Last week we went on vacation to the Seattle, Washington area.  I will now bore you with our vacation pictures.

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We started out from the airport during a thunderstorm, which is always a good way to have your VERY FIRST FLIGHT.  Yes, the kiddos were excited!  We even got to ride on a plane that had TV screens in the chairs, so Kai watched Cartoon Network during part of the flight.  Anya watched her DVD’s the whole flight.  They both were spoiled.

Upon arriving in Seattle, we got our rental car (a black Dodge Charger…RAWRRRR) and proceeded to head south.  The car was a bit different in that it hailed from Canada.  It had the temperature in Celsius, and had Kilometers Per Hour instead of Miles Per Hour for the speeds.  This confused the American driver and made figuring out how fast he was going a bit of a challenge.  He usually speeds, he just ended up speeding more.

We had some time to kill before meeting up with some blog buddies, so we hit the Nisqually National Wildlife Preserve.  We figured the kids and us needed to get out and stretch our legs after the flight and the driving.  The kids were unimpressed and Kailan in particular just wanted to go back to the car.  Brian and I would have rather hiked the 4 miles out to the lookout over the Puget Sound, but the kids were not having it.  We really didn’t have the time, either.

It was very pretty, green and peaceful there.  Except when our kids were yelling at each other.

This, however, hit our funny bone.  Really???  As you can see the squirrels were quite ferocious.  Craazzzzyyyyy Rabid Squirrel!

Then we met up with Rachel, Mr. Daddy and Itty Bit.  After conversing online for several years it was really nice to finally meet them in person.  We all had dinner at a BBQ joint, and played mini-golf at the adjoining course.  The kids were very enthusiastic in their hitting and seemed to get along very well.  It was great time!

Then, about 7pm we headed off to Mt. Ranier.  We had a good hour and a half drive to get up the mountain to the Paradise Inn at the top.  As we were headed in, the fog descended on us.  It was pretty surreal driving into Ranier National Forest with so much fog and hardly another soul on the road.  The road was quite winding with switchbacks and some of the trees were practically growing in the road.

When we finally made it to the top at about 9pm, we were above the fog bank and could see the sun setting in the west.  It was just beautiful…and a little chilly.

We checked into our room, which was rustic.  It is an old inn built in the early 1900’s and much of it has yet to be updated. There are rooms which do not include a bathroom, but have a community bathroom.  I made sure we had a bathroom…such as it was.  The room came complete with some bugs, which Anya apparently thought were out to get her.  We had to do a bit of coaxing to get her to share the bathroom with some bugs.

Eventually we got the kids settled down and ready to sleep in our cozy little room.

Then we had a beer.

Day 1 of vacation was complete!