What an absolutely amazing weekend we had! Mark and I took the kids up to Mount Rainier for the entire weekend! We did a three mile hike up the falls and into Reflection Lake the first day and all the kids did AWESOME (even Ben went all the way!). It was VERY bizarre to play in the snow in July!

We were unable to book a hotel in or around Mount Rainier as everything was all full, so we started looking a bit away from the mountain and found a little GEM in Eatonville! It was called the Mill Village Inn. Nice clean rooms, continental breakfast, GREAT restaurant right next door (Aarons Ark) and a grocery store across the street. If this sounds like everything was really handy, you'd be right as this is definately a ONE street town! But we will stay here whenever we want to spend a weekend or longer at Mt. Rainier. It was so peaceful and fun!

Sunday found us back at the mountain. Our first stop was a river right inside the park entrance. The kids had fun playing on the banks and seeing the various mountain views (you can see various views from the pictures that go with this blog)! We then hit the giftshop where each of us picked out a little something to take back home. We moved on to the museum and learned some neat facts about the founding of the park and saw various stuffed animals from the mountain (real animals...taxidermied!...is that a word? hehe). Our next stop was Cougar Rock for a picnic lunch.....it was so wonderful to sit in the shade of these HUGE trees while looking wayyyyyyyy up and seeing huge snow covered peaks! After lunch we headed up to Paradise and the information rotunda. While Ben and I stayed behind and played tic tac toe and had ice-cream (his little legs had had enough..he did AWESOME for being four!) , Mark took the girls on another hike up the mountain. After they came back, it was time to head home. We hit a restaurant right outside the park for dinner (WildBerry Restaurant) and it was nasty! ugh...but that's ok..live and learn! We won't go back there I can tell you! We were all happy to get home and SLEEP!

Mark had duty on Monday (his last duty day before going on leave!) and so the kids and I spent the day recovering from the weekend and doing laundry (ok, I did laundry while the kids played! hehe). Swim lessons Monday evening...the kids do so awesome!

Yesterday and today we did various errands and lots of shopping in preparation for our weeklong camping trip to Pacific Beach. We LOVE it there and are looking forward to a week of playing in the sun and sand! Of course we'll have some awesome pics of THAT trip as well.

On a side note, I am sure you all remember me talking about Ben having to be tested as his b'day is two weeks after the cut off for Kindergarden entrance. Well, we have the test results back! Mr. Smarty pants tested in all four areas in the 99/98/97/99 percentiles respectively! WOW!! We are so proud of Ben the Brain!!! Way to go little Buddy!!

Hugs to you all!
Mark, Jaye and Gang