Seattle in the Summer

After Victoria, we spent two days hanging out in Seattle with our friends Ashley and Austin and their two precious kiddos.  Ashley took us to Pike Place Market, and we loved walking around, seeing the fish and flowers, and stopping for snacks at so many different eateries!

Richard loved the salmon!

$5 bunches of beautiful flowers - if we lived in Seattle i told richard he would have to bring me flowers all the time!

Payton & Hudson joined us for a fun morning touring Seattle.  they were so cute!

Thank you Ashely for a great visit!  you were a wonderful hostess and we loved seeing your city.

Tour de Victoria

Richard and I just spent a week visiting Victoria, British Columbia and Seattle - it was awesome!  No kids (thanks nana & papa) and a great vacation touring and staying busy with adventures.  We joked that our vacation ended up being "extreme" because many of the things we signed up for turned out to be bigger/longer/bumpier than we imagined!  I would highly recommend Victoria for a getaway - one of my favorite cities i've been to!

we lucked out - Ryder Hesjedal (famous cyclist) was hosting a big ride the day after we got there.  While Ryder wasn't there, 1,500 riders participated and the city was alive with festivals and bike stuff!

Walking in downtown Victoria - this is Parliament.  We walked everywhere and our hotel was close to everything.

Enjoying one of our many seafood meals - fish and chips on the water!

A sea kayaking tour of Vicoria - 3 hours and we saw so much! 

Richard and his kayak.  He did great for his first time paddling!

Paddling by the harbor seals. 

 

Day 2 - we rented bikes and took off for a seaside tour. The bike guy told us this would be a "nice" ride for a couple of hours. It was nice, but very hilly and 23 miles later we made it back to the city!  Extreme vacation!

Day 3 - whale watching!  We had low expectations of seeing any whales and we were more than happy with the outcome.  We chose the "zodiac" ride, a small boat that holds 12 people and sits down in the water.  On a calm day, this boat would be great - we had a very rough day with 5 foot waves!  it was quite a bumpy ride but we held on and were thankful for our big red floatation suits! 

We did see whales - a lot of them!  They were orkas (killer whales) and so beautiful! 

After whale watching we took a city bus north to the Butchart Gardens.  We heard they were beautiful and not to be missed - we were not disappointed. 

The sunken gardens - our favorite of the many gardens.  I think it will be even more beautiful in another couple of weeks if you can imagine.

The Japanese Gardens

A walk down to Fisherman's Wharf - a great little spot with more fish & chips and a dock to feed the seals. 

What a great vacation!  Victoria was even better than we imagined - so walkable, easy to navigate, lots of good food and beer, beautiful scenery, boats, and plenty of activities.  I hope we can do it again someday!

Summer Brooks

Our big boy after his swim lessons.  Brooks is doing lessons everyday with a few other kids for 30 minutes.  We had a couple of days where he wasn't very into swimming, but I think we turned a corner yesterday.  He likes his teacher (a bit of a crush) and has been floating on his tummy and back.  Now for getting under the water!

Brooks doing Kate's "pickle face"

splashing and kicking with his teacher. 

this summer brooks has also enjoyed a fun weekend with daddy when mommy went to tennessee and a trip to Dallas to go house hunting.  This little guy knows so much about real estate and talkes about homes being "on the market" or "under contract." 

The many faces of Kate

Our little one is showing so much peronality these days.  She has a great surprised face and one we call the "pickle face."  she made that one the first time she ate a pickle and it was awesome!

kate's messy face as she eats pasta - she will only feed herself these days and is pretty good at it.

kate's new stroller from our next door neighbors.  she loves it and is pushing her "baby" everywhere.  we also decided that kate needs to spend more time in just her diaper because it's just too cute!

fun weekend with nana and papa

Now that Richard and I are finally over a crazy bug that hit us for two weeks, I can post pictures from a fun weekend with nana and papa in denver. 

We all went to Brooks's soccer on Saturday (which started out great and turned into tears by the end!).

Then we hit the the golf course and had fun putting and chipping.  Not exactly our best golf attire but oh well! 

Daddy's girl

Even Kate took to putting and loved pulling the ball out of the hole afterward. 

Maybe we have two future golfers on our hands - that would be awesome!

kate's first sprinkler time

PRICELESS!!

biker babe

couldn't resist posting these cute pics - kate likes to wear her helmet around all the time.