A little slice of paradise

Ben's parents are in town and we have had more opportunities to get outside and explore this beautiful place we call home!

2 weekends ago we ventured to Vashon Island for the strawberry festival. I have wanted to explore Vashon island for a long time, so it worked out great to go during their largest event! Unfortunately, I remembered the camera, but didn't remember to put the memory card back in it, so I wasn't able to take any pictures. Ben and his parents ran in a 5K and I cheered them on from the sidelines. After the race we checked out the different booths and soon realized one odd thing.. we were at the strawberry festival and no one was selling strawberries. There were people selling cutlery, sheets, baskets, and tshirts, but no strawberries. We settled with an extremely large (I mean LARGE) basket of curly fries and a gyro. We bought some strawberry shortcake from the rotary club, but were extremely disappointed when we took a bite and it tasted like seltzer water. Vashon island was rugged and beautiful, probably not a place i'll go back to often, but fun to explore.

This last weekend we went to Mt. Rainier for some hiking and camping. No matter how many times I come to this place, I leave in awe of the beauty of God's creation. We went for a hike, played some cribbage, ate a delicious dinner topped with some tasty smores, and explored the Paradise area of the mountain.

Glitz & Glam 2009

The girls & I had a long awaited "girls night out" this week. We left behind our 6 husbands and 3 babies for a fun night out on the town. What a wonderful time to celebrate Lindsey's birthday and the beauty of friendship!

We ate dinner at the Black Bottle in downtown Seattle. We each order a dish and shared. The food. was. amazing.


The dessert might have been even better...
Toast to the birthday girl.

Amazing friends.

Divas on the loose

Being humble by a billboard.

North Cascades

My mom is in town visiting which gives us a a great excuse to abandon all of our normal responsibilities of running errands, cleaning our place etc, and venture out and explore our incredible state. It's hard to think of a better place to be in during this time of year!

Last weekend we ventured into the North Cascades, an area I have been dying to explore since we moved up here! My expectations of the scenery were completely met- it was beautiful!

We spent the first day exploring the newhalem/diablo lake area. Here are a few pics:





We spent the night in Newhalem.. Ben and I busted out our tent for the first time- it worked great!

The next morning we decided we felt fairly ambitious so after a short hike to a waterfall, we started driving around the entire cascade loop! We stopped in the Washington Pass area for a beautiful hike to an alpine lake.


We continued on to Winthrop where we stopped for some tasty ice cream.

We made one final stop in Leavenworth for a brat, but didn't stay long because it was about 92 degrees outside.

It was a wonderful weekend!