Mt. Rainier and Camping!

We had a great time at Mt. Rainier National Park this weekend! We learned you have to get there eaaaaarly on a sunny summer weekend. By the time we left it was PACKED! We still had fun.

We checked out the new visitor's center at Paradise...

And then hit the trails!

This is an "avalanche Lily"

 We even saw some critters!

 This was as far as we got (1/2 mile in). Lily wasn't too excited about hiking, and this was coming in:

 When the thunder started, we decided the rangers had made a good recommendation: Get off the mountain!

Lily and a patch of Avalanche Lilies!

 On our way back, we spotted this little friend right alongside the trail! If she hadn't swished her ears we might have missed her entirely!

 When we got back to our campsite, our friends Jenne, Bill, and Amara had appeared!

Lily loved helped walk Bob.

We scored a tractor-pulled hay ride tour of the preserve!

 Not pictured: the pool! We all loved it. Lily even tried Amara's floaty and was actually cruising all around the pool. Hooray!

Peninsula Adventure!

Well, for some reason the pictures loaded in backward order, but I'm just going to roll with it!

Yesterday, we piled the kids in Dad's minivan (thanks Dad!) and hopped a ferry for the peninsula! We had a lot of grand ideas of things we would do. We never made it passed Sequim! We still had a great day. 

The kids were great in the car, even when we sat in lots of traffic and long ferry lines to get back. The good news was we had the sunset ride!

 We found an adorable family lavender farm and let the kiddos loose!

 We took a little walk along the cliff at Dungeness Spit.

 And our favorite part (we actually did this first) was the Olympic Game Farm! We hadn't been since Mom and Dad moved out of Port Angeles. This place is crazy! You get to drive through the animal pens and feed them loaves of whole wheat bread! It is hilarious. Lily was "scary" [scared] which of course means she loved it. And she even fed the animals some bread (the part that she didn't eat herself). "No, I didn't eat it. Nope!"

This elk may have nibbled on the van a little. No teeth marks, we checked. :)

 Two monkeys ready to walk on the ferry!