Trip to Sandpoint

Last week Brady had a shoot up in Sandpoint so we decided to make a family day of it. We drove up to this amazing cabin in the woods on the lake. It was so incredibly beautiful up there! Unfortunately, when we got there we discovered that there were people there (they hadn't told the rest of the family who arranged the photos of the cabin that they were going up that day). So the photo plans were put on hold and we decided to just enjoy the scenery and drive. We drove up to Oden Bay and then to Hope. We stopped at the Trestle Creek Rec. Area and let the kids play in the water, which was remarkably warm! It was a great day. It reminded me of going on drives as a kid- we'd all hop in the car (with our books, of course) and drive up to these remote places on these crazy, narrow roads... inevitably we'd have to back several miles down a dirt trail that was barely wide enough for the car... ahhh... good times! ;) Truly.

I may have passed on my OCD

Yes. This is my 1 year old. Dusting.  

Seattle Trip + Tons of Pics= Procrastination

My blog is disgracefully behind. Every time I think about updating.... I get overwhelmed with all of the pictures that I know I need to edit and upload ... and I put it all off yet again. But no more!! Today begins a new day! A day in which I will finally update our blog and hopefully begin to do better at keeping it updated... hopefully...
First our Seattle trip. ( Just by way of warning... I'm going after "the longest post" title with this one.. watch out Mandy! :p) It's been a while since we have been on a 'vacation' type trip with the kids. I think since Vance was just a little one. So we had a lot of fun. Our hotel room was comped by a client of Brady's who was trading for photos. So we got to stay in this amazing suite... that was probably about as big as our house.
Here are Jax and Ellie right before we set off. Don't they look excited?

Lilah was asleep before we'd even left our street.... Sweet thing!

We stopped the first night at Grandma Rothrock and Leonard's house. It was so great to see them!
The boys made themselves at home right away.. I think the first question Vance asks whenever we get there is "Can we play with the toys?".
And Ellie and Lilah went outside to enjoy the swing.
The next morning was mother's day. Jax spent a little while outside that morning.. mysteriously... and when he brought me out to the swing this is what I found!! He's such a sweet son.


Grandma and Lilah spending some quality time together. This picture is just so sweet.

After breakfast on Sunday morning we headed off to Seattle! The kids really do so well on long trips so we didn't really have any major adventures along the way. We listened to books on tape in the car (Narnia) and next thing you know we were checking into our hotel in downtown Seattle!



This was the bedroom.
The living room.
The kids eating breakfast in the dining area.

We did a little bit of sightseeing. Far more than I'll be able to post because uploading all the pictures would take a year! But here are a few highlights...






One amazing daddy with four amazing kids!
The Children's Museum. What a great place that was!

This is in our hotel. Just a couple of cute kids we found! :)

We took the kids on the monorail... talk about cheap entertainment! Vance is doing his signature half smile.

The Seattle Aquarium. Vance once again with the cute half smile.


Vance likes otters.......
What a doll she is!