Tulips

Grandma Noelene arrived late Thursday evening. She was originally coming to help watch the kids while I went to England to see baby Liam, but after some discussion it was decided that the trip might not be worth the amount of money that it was going to cost. When I decided that I wasn't going, we were glad that she just came anyway.

The weather was rainy and so we decided to head up north to the Skagit County tulip festival. That way we would get to enjoy something pretty in the rain at least! We drove the 2 1/2 hours or so up to Burlington after Thomas got out of school yesterday. It was so windy when we arrived that we almost blew away as we walked from the car into the restaurant for dinner. I was worried that it all might have been a bad idea, but the kids loved jumping on the hotel bed and of course swimming in the pool.

There always has to be some swimming in the hotel pool.

There was also some pretending to be Santa Claus

with the bubbles from the hot tub. I think that someone

had poured a bottle of shampoo in there.

I'm glad that Santa isn't really this scary

Of course the evening ended with a movie and popcorn

After breakfast this morning we made the short drive out to Mount Vernon and followed the tulip route to Tulip Town. We didn't visit Tulip Town on the last trip we made here a couple of years ago since we were too late in the season and most of the tulips were already gone.

Can you pick out the non Washingtonian?

She doesn't have rain boots on! They came in very handy.

The kids complained a little as we made our way out to the field about the long walk, but they soon got into it. They loved walking in the mud, and Thomas loved looking at the parts of the flower. I could remember a few of the names of the flower parts like the stamen and the anther from good old biology, so I promised him that we would 'google' it when we got home.

The fields were quite amazing

Zach was about the only one not too happy to be there

Olivia wanted her picture taken with all the different

colored flowers. Here she is with yellow...

...and purple...

...and red tulips. I told her that 3 colors were enough!

Zach never really warmed up to Tulip Town

I have some funky wind hair going on

(mainly because I lacked a spare hand to fix it!)

Grandma Noelene even let us take a picture with her

Thomas among the flowers

Tulips everywhere

This poor little red guy obviously didn't get the right message

Running back to the car

We threw our muddy boots into the back of the car and then drove out to RoozenGaarde. We decided that we would probably only do RoozenGaarde next time since they have fields to walk in as well as the most beautiful displays in their gardens. No need to pay twice I guess.

People walking the gardens

The girls had to get a shot in front of the pink flowers

Then everyone wanted a picture

These were some of Spenser's favorites. I made fun of him because he always likes the funky ones. He can never be conventional. Who knows, maybe I'm the boring one?!

The kids had fun walking the gardens. They found sticks to fight with and even Zach had a good time running around. It did get a little crazy at one point and Thomas ended up in the middle of a bed of tulips. Luckily he's not too heavy and so nothing got damaged.

Zach is a no go for pictures with dad it would seem

We were disappointed to find that most of the daffodil fields were already down and so we were excited to see this on our drive out of Mount Vernon. I love how bright and cheerful daffodils are.

We decided to drive home a different way than we had come. Spenser gets bored of the same things. I tell him all the time that I hope he doesn't get bored of me one day. We drove up to Oak Harbor and Spenser and Noelene got out and walked cross Deception Pass.

The area is quite beautiful

The bridge that they walked across

We then made our way to Mulkiteo on the ferry. It was just a short crossing with only Zach and Spenser getting out of the car. I am pleased to report that there wasn't too much sea sickness on my part. It was then straight down the I-5 to our rainy home.