Tulip Festival

We had a wonderful, but very tiring day today. It's been a long while, but we decided to take advantage of the Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon, WA. It's about a 3-ish hour drive from where we are and the BIGGEST patience tester a driver has to go through (which is why Steve drives). While the drive is a straight, I-5 north, once there, you have to wait to exit (a good hour), then you proceed to wait to get to a field. Once we got there, we were in the car for another 2 - 2.5 hours just chugging along with everyone else. Granted the tulip festival isn't an activity that rates "fun" in Steve's or the kids books, but it is beautiful and the you can beat the pictures you can get. I've never had a bad picture. The kids did enjoy getting their pictures taken and we enjoyed walking around. AND it was a beautiful day in Washington for such and activity. Typically it's pretty rainy during the times the festival is being held and so you are sloshing in mud (which is why we typically don't go). This little trip has me tied over for a couple of years before I feel the need to for another visit.

Afterwards, while we were in the area, we headed to my favorite outlet mall for a little shopping. Got Jake a pair of shoes and the boys a little bit of clothes. I wasn't in it for personal gain today, so it was a pretty short trip... we still had a couple hours drive home. Once we were back in the area we stopped off at one of our favorite restaurant for some dinner. It was very yummy!

Now we are home and it's 10pm (we got home around 9:30pm), and I'm ready to call it a night. I'm sure there are a few hours of good sleep ahead of me tonight!

Easter 2009

We had a wonderful Easter and you would have known about it sooner had I been able to get my pix downloaded to the computer. Different story, different Blog!

Saturday we got together with our friends, The Lee family, for appetizers, dinner, and drinks. During our time, myself and Wendy stuffed many plastic eggs full of candy for the kiddos the hunt the next day. Then realized that we needed more stuff and did a Wal-Mart run. Okay, the night before Easter, not the best time to be in Wal-Mart. We were in line at Wal- Mart for as long as we shopped there. Crazy-ness! We came back to my place to wrap things up and then they headed out. I still had Easter baskets to make and to create the Easter morning scene in the Bell household. Steve and I went to bed, finally, at 3am.

Sunday - we rush out of bed at 9:45am to get the kids bathed and ready for brunch that we needed to leave for in 45 minutes. The words "on time" and "quick" do not exist in my household. Rather "rushed" and "on time-ish" are words that best describe us. So, around 10:30 we are not ready. Oh, and remember the "Easter scene" I mentioned above, yeah, still had to happen. So, since Jake was a year old, I have had an Easter bag (not basket) that I leave by his door, empty. Then from his door to his Easter basket I leave a trail of eggs for him to pick up and put in his bag. Well, now having two, I do this for both kids. They love it, so it's worth it. So, we rushed the easter bag trail thing to get out of the door by, yes, 11am. We have brunch on the waterfront in Tacoma, it was a disgusting rainy day, but the scenery made up for it. Then we headed back to my house and waited to see if we would get a break in the now thunderous rain. Yeah, 2 hrs into the waiting game, we have restless kids and still thunderous rain. We revert to plan B... Easter egg hunt indoors. These are things you need to be prepared for in Washington. The kids still loved it and they still got their hunt on.

All in all, it was another successful Easter!