix of Reno or maybe the fringes of the Vegas Strip, Coney Island and the 405 and 101 interchange. There are so many little motels right up to the Nevada border then there is a giant Harrah's and an equally giant Harvey's casino. By the way, "Harvey's"?? Supposedly they have a good buffet. The one downstairs one, not the one on the top with the good view. The girls love the hustle and bustle and looking for taxis. A pastime we suggested in a desperate attempt to get them to settle down the other day.

We're pulling up anchor from Lake Tahoe tomorrow and cruising our trailer up to Medford, OR.

Yipee Kay-yo Finally in Tahoe!

What a long day. Charlotte and Francesca had their final ballet camp this morning and a cute little performance afterwards. This picture is of them with their teacher, Miss Pam (they're all called "miss" even if they are married).

We went home, made lunch and got in the car at 12:45. We made it half a block to the mailbox to grab the last delivery but forgot the key. Since I didn't want to back the trailer up to go back home I walked that long half block to get the key. Good thing I went back. The garage door was wide open!

After that sputtering start we finally put it in gear and headed out. We had a remarkably uneventful drive. The girls were quiet and happy most of the way, really only bugging us about when they'd get to watch a movie. We didn't even stop before four hours of driving. But it was a long drive and after about 8 and a half hours on the road, they started to get restless. Poor Frankie was tired, but too cranky to fall asleep and the older two wanted a mile by mile countdown of how much longer we'd be in the car.

After 30 windy miles on Hwy 50 we finally pulled into the 7 Seas Inn. If it weren't for the fact that they are so animal friendly here (since we have the dog and a bunny) I'd call this place a dumpy, run-down motel. Well, OK it is that. But they are friendly here. There's probably 1,700 motels/hotels in Tahoe. There is probably another place that takes pets that you don't have to jiggle the key and twist the knob on the door to get it to open.

Ashley's wedding tomorrow. We're looking forward to it.