Oh, Canada..... (and Washington!)

This is a bit behind, but better late than never! The end of August/1st of September we took a vacation with my dad and Donna up to Northern Washington and Canada. It was the MOST amazing experience, and I would love to do it again. The boys had a great time exploring the great NW and I was just amazed by the beauty of it all.

Here are the boys on top of a tall rock.

Our Condo, from the outside
( it is the one with the highest windows on the building)

The view from our balcony.....gorgeous

We spent just as much time enjoying the 3 bedroom condo, and its amenities (aka pool etc) as we did out and about in the great outdoors.
It was really nice to come home to something as comfortable as this:

Every morning I went running along the beach for about 5 miles, it was so nice!

A sunset, as seen from out our window:

One of the days we took a ferry and went out to Orcas Island for the day. It was the most perfect day for it. A year ago we had gone and the weather didn't cooperate, so we didn't get to do as much as we wanted on the islands. This time we couldn't have asked for better weather.

Getting on the ferry.

Looking out the front windows of the Ferry

Calder, enjoying the fresh air and gentle breezes of the Straight of Juan de Fuca

Entering in between the islands, so pretty

We stopped to eat lunch on this little lagoon on Orcas island, it was so peaceful and beautiful

Someone had set up this "xylophone" out of wood pieces and the boys spent a good deal of time playing it. It actually made very pretty sounds.

Of course, no trip near water would be complete without throwing rocks in the water:
Kaelan and I enjoying the rocky beach


Next we drove to the top of Mt. Constitution. It is the tallest mountain on all of the islands and affords a great view of the Straight and the Puget Sound when the weather is good. We lucked out that day, and could see for miles:


There was a little "castle" tower at the top, which you could climb and see even better from the top. The boys loved this tower, it felt just like a real castle

Levi, Calder and Ansel peering out from a window

The beautiful hand carved doors inside the tower:


Calder, attempting to scale the outside of the tower:

A view from the top:



Kaelan fancied himself the tour guide, "reading" the map:
Looking down from the top of the tower, into my cute little guys faces.
(this is zoomed in substantially!)


After the tower, we went on a 3 mile hike down Mt. Constitution, which had been advertised as having amazing views the whole way down. It did not disappoint! In fact it was better than the top because there weren't crowds of people everywhere.


My dad and Levi --- look at that view!

A quick family picture on an outcropping:

One of the many lakes on the island, hidden in the folds of the land:

Probably the one thing that was most exciting for me was to enter Canada. I have never been and it was fun to think that I would finally get to check that off in my "to do" list!

Entering Canada:


The peace arch:


Entering beautiful Vancouver, British Colombia:

The traveling accommodations for the boys:
One of the things, in Canada, that we went to see was the World Championships of Sand Sculpture, held in Harrisand. It was amazing! Supposedly the sand of this particular area is shaped differently that usual sand grains and really sticks together well:


The sculptures were amazing!

In our condo were many pamphlets about the various attractions we could go see, that were within driving distance of where we were staying. (which was about 8 miles from the Canadian border) One talked about the Capilano Suspension Bridge and walking among the tree tops like the Ewoks of Star Wars. The boys were SO excited to go see this. I was too, it sounded really neat. It took us about 2 and a half hours to get there and when we were finally to the entrance we found that it was $20 per person. WHAT a RIP OFF!! But, we were there, so we bit the bullet and went on in. It was definitely worth seeing once. But I woudn't pay to go again.

They had many todem poles all over the park:

Calder, playing in a todem pole:

Grandpa was really good at cracking Kaelan up, he thought he was pretty funny:

Outside the gift shop there was a checkers board and rocking chairs. Levi, Calder, and Ansel spend about 30 minutes playing checkers. They thought that is was the neatest idea ever.

The very enamoured daddy and his baby:

Kaelan picking flowers for me..... ahem... out of the pots:

Crossing the bridge. It would sway really easily, and some of the older people had a hard time crossing without falling into the ropes a little. Calder thought it was great and took full advantage of every swing:

A view of the bridge from one of the "ewok" tree top walks:
(very high up, huh!)

Another shot/view of the bridge. It was quite phenomenal:

Levi's idea for a photo shoot.... actually was a pretty good idea!

Kaelan and mommy hiking around the park:

Walking among the treetops, like the Ewoks:

The boys reading all of the international graffiti:

There was SO much graffiti on all of the railings, and there were signs all over saying "please do graffiti our park". It was crazy. Most of them were in other languages, so they probably have an excuse for breaking the rules:

Look at all the Canadian money:

Another fun excursion we had in Canada was going to a local dairy farm, set in an idyllic valley amongst the giant mountain ranges. SO amazing.

Kaelan (happy to finally be out of the car)

The dairy milk machines:

The boys, showing the journey of their ice cream (they are eating) from cow to tummy:

This was a small, family farm, with only a few dozen cows, a few hundred goats, some donkeys...etc. They let you come in and pet the animals. In fact we were lucky enough to arrive just hours after a mommy goat had just delivered some new baby goats. It was so neat to see them.


Kaelan petting the cow:

Levi, petting a new baby goat:

Grandma and Kaelan, hanging out:

We were on this vacation, over my birthday. So, on my Birthday we went to some tide pools, after making some delicious birthday cookies:

Ansel, the little chef helper, putting in the brown sugar

Ansel fell on the rough rock of the tide pools and really scraped up his legs:

The rocky culprit:

Yumm.... Boogers! At least he has a long enough tongue!

My cute little Cherub baby

Ansel was the keeper of the "pets", he took very good care of them:

Can you spot the crabs and fish?

What Kaelan really liked to do, was throw rocks, it made him so happy.

Calder and his tiny little starfish

Levi really liked getting down into the pools and catching the fish.

The flora and fauna of the tide pools, exposed:

Joe trying to interest Kaelan in the fishies:

Don't these guys look like they are trying to escape the water??!!

Another tide pool area that we found, on another day, was right out on the Sound. It was SO amazing. There were countless huge starfish and the boys had a great time "catching" them.

Levi and a lovely purple starfish:

Levi and Calder with their respective starfish:

Ansel, showing off what the starfish is eating:

Kaelan didn't really care about the starfish, but he LOVED the water. It was freezing and he didn't even care. He played in it for about 20 minutes.

Yes, he is playing right on the sound, and four feet behind him is a deep drop off into the sound. There were no waves. So beautiful. (dad is just out of the picture --don't worry)

We did eventually tire him out, and had to undress him to get him warm again, shaking and shivering he cried the whole time we were undressing him because we were interrupting his play.
Joe taking the little fish back to the car:

We spend a day trying to find the elusive petrified palm forests along the coast up there, and kept getting conflicting accounts of where they are at. They are a hidden treasure and they don't really want people near them, so the information isn't available. But the hunt was fun. We found railroad tracks along the coast and walked up and down them looking up the cliffs for the trees. We never did find them, but we did find a nudist beach....oopps!!

This was an great trip, we had a fantastic time, and I am constantly daydreaming about going back. Good thing there are pictures to help us remember the good times!