Washington Trip

2 weeks ago we took a family trip to Washington for a family reunion. We stayed at Ensign Ranch. It was a lot of fun. I always love getting together with James' family. I grow closer to more people each time.

First though, James' aunt called me 2 days before we were supposed to leave asking if we could house them for a night. We are the half way point from Utah. So I of course said yes. Funny thing though, she was like, "well wait, hold on, let me see if you have enough room for all of us...there will be 9." I said, yup, we'll make it work.
They arrived late and I let Ellie stay up which, hello, big people to hang out with, it was like Christmas for her. My neighbors basketball hoop was quickly taken over. See Ellie? Always in the action. I don't think she realized how little she is.
The 9 of them left at 7:30am. We left at 9:30am and we all got that at the exact same time. It was kind of funny. They apparently made a few stops.

I hate when I don't take enough pictures. I wish I had pictures of each little thing we did. I like remembering those things. When we arrived they had a 3 on 3 basketball tournament going on so while James played I put our room together. We slept in the lodge part of the camp. There were like 6 rooms I think in the lodge and they each had 2 sets of bunkbeds.  We were lucky to be in the lodge so that I could put Ellie down for her naps or bedtime and I was still in the same building with the baby monitor. If we were in a cabin that would be a little more difficult.

I'm going to skip many details of the great trip and just explain photos.

There were always balls around and as we know, Ellie loves balls. This basketball had some holes in it and Ellie discovered a cool trick, "floating ball."

Only one of James' brothers, Thomas, and his wife Kristen were able to make it which was sad. But I'm glad they were able to come! Thomas has 3 girls and he wanted to sign them up for horseback riding. It was very simple, someone just leads the horse in circles around the corral. Nothing crazy. I didn't sign Ellie up because I wasn't sure if she would like it but I wish I would have and just sat with her or something. We asked if we could take her picture on a horse and once she was on she starting pushing her body forward and back as to try and get the horse to move. I thought maybe she was comparing it to those horses on a spring at the park that you rock back and forth? But she loved it. No fear what so ever. Her great grandpas would be proud.

One of the activities was a carnival. Our game was Toss A Cross. We wanted it to be tournament style but it just ended up being a regular game. Kids had fun though. As well as James.

Someone else in the family took this picture but I loved it. I didn't even know Ellie was roaming around shooting baskets.

 Our cousin Amy wanted me to take her family pictures while we were there. We wanted to do it the day we arrived but it was chilly and windy so we opted to wait until the next day. The weather was perfect. We did have to budge on the time though. Too many activities planned for optimal shooting time. Darn. But they turned out great. Her boys are too cute!!

Right after pictures it was time to do skits. Too much to explain, but they were funny. Everyone did a great job.

This was Ellie's best buddy the entire time. I have no idea why she loved him so much but it was so cute to see her reach out for him or wave as we walked by. Actually, I didn't realize it at the time, but she was teething bottom molars and was happy but super clingy on this day and would only let James or I hold her. But...she would leave me for Shaden.

The horses came up to the fence and a feeding frenzy erupted. It was cute watching the kids though.

Until next time...

So Seattle was only a little over an hour away from where we were staying so we extended out trip and spent 2 days in Seattle with Thomas' family. Our first stop was the Seattle Aquarium. I was so excited to go. Ellie loves the Aquarium here in Idaho and I'll be the first to tell you it's nothing special! I had such high expectations for this one but I was pretty bummed out. It was great when comparing it to the one here at home but it was just eh when compared to one in like Monterey Bay. The kids didn't know the difference and we all had fun, but we finished much sooner than I anticipated.

We made sure to make it in time for the feeding the fish "show."

I wanted to show the girls this one fish that was hiding and I lifted them up to see. I knew they were a lot heavier than Ellie, but man, so awkward trying to lift a big kid. Thomas sure captured the truth of that! I need to work on those muscles.

After the aquarium we were walking towards Pikes Market Place but I wanted to stop by the antique store. There was a coin operated horse out front that Kristen let the kids ride. I really don't think Ellie enjoys that stuff very much. She looks miserable. (wink, wink).

And long story short, we walked all the way back to where we started for dinner at Ivars. Ellie kept asking to walk and James told her she could walk if she held his hand the entire time, and she DID!

We made some changes to our plans for the second day and decided to hit up the zoo. Again, compared to Idaho, this zoo rocked! We were there the entire day and still didn't finish seeing everything. We all loved it! Wish I could go back.

  I wanted to show you all of these next pictures. These are literally one after another. Look at how many faces Ellie can make within seconds. 

Getting to play with her cousins was so fun! SO happy we got to do it.

Pictures galore. Great trip. Good memories.

Aquarium and Zoo pictures were take by both Thomas and I.