MOM'S VISIT

Avery keeps saying "hooray hooray!" because this is what mom said a lot while she was here visiting for a week. We had such a wonderful time, and even though it makes me sad that we live so far away - it makes it that much more exciting to see mom and everyone else when we do get to see them. This shot is at the sculpture park in Seattle and mom and Avery just happened to be twins that day. We went to the park right after I picked mom up from the airport.
This is also in the park at a little cove on the beach. I'm holding Avery because she wasn't too sure about standing on the "messy" rocks. She's going through a clean phase right now, which makes it really difficult to use public restrooms in particular :) This is at a place called the Country Village that runs train rides for kids during the spring and summer. Avery rode it this day by herself for the first time - she had made a friend in the bouncy house and sat next to her the whole time. You can that she was pretty excited.
On Saturday, we went to my Uncle James' cabin and spent the day with James and my cousin Cheyenne and her family. Avery was in charge of holding the flag and is doing her best here to "hold it high." We're so grateful that James, Cheyenne, and Will are so generous with opening their cabin up to family and friends. We had a great time. The next day, we took advantage of being so close to the Olympic Nat'l park and did some hiking. There's a neat road that goes to the top of Mt. Walker (appropriately) which has really stunning views across the Hood Canal and Kitsap Pennisula, all the way to Seattle and Mt. Rainier. You can kind of get a sense of it in the next couple pictures. We also took a hike to the base of a waterfall; I misread the trail description, which I thought had said "meandering" so naturally I thought it would be easy. It turned out to be straight switchbacks down and then back up from the water, but it was beautiful and worth it, I think :)



It was really sad to see mom go. Avery says she wants to go to Mama Nell's house tomorrow, but I told her that we had to wait for Christmas (and then Avery said, "And go to Santa's house on the water and eat breakfast?" I have no idea where that came from or what that means!). Thanks mom, for such a good time and for all the dishes that you washed. See you again in a few months :)