Life's Helmet

Sunday, July 3, 2016

A Weekend In Manson

Stop 1 - Blueberry Hills: Our first stop was at Blueberry Hills to eat breakfast & pick blueberries. We ended up picking 6 buckets worth weighing in at a total of 36 pounds. In case you're wondering, the large haul cost a total of $90!

Stop 2 - Cherry Orchards: Ryan's uncles told us that many of the cherry orchards had been damaged due to hail. Because of the damage, they weren't going to be able to harvest the cherries and just had to let them drop to the ground. We couldn't bear to see all of those cherries go to waste so we ran over and picked boxes & boxes full. While we picked Milo ran through the trees looking for dandelions and Cooley chowed down on cherries until his skin was dyed red.

Stop 3 - Swimming: After picking cherries we went over to Ryan's Uncle Doug's house to swim. Maeli quickly became best friends (or "BFF's" as they called each other) with their granddaughter and they spent the entire afternoon swimming & playing.

Stop 4 - Helicopter Ride: We ended the day with a helicopter ride from Ryan's Uncle Dale. Milo got to ride in the front seat and laughed and yelled as we rode around. He felt especially cool getting to wear the headset.

After the ride we dropped by Dale's house to get some ice cream from his backyard ice cream machine. It was pretty much the perfect end to a pretty close to perfect day.

Taking On The Pacific Coast Highway - Day 9

Stop 24 - Lavender Fields in Sequim: We started the day with a relaxing drive through the lavender fields in Sequim. I have been wanting to see the lavender fields in bloom for quite some time so this was an exciting moment for me.

We ended up changing our plans a bit on this day since we decided to make a last-minute stop in Puyallup to see Ryan's sister. We basically scrapped the rest of our plans for the day and headed straight to Puyallup so the kids could spend some time with their cousins. On our way, we came across a small ice cream shop that operates out of a few old train cars. Although the restaurant is shut down now, we couldn't pass up a chance to get out and explore the train cars before continuing on.

Once we arrived in Puyallup our car ended up breaking down requiring it to spend the next day in the shop getting repaired. The cost of fixing it was not a fun expense but we felt is was a tender mercy fro the Lord that the car ended up having this issues in Puyallup with family as opposed to when we were on the road. Once the car was fixed we continued on Spokane to spend the next several weeks with Ryan's family. By the end of the trip we were exhausted, sunburned, and a few pounds heavier but we figured that was a small price to pay for some of the greatest memories we could ever ask for as a family. Until next time PCH!