Spring Break

This last week was our school's spring break.  Since I didn't get to use my plane tickets to Seattle in August, this is the week I got to use them.  Jake, Kenzie and I are the ones who got to go since those were the original ticket holders.  We headed to Seattle Saturday morning.  Once at the airport, I discovered that the airline had changed my flight time.  This was unfortunate because we had traveled 3 1/2 hours to get to the airport.  Yes, the flights out of my town are expensive and when we fly more than two it definitely saves money(and time for that matter because there are always holdovers for a flight out of our home town, no direct flights) to drive a little.  Upon finding this out, I wanted to cry.  When I called the airline, they blamed it on my booking company and when I called my booking company they blamed it on the airline.  Lucky for me, in the end the two worked it out and got me a flight out first thing the next morning.  Unlucky for me I had to sit next to the bathrooms the whole trip....  Lucky for me I was able to find a cheap hotel close to the airport, unlucky for me they didn't serve breakfast and I ended up in a scary neighborhood trying to find something to buy for us to eat.  When we got to the grocery store the conversation between McKenzie and I literally went like this:

McKenzie:  Uh, mom are you sure we should leave our car out here?  Someone might rob us.
Me (trying to sound confident):  We'll be fine.  We'll be in and out in a hurry.

I decided to only buy a bunch of bananas and take off quickly.  Lucky for me, we had almond butter to go with our banana breakfast.  Unlucky for me they wouldn't let me bring it on the plane.

Okay, I'm done with the lucky/unlucky theme.  You can all breathe a sigh of relief.

Jacob was so worried about missing the morning flight he barely slept and practically sprinted out of the hotel and into the airport.  I kept reassuring him that we would make it this time.  That our missed flight was due to a miscommunication the day prior.

 

Behind us we left a nice sunny day:



 



and landed in the Seattle mist and fog that haunts the local residents this time of year. 

 

That is something that I had forgotten when I booked the trip.  Seattle in March is rainy.  It's been a long time since I've been to Seattle any other time than the summer.  Noted to self, don't go in the spring again.

 

 

My sister Missy picked us up and we spent the first few days with her and her family.  On one of our outings out, McKenzie snapped a picture of one of the many Seattle skylines, awed by the number of buildings dotting the horizon.  Again, not something we see here really.

 



The last half of our week was spent with my Mom and Dad in beautiful Anacortes, and while, yes, the weather was rainy, we found some brief respites from the weather and managed to get outside a little.  We went to the local zipline park:

After messing around for a little while there, we headed to Washington Park, Grandma's favorite place to take pictures.  While we tried to take pictures of both Jake and Kenzie, Kenzie was much more willing to pose so that she could capture the perfect picture to post on instagram.

Uh, the moss is supposed to be a mustache.  Kenzie found that incredibly funny.

The most sunny day of the week, we actually planned to go shopping, but perhaps that should have been spent outside.  On the drive home we got to see one of the beautiful daffodil fields that are so prevalent this time of year.

The Anacortes area is actually famous for their tulip fields this time of year, but due to the amount of moisture they had this winter, the fields are a little behind schedule. 

It was a good visit and nice to get away from home.

Brad and the older three boys stayed home.  They skied, dirtbiked, worked and wrestled.

Ben had middle school regionals and middle school state.  He placed fourth at regionals and in the top 29 at state.  The middle school state competition here is all schools, no divisions so to place in the top 29 is good.

Yesterday I took both Riley and Jake to another peewee tournament.  Both placed third.  Two more weekends to go and then they are finished for the season!  I can't tell you how excited I am about that.  I HATE peewees.

Last, but not least, wanted to post a little trinket that Jordan made in welding at school.

Pretty cool, no?