Seattle Trip

We went on a glorious trip to Seattle this summer. It was quite possibly the most relaxing vacation I've ever taken. A million thanks again to Skye and Jon for letting us crash at their house, feeding us, giving us insider driving tips, and for generally allowing us to interrupt their lives for a week! I came home feeling more refreshed than I have in a long time. 

When debating road trip vs flying, it didn't take long to decide that the flying was the way to go. The kids were just as excited about the flight as they were the destination. 

In the airport... waiting.... and more waiting..... this was Nora's first airplane trip ever!

Just landed! It was a great flight! 

The kids got their wings. So exciting! And a source of lots of creative play all week long with their cousins.

Our first evening was spent at the Museum of Flight. There was so much to see and we could have spent many more hours there. The outdoor exhibits were my favorite. 

The kids wanted to spend all night in the kid's zone. 

Friday we helped clean house (it's incredible how fast you can clean when you have 4-5 adults all working together!) and put together a puppy birthday party. So fun to share that with Alyssa. I don't think we have ever been to one of her parties before. 

Saturday was Kylie's baptism ---- the catalyst for the entire trip! Again, something we weren't sure if we would be able to share with our out-of-state family. It was so lovely. And we discovered that family selfies are hard when we are all standing up!

We also got to picnic on the beach of the Puget Sound. I wasn't expecting sandy beaches in Washington state! So beautiful and calming. Throughout the whole trip I just couldn't get over how perfect the weather was (60-70 degrees, partly cloudy the whole time!) and how beautiful the scenery was. So many very very green trees and bushes, and lots of water. So different from Utah and just as picturesque. 

We also made a trip to the Seattle temple grounds and the family discovery center there. A very educational and fun trip for everyone. 

We spent one day in downtown Seattle and did the Space Needle tour. This was at the top of the kids' must-see lists. 

Holy cow look at those bolts! They are huge! Zeke was so impressed. He said it was a good thing no one had a wrench that big to take them out or the whole Space Needle would fall over. Side note: love how the other kids are climbing on it in the background. 

We also stopped at the Science Center after the Space Needle. We were all pretty tired so we didn't stay long. We did explore the space room and the butterfly house. Again, so much to see and not much time to do it in. We will definitely plan to come again when we make it back to the area. 

The best part of the trip for everyone was simply the downtime with our family. We had a great time helping with parties and doing touristy stuff. But the time for the kids to play and the adults to talk or just chill was what everyone really wanted out of a vacation. The last day of the trip the kids had a game of Star Wars going all day long, and we were happy to just let them run all over the house exploring the galaxy without having anywhere else to go. 

It's always bittersweet to come to the end of a fabulous vacation, but having another plane ride to look forward to helped! This time the kiddos got to see the cockpit and briefly meet the co-captain. This ride was just as fun as the first and they can't wait to fly again. 

Flying Fortress

After last year's B-25 event, we were super excited to go back to the airport this year for another bomber. It flew over our heads right as we arrived. 

As we walked along the airport toward the event, we watched it land and taxi past us.

It was so shiny and very cool to watch fly.

Last year we climbed in and toured the plane and felt very lucky to get to watch it take off. This year it had flights scheduled every hour and was never on the ground long enough for us to go inside! 

We did get to walk around though, and Zeke discovered he fits right under the wing just perfectly.

Two of the four impressive propellers.

Cool truck by the air museum.

B-25 Mitchell Bomber

We truly loved the couple of hours we spent visiting the B-25 bomber that came to Heber in June. It was a beautiful plane. It is based in Arizona but tours the country, so it is very well kept and totally functional. 

Big wheels (taller than Nora!)

Huge propellers (x2)

Zeke next to the bomb, which has been repurposed as a monetary donation collection device. 

For a $10 donation we got to tour the plane. We went looked over the seats into the cockpit, then went into the back. 

We walked around a couple of other planes that were sitting nearby. Zeke took a picture of the under-wing on all of them. 

About the time we got done seeing the additional planes, they asked everyone to move off to the side so the bomber could fly. We sat to watch it start up, then moved over towards the runway to watch it take off. 

  

The take off was phenomenal! The video is good, but in person it was just thrilling. Much more exciting than I expected!

Nora was really bummed that we couldn't go up for a flight in the bomber. It was cute. And somewhat overdramatic.  

Our Summer Staycation

We planned a staycation this year to save some money, and to do some of those things around home that we say we want to do but never actually do. We had expected it to be several single days scattered throughout the summer, but it turned out that we were able to take a whole consecutive week!

Very conveniently, a B-25 bomber was visiting the week we were staycationing. We spent a very enjoyable morning at the airport with this beauty. 

Nora has never been on Trax before (it's hard to believe it's been 4 years since we last rode the train!). She absolutely loved it. On the trip back, we were in the first car, and Zeke spent the whole trip looking through the window to the cab so he could watch out the windshield like the driver.

They were checking tickets at one of the stops, and the kids got police badge stickers. They are showing them off in most of the pictures we have from our train ride. 

We spent another day at the Hill Air Force Base museum. This is another place that we love but haven't visited since Nora was a baby. 

We fit in lots of playground time too.

We tried to go flying on Flag Day, but it was super windy and cold. The only thing we flew was the flag! Still fun though.

It was so great to just be together for a whole week with a lot of free time to do what we wanted instead of our normal daily routine of trying to fit everything in. I took a whole bunch of pictures and we did a lot of playing. It was wonderful. 

Lego Mania

The library had a Lego show/competition we looked forward to all summer. Aaron and Zeke carefully crafted their complex entries, and Nora and I went together for easy and simple. 

Aaron built a Japanese WWII plane, the Claude. He submitted it as a work in progress, because we didn't have and chose not to buy all the pieces he needed. See the Lego dude on the right wing working on the plane?

Zeke built boats. The front one is the King's boat, with all sorts of fancy stuff. The pirates, in back, are chasing the King because they want to steal his super awesome chair. Suffice it to say the King and the pirates are not friends. 

Nora loves building towers out of Duplos so I let her go to it while I built a base for it. I thought the flowers were a fun touch. After I put them on, she asked me 'Can I pick the flowers?' and proceeded to take them all off and put them back in a different order. Then I moved the tower out of her reach before she could take it all apart again!

There were a lot of entries and it was fun to see such a great response. Zeke was bummed that he didn't win, but truly he had tons of competition! Aaron came close: he tied with the 1 other adult entry, then lost in a tie-breaker. 

This is the Place

Friends from Colorado invited us to spend the day with them at This is the Place Park. 

It was a fun day of investigating old buildings, watching blacksmith and cabinetry demonstrations, catching up over lunch and ice cream, and letting the kids get to know each other better. 

The 'train' was a big hit with the kiddos. 

  

I think Zeke and Nora could have ridden the miniature railroad all day. 

  

It was a fun outing, thanks to the Giffords for inviting us! 

Heber Valley Air Show

We found out about the air show quite by accident. On Saturday morning (day of) Aaron happened to go to ksl.com, and on their recent stories list was a piece about the air show from the night before. At least we found out about it in advance this time! We have never gone because we usually don't find out about it until during or after the event, and we typically have other things going on. This day was no different, but we squeezed it in and I'm glad we did.

We spent about an hour walking through, looking at the planes and taking pictures. It was hot, but there was a good turnout in both planes and spectators.

The first thing we saw as we walked onto the airport was the 'path' of painted airplanes. We followed the little yellow airplanes and they led us to all there was to see.

Zeke really liked this one. Not sure why, but he specifically told us 'I like this one.'

Team OK3Air. I've heard this one buzzing around and seen it doing pattern flying but never knew it was an 'official' team plane.

Aaron got to fly this very plane about 2 years ago when we did a discovery flight, which is basically the introduction to flight school. We decided not to do the classes because we couldn't afford it, but after being around all of these planes Aaron is strongly reconsidering the idea of getting his pilot's license.

Love the green plane.

The Chinese plane featured in the story we watched on ksl. Here it is taxiing in from a flight. We were right next to it as it parked.

T-28 Trojan, one of Aaron's favorites.

Love the small jets. Zeke says this one is like Siddeley from Cars 2.

Great scenery and cool planes means we got some nice in-flight pictures.

Zeke was sad that we left without getting in a plane. Hopefully next year we will have time to linger a little bit and wait in the long lines of people waiting to look inside a warbird!