Tea, Anyone?

There's still time to come join the Mad Hatter's tea party if you are so inclined.


(Yes, I know he looks like he's a drummer for Marilyn Manson's band, but he's just a harmlessly insane milliner, okay?)

Here he is with the March Hare:


And here is the delightfully doltish Tweedle Dee in all of her beach-ballish glory:



*hee hee hee*

Happily, Yet With Discretion

Have you ever been so pleased with some wonderful thing that has occurred in your life that you were hesitant to speak of it?

I'm experiencing that right now.

My hesitance isn't born out of an unwillingness to share, but rather out of a desire to not be interpreted as a loud mouthed braggart, hollering, "Look at me! Aren't I lucky? Don't you wish this happened to you???"

Ick.

However, just as I am happy for others when their cups runneth over (or try to be at least!), I trust the character and intentions of my friends who come here to see what my brain has lately spewed onto the Internet. Therefore, I will share with you our latest wonderment.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...


...our 2010 vacation to...



...the Great Northwest!



("Again?" you ask. I couldn't help myself, okay? I REALLY like it there.)

Day 1

All packed up and ready to pull out of the garage:

The first day was a very weird start for a vacation.

We left in the afternoon. I hate leaving on a trip first thing in the morning. That always ensures that I will not sleep at all the night before because I'm thinking about making sure I pack my stupid toothbrush once I get up.

Our first stop was about 45 minutes away where we attended the first birthday celebration of a very adorable little girl.

Evelynn really knows how to party:


Here she is, pre-cake-wrestling with her parents, Cupcake Mama and Papa:


Isn't she sweet?

Afterward, we hopped back in the car and drove another 45 minutes to where we promptly checked into a motel.

This confused my family to no end since we had hardly traveled at all and it was still fairly early.


"It'll all make sense eventually," I told them.

(What I didn't tell them was that we needed to be somewhere at 5:30 the next morning and since I found a motel for $60 (!) that was located only 15 minutes from our destination, I had to take it. If we'd stayed at home, we would have had to get up at 2:30 in the morning and drive for two hours, hoping the entire time that we wouldn't be late.)

Hee hee hee...

Day 2

4:00 AM found me rousing my crew from a surprising slumber considering the trampoline-like surface of our motel beds. (Remember, I got the room for $60.)

To the utter surprise of my three most preciouses, we soon found ourselves seated on one of these:



(Can you see the plane's shadow on the cloud in the above pic?)

A little screen in front of each of us indoctrinated us on the virtues of the Total Pillow.


(It actually did seem quite ergonomic in a dorky kind of way.)

It wasn't long before we touched down in Portland and found ourselves at the lovely home of Elisabeth and Jon and their lively brood.


While the guys struck out to play some disc golf and the littlest ones napped, Delaney, Ava and I walked to a cute little ice cream parlor...



...where unbeknownst to us, much excitement awaited in the form of a bit of blood loss and the knowledge that the tooth fairy would soon be visiting.



We went to dinner at:


Some Portlandian genius decided to purchase an abandoned public school and turn it into several restaurants, a movie theater and some other draws for the populace.


Very cool and the food was good, too.



Are those tater tots I see? (Well, it is a former school after all.)


Gimme somma your tots!

With full stomachs, we bid our friends adieu and headed northwest for Hoquiam, Washington.

Day 3

Day 3 found us rising 6:00ish because we had a long distance to go and I had a lot planned for along the way.

We prudently familiarized ourselves with the route of escape from any looming tsunamis.


You know you're in a beautiful place when these are the roadside weeds:


Our pleasant drive took us past this sign:


Soon we were parking at Ruby Beach which ended up being Delaney's favorite place of the whole vacation.





Delaney put her birthday camera to very good use:

In fact, at the trip's end, she had snapped over 680 photos! I'd like to thank her for allowing me to use a bunch of her great shots throughout the blog posts you see before you.

Sadly, we had to get going, but it wasn't long before we passed this sign:

There are very few actual rain forests in the U.S. This one gets 12 to 14 feet of rain each year!


Jeff with the "J" tree:


Even Tobias was smiling:

(Almost.)

We were running out of time 'cause we had a ferry to catch, so we had to skip driving up Hurricane Ridge.

More roadside weeds:



A family friend lives nearby, so we dined with him.


Art is a nice guy who entertained us with stories of climbing New England's power lines during ice storms. I'll bet his family was happy when he retired from that job!

Then we were off to Port Townsend where we learned the 6:45 PM ferry was full, as was the one which left at 8:30 PM.

You're supposed to make reservations? Who knew? In my defense, I did a lot of research in the weeks leading up to our trip and I must say, the Washington State Ferry website was not very user-friendly.

Our next shot at crossing to Whidbey Island would be at 6:30 AM the next day. I was told that if we got to the terminal at 5:45 AM then we'd be pretty likely to get a spot on the ferry. Oh, goody.

So what's a family of out-of-staters to do?

Why, get a room for the night (that was not allotted for in the vacation budget), of course...


...and then explore Port Townsend, an old town full of beautiful buildings like this one:


See all the little birds that landed so artistically in the photo below?