Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy 46th B-day DAD! Hope you had a fabulous Day. We sure love you lots!

updated photos

I have added a bunch of photos of our trip to Seattle and Whidbey Island to our photo site. Click here to see more fun filled vaca photos! There are lots of little sub links so be sure to check them all out.

Finishing up the Seattle Vacation

The Zoo
I love zoo's and Seattle as a great one. We spent the whole day there and got to see such beautiful animals. My favorite part was when we got to feed the birds. You were given sticks with bird food on them and then you walked up to the birds and they would hop right onto your stick and eat the food. Well, some of the birds would hop on your shoulders or head! At one point, Toby had three birds on him! His head, shoulders and then on the stick. I stood next to him to get a photo and the bird jumped on my head. I was praying that he wouldn't poo on me! It was a little bit scary but a lot of fun.
At the end of the day, we were waiting to leave and I went to throw something away in the garbage. As I threw my gum in there, I heard a loud noise and out of the garbage can came a squirel. He was making some awful noises and he almost got me! I freaked out and screamed and ran away. Mom was the only one who saw the whole thing but dad and Toby made fun of me for the rest of the night. So now, I can say that I've been 'almost' attacked by crazy raccons and squirels!

Pike's Market

Pike's Market

I love Pike's Market! This is one of my favorite places in Seattle. I love to watch the guys throw the fish around and see all of the fresh produce and beautiful flowers. It was fun to walk around and see the stands and what people were selling. There was even a left handed store! That was fun for Megan, Andrew and I. We were able to taste some of the fresh produce and we even took a photo with one of the fish throwers! It was a big fish and it stunk pretty bad, but it was still a lot of fun.

It's a huge fish!

Famous Pike Street, beautiful flowers

Space Needle

Space Needle

We got to go up on the Space Needle the day we left Seattle. This was a little bit scary, but mostly very very cool. I was amazed at how far you could see. It was beautiful! Since it was such a clear day, you could see the Cascade Mountians, all of the Puget Sound and even Mt. Rainier. Even though we were over 600 feet in the air, Mt. Rainier still looked huge. We learned a lot about the space needle---it was built for the world's fair in 1962 and has a base of concret that is 30 feet deep and over 120 feet wide. The man who designed the building thought that all of the buildings would look this way in the year 2000.....hmmm not quite. It took us 40 seconds to reach the top. They told us that the elevators travel 10 mph which equals to 14 feet per second, 800 feet per minute, or as fast as a raindrop falls to earth! Another cool fact that we learned was that since we were going up so fast, when it snows, it looks like the snow if falling up not down! I bet that would be really cool to see. It can also sway in the wind and has withstood an earthquake that measured 6.8 on the Richter scale! The second floor has a resturaunt that turns so you can see the whole city. It was a great sight to see!

Toby and Katie smiling at the base of the needle.

Whidbey Island

It was so neat to go back to Whidby Island. I haven't been back there for 10 1/2 years! So much has changed but yet, I still knew my way around. We rode over on the ferry and stayed on the base in Oak Harbor. We went to the Admiralty Head lighthouse, Fort Ebey, Fort Casey, Deception Pass Bridge, went hiking, the boys (and katie-who wanted to drive the golf cart) went golfing, went to the beaches (they were freezing!)we went bowling, out to dinner, and shopping! We were going to rent a boat but the water was too choppy so the base dudes wouldn't let us. We showed Toby were we used to live and drove him around the base. I saw my old junior high and it is competely redone. I can't believe how time changes things. When were were at Deception Pass bridge, it was such a clear day that you could see Canada and the Cascade Mountains. The old growth forests were gorgeous. The trees and brush were so thick, they aren't like the forests in Utah or Idaho. A lot more greener and thicker.

The Family at Deception Pass The beach-notice all the drift wood? As a kid, I used to make forts with all the wood.

We went to the city of Coupville, which is near Oak Harbor and got ice-cream. We also stopped in at Toby's Tavern! We have glasses that say Toby's on it. He's quite famous.

We had a great time over there. For only being a week long vacation, we sure did so much stuff. I love Seattle and Whidbey Island. I fogot how beautiful it was over there. The beaches are amazing. Not as warm as Naples, but just as beautiful.

Tam down at Joseph Whidbey State Park

Beautiful Admiralty Head Lighthouse!
The fam up top the lighthouse

Toby and Tammy peeking up from the stairs

Smile everyone!

Notice the sign says, "Dangerous Drop Off"

Happy 4th of July!

I love the 4th of July!
I love everything red, white and blue. I love that we live in America and all the blessings we receive because of where we live. I am thankful for all those men and women who fight to keep us free! Happy Day!

This morning we had breakfast at the Bishop's house. We had to be there at 7:30 to help cook. That meant that we had to get up at 6:40 because he lives a half hour away....that was not fun.

Then, Toby and I spent the day at the pool. It got over 100 degrees here. Felt like we were back in Vegas! The pool was nice and cold and we had a great time throwing the football around.

Tonight, we spent the evening with the married ward and had a bbq. I made a flag cake with strawberries and blueberries. It was quite yummy. Another girl from the ward made a really cool Uncle Sam's Top Hat cake that was really good as well.

We spent the hot evening playing games and just talking. They boys got all sweaty because they played tennis and basketball.

We all pooled a little bit of money together and bought fireworks. It was fun to set them off. The strob fireworks were the worst though-I had to cover my eyes, so I wouldn't get a headache.
When it finally got dark, we hunkered down to watch the fireworks......only to realize that the trees were in the way! Oh well! We got to see part of them, and listen to the music that matched it from the radio. We all laughed about it and we still had a great time. I miss being in the married ward but the singles ward is slowly growing on me.

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th!

Back from vaca

I think that once you get back from a vacation, you need another vacation just to unwind and unpack and do laundry and clean the house and pay bills and go grocery shopping!


Anyways, we had a great time in Seattle and Whidbey Island this past week. We did soooo many things! Here's what went down in the crazy, liberal, save the earth, pot smoking city of Seattle--

#1. Air Museum
This was pretty cool despite the fact that I thought it was going to be waaaaayyy boring. We got to see neat planes and sit in them and walk through the history section of WW1 and WW2. I am amazed at how we can fly anywhere we want to go and how a plane can stay in the air. I think dad was the one who loved it the most because he used to fly planes, so it was fun for him to explain stuff to us.




Megan flying a Blue Angels



Mom in an airplane



Toby could barely fit in the cockpit of the plane. Good thing he didn't choose to fly planes! What would he do if he had to eject?

#2. Harbor Boat Tour
I really enjoyed seeing the city from off the shore. Seattle is really quite big and beautiful. I love how the city is surrounded by water. We also got to see a bunch of cruise ships leaving for Alaska. It made me want to go on one!




View of the city from the boat





Toby and Tammy-we were sooo cold!

#3 Aquarium
I really enjoyed walking through the aquarium. We were able to see a tide pool and touch sea cucumbers and star fish and all sorts of slimy things. We even saw sharks and sea otters. Mom pointed out the beautiful and colorful fish that she saw when they were in hawaii. I have never seen such brightly colored fish! I tried to get some photos, but it was hard with the glass and the reflection. One of my favorite things were the jelly fish. They were in a clear tank with bright lights. The lights would change colors and you could see right through them. It was pretty cool. Another thing that was pretty cool was the octopus. It was gross and big and I would not want to be caught in it's arms! Still-it was neat to see.


Jelly fish!


Such a pretty fish. Don't know what it's name is though.


Wouldn't want to be swimming with this shark. He makes toby look small!



The girls were a little bit nervous to touch the sea creatures.



The attack of the octopus!




Pretty gross looking huh!?


#4 The Science Center
I have never been to such a cooler place! We spent a good part of our day at the science center. Very neat stuff. We looked through glasses that made you see things as if you were drunk, and on drugs. I couldn't even see straight! It almost gave me a headache. We learned about genitics, how gravity works, how sound works, and many other cool things. We also walked through a butterfly exhibit. This was beautiful! They had a bug exhibit and that was gross. I swear I could feel them crawling on my skin. We were up close and personal with bees, black widows (the size of a quarter) and other nasty bugs.



Toby is riding on a bike that is holding him up by a 200 pound weight. I didn't do it because I was too nervous! I didn't want to fall!


This table and chairs is to show you what life is like for a three year old. If you are six feet, then this table makes you only three feet. It was hard for me to get up on the chair and I could barely reach the table! Poor kids!


Can you read what this butterfly says? If you look closely, it looks like the butterfly has the word 'suck' on his wings. Don't know why it looks like that but all the white butterflies had that on their wings. It was pretty funny.


#5 Mariner's Game

This might be one of my favorite things that we did while in Seattle. We went to a Mariner's game against Boston Red Socks. It was sooo much fun. We had great seats-they were in the middle of third base and left field. It was such a great game. We won and the Mariner's hit two home runs back to back.





Ready to go to the game! Toby had never been to a major league baseball game, I was excited to share this with him.




Safeco Field! It was so cool to be a new baseball stadium. I am glad that it didn't rain so they had the roof off. But, had it rained, it would've been neat to see them slide the roof over.


The family at the game

Well, there's more to post on our vacation, but I'll do that later.