Luke and Jackie visited first. They spent a few days in Seattle with Jackie's aunt while I was working and then drove up to Everett. Of course, with Luke, I finally discovered a good frisbee golf disc course in Everett. And we did a little geocaching at the same time! It was fun! The first full day they were here we went to hike Wallace Falls. Not too long of a hike, but not too easy either. It was a gorgeous hike, and the falls are beautiful! We found a few geocaches on the way.
Middle Falls
Lower Falls
Geocaching!
Luke brought all his stuff for kite boarding hoping we would be able to catch some good wind. He just got a new foil kite he hasn't been able to use on the water yet, but of course, the week they were here it was cloudy and rainy with very little wind. The week before was gorgeous and would have been perfect, it was just our luck. So the day we planned to go kiteboarding we went to Deception Pass instead. This pass has a cool bridge the you have to cross to get from the coastline onto Whidbey Island. It's a pretty cool bridge, named such because some guy was deceived at some time thinking he could make it through between the cliffs in his boat and turned out to be rougher waters than he expected. Or something like that! We explored some of Deception Park, found some geocaches, then played frisbee golf on Whidbey Island. It was an interesting frisbee golf course. Right next to football fields and soccer fields where little peewee practices were going on. Luke threw his disc out over their heads on the basket and turned out to be an awesome shot for him! The signage for the course was probably the best we have seen at a frisbee golf course. I have decided I am definately going to go play frisbee golf this next trip in Europe!! Germany has a lot of courses, would be fun.
Driving over Deception Bridge
Beach, see Deception Bridge in the background?
Checkin out the view
This trip on Whidbey Island consisted of driving north onto the island over Deception Pass and driving the whole length south on the island ending with the ferry ride back over to Mukilteo and Everett. Turned out to be a much longer day than we expected! We got to the ferry and bought our ticket and thought the guy told us we had 45 min until the next ferry left, so we went to get something to eat. Turned out it left 15 min earlier than expected and we missed it by 10 min! The next one wasn't leaving for another 45 min. So this time we didnt leave and just sat in the car and entertained ourselves. Both Luke's and my phones were dead so we had to revert back to the old days of how we used to entertain ourselves. My stomach ended up hurting from laughing so much! It was a good time!
The next day we had to go pick up Tiffany at the airport in Seattle so we took advantage of going down that direction and went to do this hike to a viewpoint of Snoqualamie Falls. Turned out to be a very easy "hike" with a not so good view of the falls. It was a good time, because like most times with Luke, we still have fun. But we wanted to see the falls better. So we drove to get something to eat (Italian, made me miss Jeremy and Italy and look forward to going back) and then stopped by a better viewpoint of the falls! This time, the view was awesome. The inner photographer came out in me too and I went to some lengths to get some good shots of Luke and Jackie with the falls in the background.
Awesome view!
Luke, Jackie, and Benjamin (can't see him as well yet!)
That weekend we went back down to Seattle to spend the last night with Jackie's aunt. We walked around Pike's Place Market, did a cruise in the bay, and attempted to get Luke's kite in the air with little success :( The geocaching.com headquarters are in Seattle and they have the jackpot geocache in their headquarters. It contains a lot of trackables so we were really excited to go visit this place! The cache is a big treasure chest. I got a trackable that wants to return to Hannover, Germany! So I am going to at last bring it to Italy!
Luke and Jackie digging through the jackpot cache!
It was an awesome time and I always look forward to the next time I get to be with them. Jackie is due in March, maybe I will have to take my next contract close to them so I can be close when the baby arrives!!
Seattle skyline
After a chunk of working it was time for the parents to visit! I was really looking forward to this. It has been hard lately because my parents have been under a lot of stress with problems going on with my brother Nick. Come to mention it, any prayers sent in the way of Nick and my parents would be greatly appreciated. He is not doing very good, and it has been really hard not being able to be there for my mom to show her how much I love her and to comfort her. She is such an amazing mother and unfortunately she has been doubting how great of a mother she is lately. And it was just her birthday and she didn't have the greatest birthday. So it felt wonderful to be able to hug her and tell her how much I love her!
The day the arrived, I had worked the night before and planned to get up at noon to get ready and pick them up. Their flight was to get in at 3:30. Something happened with my phone alarm and I ended up not waking up until 3!! I saw the time, shot straight up in bed, got ready in five minutes and left to pick them up. My luck, there was a huge accident and I ended up being about an hour and a half late picking them up. I felt so bad! Luckily we were able to make it to Pike's Place Market before everything was closed and managed to still buy plenty of fruits and veggies! Then we went to eat at a nice seafood place in Seattle.
The next day we headed out to Lake Chelan! I think my mom and I decided that a trip to there should be an annual thing, at least semiannual. We love it out there. Probably just because it means something significant to us, like the fact we were named after that lake! Plus, there are some great things to do around there! Hiking, biking, water activities, wine tasting! This time my dad got to come too. Been a while since he has been there. Tiffany joined us for the weekend as well. The first day my dad and I played a little tennis, then we went to do some blueberry picking. We ended up getting blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries! Hard to find the blueberries at first, but then we found the jackpot and my dad actually ended up picking the most! Then we ate there and it was the best lunch! I got chicken fajitas with a side salad that was the best salad I have ever had! The rest of the day we soaked up the sun next to beautiful lake Chelan! Oh, and my mom decided to go down a slide and nearly killed herself! She went faster than expected and did a somersault at the bottom, it was hilarious! Reminded me of the time all five of us were in a park close to our cabin in CO and we all just went and goofed off in the park, having a great time!
Lake Chelan. The other name for Chelan is "Tsillan" meaning deep water. Lake Chelan is the third deepest lake in the nation. 9th deepest in the world or close to that.
Enjoying the Farmer's Market
Picking blueberries!
Mom's about to meet her doom on the slide!
The next day dad and I went mountain biking near the ski resort, very small ski resort. Pretty sure they didn't even have a chairlift! It was some pretty cool trails. Very good for the beginner mountain biker but not too easy. They were fun, not too challenging, but we still had a good time. A few good views of Lake Chelan.
Yurt on the trail. These are cross country trails in the winter so you can stop in here and warm up!
The rest of the day we did some wine tasting, found some geocaching, and walked around Chelan! Good day! Unfortunately, we had to head back to Everett the next day. Mom booked our place at Lake Chelan pretty late notice so we didn't get to stay too many nights there. But that's ok, it was a great trip and a great time with the family! I also got the opportunity to beat my dad in racquetball! Unfortunately only one game, he beat me in two games :( It's a good challenge to play him though, mainly because he is an obstacle that I have to maneuver around!! I love you mom and dad! You are amazing parents and I love you so much!
Found a geocache!
Sunset over the lake!
Enjoying the view!
