Thursday...

Today was the day that makes us wonder why we live in Ohio.(sorry grandparents!) We went to Olympic National Park and the scenery was incredible. It was about 30 miles into the forest to get to the nearest trailhead. There were backpackers everywhere...it made us want to do that some day. We did two short hikes to waterfalls and Zachary really liked the water.

One of the highlights of the trip was seeing a bald eagle sitting on a branch above the river. He was sitting right above the salmon cascades where you could see salmon jumping up the rapids. We were on the lookout for bears as well since this is a popular area for them.

We finished the day with some Thai food from a restaurant called Thai Peppers. It was the best Thai that I've ever had. Sorry, no pictures of that. But here's some pics from the day...

This was the beginning of the day. Zachary likes the backpack, although he likes to walk too.




Zachary liked this tunnel. In the second picture he is going over to the side and screaming to hear his echo. We could have spent all day there as far as he was concerned.




Here's Z skipping rocks.


Zachary and I hiked down close to the waterfall where we could feel the mist. It made mommy nervous but she still snapped a few pictures.


Here's a picture on the bridge that goes over the waterall.


Here's the picture of the bald eagle. It's tough to see in the picture because it's out of focus, but I think you can make it out. If you click on the picture you can get a bigger version and it becomes easier to see.



Last one...Jenelle and I got out by Crescent Lake to get a picture while Z was asleep in the car. The lake was beautiful and the water was freezing! You can tell from the picture that Jenelle and I were cold. The wind was blowing pretty good.

Wednesday...

Not much to talk about today. Jenelle didn't feel well, and it was kind of a travel day anyway so we didn't do much. We left Bellingham this morning and found a nice mall that is located right next to our hotel for later in the week. We ate at this quaint burrito joint. Outstanding.

We then made our way west and took a ferry across Puget Sound to the Olympic peninsula. We ended up in Port Angeles where we will stay for two nights. We are going to do some hiking in Olympic National Park and do some driving along the west coast.

Friday we plan to head back to Lynnburg which is a norther suburb of Seattle. We will do downtown stuff over the weekend before heading north back to Bellingham on Monday.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from Wednesday. We didn't even pull the camera out of the bag. Jenelle wasn't feeling all that photogenic. So I will throw a few in from the other days just so some of you can get your Zachary fix...

Playing with dough at the Pizza place...he kept trying to eat it!


We have deemed this the Tommy Boy face. Two chins are better than one!


The water is about 60 degrees, but Zachary still wanted to get his feet wet.


Oh, and here's a bonus picture that has nothing to do with vacation but we took it before we left. Zach wanted two things that day, to wear his cowboy hat, and to stand in the window sill. This is the result. Our neighbors across the street were outside at the time and they were almost on the ground laughing.

Tuesday...

We are having a tough time sleeping. It gets daylight at 4:30 AM so we are all waking up too early. Plus we are still on Ohio time.


Today we went to the San Juan Islands. We took a ferry over (which was only $50 for all three of us and the car) and cruised San Juan Island. It’s an interesting island as there are multiple climates present. We drove through dry farmland (looked like Ohio) then 10 minutes later we were driving through jungle like rainforest. 10 minutes later we were on the coast on a rocky beach looking for whales. We think we saw one. Maybe it was wishful thinking after 15 minutes of strained eyes. Here's some pics overlooking the water and Zachary at the beach:


Zachary has to walk everywhere he goes!! (click on pics for bigger version)





We got some fish and chips at a restaurant that overlooked the docks and other islands. It was good and prices weren’t bad. From there we walked around town a little bit, headed back to the coast for some hiking, and then back to the ferry. We were exhausted. We ate at Applebee’s for dinner. We are still in Bellingham and there aren’t many choices for restaurants. We plan to get a little more creative once we get to Seattle.

Wednesday we are heading to Olympic National Park. We are also going to take Zachary to the Olympic Game Farm. I will try to post pictures later.

Monday...

Today was a crazy day. Traveling with a baby is a little more challenging than not, but Zachary always impresses us with his go with the flow attitude. Apparently the Columbus airport is crazy every Monday morning….NO KIDDING! We got there later than we should have, and we had no clue how to get all of our luggage into the airport while I went to park the car. By the way, I can’t wait to get the bill for parking, for the sake of time I just pulled into the parking garage and I will just have to figure that out when we get back. Long story short, we did get our stuff in and made it to the gate about 5 minutes before loading began. Zachary in a stroller was a ticket to the front of every line. We were the first ones to get onto the plane.

Zachary was awesome on the plane. He was so excited about getting on the plane and he never cried in the 4.5 hour flight.. But Jenelle did….just kidding. She was definitely ready to get off by the end of the flight. She just had a tough time getting comfortable. I think she’s starting to feel pregnant.

We arrived in Bellingham right on time. We got a cab, completely filled it up with all of our stuff (we brought way too much) and made our way to the rental car place. It was a $25 cab ride but we saved $200 by getting away from the airport. We got a Mitsubishi Endeavor. It’s nice.

We went to McDonalds for lunch….mainly for the playland. Zachary needed to release some energy. It was 10:30 AM and we already felt like the day should be over. We started looking for a hotel and we ended up at a La Quinta Inn after going to several other fully-booked hotels. They let us in early so we took advantage and got in a 3 hour nap.

We then headed out for dinner, and ice cream! We ate at a pizza joint called La Fiemma. It was awesome! They also had Knorks (combo knife and fork). Weird. They didn’t work but we thought it was a cool concept. We then went to Mallard Ice Cream. Amazing.

We then went to Whatcom Falls Park. It’s just a city park, but in the Pacific Northwest, even city parks have spectacular scenery. We hiked a short time, let Zachary play at the playground, and then went back and went to bed. It was a great first day despite how long it felt. Here's some pics from the park.