While Mom's Away...

While Charles and I were in Seattle the kids got stay at Grandma and Grandpa Balch's house and hang out with their cousins. They had a blast, Grandpa is always so good to get them out for a few hikes.

A Day With My Charlie

On Saturday, the 27th we slept in for a little while, and then packed up. We stopped by a gas station for a drink and apparently it was next to this awesome store that Charles took a picture of me in front of. Nice. Haha! We did not go in.

Once we had a Diet Pepsi and some snacks we headed toward Mt. Baker. We passed this sign along the way in someone's yard and Charles had to take a picture.

The drive was really beautiful.

We stopped along the way to hike in to a few little waterfalls.

Toward the top there was this awesome old visitor center. It was really cool but to be honest, it looked a little haunted.

The view was pretty though!

We continued on and it got less and less green and more and more snowy.

On our way back down we found a good little road to pull off on to get a good picture of Mt. Baker.

We went back into town and had a late lunch at the Olive Garden.

Our next stop was Desolation Pass. We visited here once before, but we really enjoyed it so we went back. We walked across the bridge, watched some boats and seals, and hiked down to the water.

We couldn't get a very good picture of the seals, but there were a ton!

That night we stayed in Bellvue at the Marriott. We got there a little early so we walked around town a little bit, picked up some snacks and watched a movie at the hotel. It was so nice to have Charles all to myself with no responsibilities.

You could see Mt. Ranier from our room.

On Sunday we slept in again, and then it was time to pack up. We cleaned up the car a bit then had breakfast at Denny's. Then it was time for me to drop Charles off back at his yucky dorm. I did not want to leave him. It's the worst part! A whole week still to go! Ahhh!!! My flight home was fine, and it really was good to get back home to my kids. We had such a nice weekend together and I am really going to miss our yearly weekend getaway to Seattle. Somehow I'm going to have to trick Charles into taking me somewhere every year. Yeah right.

Seattle!

On Friday, August 26th, after the kids were off to school I went to the airport and flew to Seattle. I picked up our rental car and drove to the dorms at the University of Washington.

Charles was waiting for me and it was so good to see him!! He showed me his dorm and then we busted out of that gross room for the weekend. Wohoo!

We drove to Burlington and checked into the Holiday Inn there. We had the whole afternoon to play so we drove to North Cascades National Park. It was so beautiful! We tried so hard to find a baseball for Jacob and a pocket knife for Caleb but none of the visitor centers were open. We did find a coin for Brooke and a patch for Brielle, and we had an amazing time checking out the park.

We stayed until dark and then went into town to have dinner at the Outback Steakhouse. Then we went back to the hotel. Charles was so happy to have a decent bed to sleep on!