Family Vacation

The kids and I just got back from a too short but amazing vacation. No we did not go off to any far away lands or exotic places but we did get time to spend together making some fun and amazing memories!!

We rented a small vacation house on a Farm in Sequim, WA. It is owned by an older couple who are the nicest people! It's not fancy just a simple place but exactly what we needed. The kids were able to feed the goats and llamas on the farm with the owner and just loved it. There was lots of room to run and play as well.

I created two photo albums. One is the June 2009 Vacation and the other is Twilight Tour pictures.

Snapshot of our vacation:

Day 1:

Headed out at 9am! Drove down and across Whidbey Island to the Keystone/Port Townsend Ferry. We enjoyed a picnic lunch while we waited for the Ferry. This was Tylers first Ferry ride and he was so excited! We boarded the ferry for the noon run. We were able to walk out on the deck and enjoy the views as the sun was out and it wasn't too cold. Once we got to the other side we headed to our destination, KinderFarms in Sequim, WA. We arrived and found the vacation house was amazing and fun, full of all kinds of treasures. There were fresh baked cookies from the cookie monster. Lots of toys (its an old preschool) and lots of goats and llamas in the fields around us. We headed out to buy groceries and take in some of the area. Back to the house to play games, get settled and BBQ some burgers for dinner. We met the owners such nice people!! We were all tired from the excitement of the day and the excitement of the next day we all slept really well.

Day 2:

After breakfast we packed up for the day and headed out to Forks, WA. There were two main reasons in going to Forks. The Timber Museum/Loggers Memorial (a must coming from a logging family/town). And the big reason, Forks is "Twilight Central". Erika is a huge Twilight fan (books/movie). This is where the movie was filmed and there are alot of sights to see. We started out in La Push. This is home of the Quileute Indians and for the Twilight movie was the home of Jacob and his pack. We walked on First Beach which is a REAL SAND beach this was another first for the kids! First Beach can get surfer waves but the water was somewhat calm that day. First Beach for you Twilight fans is where Bella first learns the story of the "cold ones". We also stopped by the Quileute School (where Jacob attends school in Twilight). There were some fun signs coming into La Push such as the "No Vampires Past This Point" sign! Then it was off to Forks where (for Twilight) found The Forks Police station where Charlie Swan works, Forks Hospital and the parking spot of Dr. Carlisle Cullen, Bellas house, Edwards house (and even a picture of his piano and a board updated daily by Esmine of the Cullen happenings), Forks High where Bella attends school. We also stopped at the Timber Museum and Loggers Memorial to see some of the history of logging and take a moment of silence. We were still so excited and wanted to take in more so we drove out to the Hoh Rain forest! We hiked the "Hall of Mosses" and its just breathtaking. You can feel the difference in the air in the rain forest. We learned that the Hoh rain forest gets 142" of rain a year!!!! We headed back to the Vacation house to unwind stretch our legs and have dinner before playing some games (kids got really good at Phase 10 and Pictureka on this trip LOL )

Day 3:

This was our day for the Olympic Game Farm. This is always a huge hit with the kids and was a first for Tyler. The Olympic Game farm is a driving tour of animals. Some of them come right up to your car and will stick their head in if you are not careful (yaks, llamas, bison, elk, deer, zebras etc). There are quite a few bears and they LOVE to be fed! They are behind a fence area but still very close. They will do tricks to get you to throw them bread (which you can bring your own or buy at the entrance). The kids fed a whole loaf of bread to the bears LOL. We saw beautiful peacocks, a lion, tigers, cougars, wolves and much more. I took pics of all of the animals. There is a small petting zoo area that after you are done with drive you can park and walk in to that part. We also noticed when we pulled in there was a Hydroplane out in the parking lot and KMPS the local country radio station was setting up a booth. Turns out they were doing a fundraiser for the Game Farm and a local Hydroplane racer was there. We were able to get the kids pics taken with the racer and his boat and he signed autographs for the kids.

We then decided to go in search of a beach for our picnic lunch. We found Discovery Bay. We couldn't drive all the way down to the water but we found a spot to eat with some amazing views! The kids decided they wanted to do more that day so we headed up to Hurricane Ridge. Its up over 5000 feet and was a beautiful drive. When we got to the top we realized WHY it was called Hurricane Ridge. It was soooooo windy and cold! There was still some snow on the ground. We were not dressed for cold weather so we checked out the visitors center and snapped a few pictures but decided against hiking any of the trails. We decided we will bring warm clothes and go back next time we are there. The views were breathtaking! Back to the vacation house then for some relaxation time. When we got back found that the owner had left us fresh baked bread and fresh made strawberry jam the kids were on cloud 9!

Day 4:

This was our last full day in the area. We asked Miege the owner where was the best place to go (closest) to go to the beach. We loved La Push but it was a long drive. She suggested we go to Saltcreek Park (not really a creek its the ocean) and Freshwater Bay (again its really the ocean/saltwater). The tide was really low so Saltcreek provided a large amount of tide pools for looking for sea life! This is a reserve area so no taking anything (rocks, shells etc). Because of this there were hundreds and hundreds of mussels on the rocks!! We also found alot of other fun sea life! We had to be careful the rocks were slippery. When we were done there we drove down a ways to Freshwater Bay. This was a large sand beach perfect for collecting sea shells (and clam digging but we didn't have a license). Tyler really wanted to get a Starfish and he was bummed we had not found any. But as we walked back to the car he found a baby starfish! So he brought it home LOL. We made a quick stop in Port Angeles at a Twilight gift shop and Erika snapped a picture of Bella Italia for her Twilight picture collection. We went back and spent the afternoon at the Vacation house and the kids ran around outside and played in between rain showers. We ended the day with another fun game night.

Day 5:

This was our go home day. We got up and everyone was quiet as we packed up the car. No one wanted to come home. Miege brought us some trail mix and homemade fruit leather for the trip home. We so enjoyed our time there and will definitely be going back! We couldn't take the Port Townsend/Keystone ferry back because of low tide it was only running 4 times a day and was all full (reservations). So we drove down across the Hood Canal Bridge and took the Kingston/Edmonds ferry back to "reality"

We hope you enjoy our pictures!!!

Vacation Pics:
June Vacation Pics

Twilight Pics:
Twilight Picture Album