March 31 - April 3 - Trip to Seattle

Since orchard work is about to start with a vengeance, we took a long weekend trip up to visit friends in Washington, originally we planned to go to the tulip festival, but the season is quite a bit later than it normally is so we played to tourist for several days. Now I thought that we had seen just about all there was to see locally when we went up there in August, boy was I wrong, we could fill several visits with things to do there.
The evening we arrived our host took us for a beautiful walk in the wood by their house. At the head of the trail there is a huge stump of a fallen tree that had been logged off. It had holes carved into it for the loggers to stand on. It must have been absolutely magnificent when those trees were standing, and I can't even imagine how much wood came off the tree.

Along the path there was lots of rope course obstacles hanging from the trees, Shea had lots of fun with some of them.

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Our hosts very generously played tour guide and took us to go see some daffodil fields which were in full bloom, and Janessa got some amazing pictures!\

The next morning, so April Fools day, they took us up to Seattle and we spent all day playing the tourist. Just about everything you can do for free in Seattle we did. It's absolutely amazing how much you can see of one of the most historical cities in the West United Sates for practically nothing! We had an awesome time! The first stop was Seattle Center, and the Mo Pop museum, which we didn't actually go in, but we had a great time walking around the Center. The first things we saw were theses weird poles that had absolutely no rime or reason to them, but they made a great Photo prop.

 In the center is this huge rope made playground, we had just had a couple of long drives under our belt, so we all jumped in and played in and around the playground for well over an hour. For a couple of us, this was the best part of the trip and for all of us it was in the top 5 best things we did.

And of course, towering over the entire center was the Seattle Needle tower. WARNING! This made a great photo prop, so you'll see it a lot.

We rode the Monorail next, for us country hicks, we all got quite a kick out of it. Gabriel was fascinated with how it drove and asked the driver a million questions.

We had a nice, long walk down town to the library, and Janessa took lots of pictures of the ornamental work on the outside of the buildings.

We walked past a building and staring right at us, was the very odd building! This ladies and gentlemen is the Seattle Library, easily the weirdest building I have ever seen. If any of y'all end up in Seattle, you can't leave until you see the inside of this building.

Janessa took lots of picture of the inside, but I'm only going to use a couple, for two reasons. One this blog post will probably be putting you to sleep by now as long as it is, and two ya'll will just have to come see for yourselves. In one of the many rooms of the library is a map room with the cool globe. We spent quite some time looking at the geography of the history we've been studying in school. It is so neat when you get to see how the shape of the rocks can effect history and often do.

 The colors in this place are absolutely amazing, and the many escalators to get up to the top floor were painted in this poison green color.

Back down to the Center after that to see the Fountain and eat lunch. When I was told we were going to watch a fountain, I had the idea of a classic fountain in my mind, let me tell you, there was nothing classic about this fountain. It had the most random way of spraying, and everyone was trying to time it so they could touch the fountain without getting wet.

We were all running out of gas about now so we slowly started back toward the car, but we did take time to get some pictures of the group at the base of the tower.

 At the base of the tower is a museum and the 4 corner posts of the museum are the legs of the tower. Shea made a really nice effort to unscrew the 12 inch bolt of the tower, but even with all the leverage that he has, it didn't do any good, made for a funny photo though.

 On the way out, this man waylayed us with his constant banter and balloon creations. He had us all mesmerized for quite some time.

Such a fun day, filled with memories!!

August 22 -24 - Puget Sound

Several years ago, while our family still lived in Colorado, our music teacher and her family moved up to Washington state. We haven't kept in touch very much since they moved other than once or twice a year.

Well now that we live in Oregon we all have wanted to go and visit them, this weekend we all headed up to Puget Sound, which, by the way, is almost literally right out their back yard. We had a blast with these wonderful people. They were so great about taking us to so many of the landmarks of Puget Sound.




Janessa brought her camera along and got some really beautiful pictures of our trip.

The bridge over Deception Pass.

Our first stop on the tour was Deception Pass, which had the magnificent bridge spanning the inlet! The monument to the history of this pass reads as follows: " Named by Captain George Vancouver 10 June, 1792. Felling that he had been " deceived" as to the nature of the inner waterway. Port Gardner (now Saratoga Passage) he wrote on his chart "Deception Pass". He honored Master Joseph Whidbey who found the passage while commanding a small - boat crew of explorers, by naming the island Whidby." 

While we were walking on the bridge, Garrett yelled, "Hey guys, I think I see an otter!" and sure enough, we got to watch a couple otters playing and eating about 4 stories beneath our feet.

After that, we headed to the beach that was down a ways from the passage to have lunch and play. Even though it is August the water is still frigid! But even still there was no way we were passing up a chance to play in the ocean.

Zach playing with the "Bull Whip Kelp" that was laying all over the beach.

The Pogue family and Friends on the beach.

Being used to seeing wildlife Eastern Oregon, we were having so much fun seeing the creatures Oregon Coast style. Every tide pool had so many weird and amazing creatures!

Next stop was one of the many forts along the coast, that had been used to train troopes for years. The all time favorite part of the fort for all of us was the guns, which were huge! The nearby lighthouse had been turned into a museum for both lighthouse and fort. One of the stories we heard was of an attack on the US by a foreign sub and this fort and the one across the sound both opened fire on it and either sank her or sent her packing. 

View of the Sound from the top of the lighthouse.

Afterward it was back to the house for burgers and friend time.

The next morning we headed back home with a small detour to Mount St. Helens.

Our family had a fantastic time and are so looking forward to the next visit!