Vancouver to Seattle

With some leftover camping supplies and a quick trip to a little market, we made french toast in the park.   

I was dragging my feet a little but it was fantastic and delicious. 

A zip line was part of this Canadian playground equipment. The kids had a blast on it.

Then we jumped on a ferry boat and took a ride to an island.

Then we turned around and rode right back and headed to Seattle.

We the hit the Space Needle first.

This glass wall was scary.

The the glass revolving floor was scarier. 

It was hard for me to walk on. It doesn't look strong enough to support people. I got better at walking on it after a while.

 

Crossing the Border to Canada

Moving on from Mt. Rainier, we headed to Canada. We stopped at Snoqualmie Falls in Washington.

There was a pretty walk/hike by the falls and we wanted to stretch our legs.

Here we come Canada! This is my first trip to Canada! I'm 42. It shouldn't have taken this long! 

This arch was by the border station.

First stop in Canada: Tim Hortons! Merril always stops by Tim Hortons when he's in Canada. It's like a donut and coffee shop but also has salads, wraps, sandwiches and soup.

The donuts are slightly less sweet than American donuts and I think better. Tim Hortons! Open a location here!

Cool bridge!

Basically we got to Canada and went to a hotel to sleep. The next day we woke up and went to church. 

Bonus: The church building shares the parking lot with the Vancouver Temple! So we were able to walk around the temple grounds after church!

Then we visited a botanical garden.

Lots of pretty stuff there!

There was a zen garden. These two needed to chill out.

Then we went to Lynn Creek and walked across this cool suspension bridge and the Baden Powell Trail. He was the founder of the boy scouts of America.

Some dudes were jumping into the falls. They were wearing wetsuits but there were a couple park officials watching them with nervous eyes. So Merril and I stopped and talked with them for a minute about search and rescue.

Such a pretty stroll through the woods!

Our hotel this night was on the water in Vancouver. It was pretty nice!

On the way to Canada!

We are on our way to Canada. We are meeting Merril at Mt. Rainier for a radio repeater setup and then on to the Pacific Northwest! Girls are driving up with the gear and stopped at Lagoon and met up with Nicole.

At Lagoon, Julie and Nicole took off and Mikayla and I had a great time doing whatever we wanted.

Juliet has her learner's permit and she drove a lot on the way to Portland to pick up Daddy.

Merril and Mark barely caught a flight to Portland Oregon. The only reason they made it on the plane was because the plane was held at the gate because of a maintenance issue. I picked up Merril and Mark and drove up to Mt Rainier. We were lucky with the weather. Mt. Rainier is often obscured with clouds. We were able to see it with fantastic clarity.

First we had to hustle and get a radio repeater set up. I've only helped Merril take down radio repeaters. So was fun to watch him set up and to snag a picture of him.

After getting the radios set up, we went up Mt. Rainier. We hiked but it was very snowy on the trail.

We saw a killer waterfall on the way down.

We camped close to the repeater. There's danger of bears and I was a little nervous that one would try to eat us. We were lucky and didn't have an encounter.

Mikayla found a frog.

Can I say it was just beautiful? So so pretty!

As we headed north to Vancouver, we stopped at a roadside stand and got some Rainier cherries. They were seriously so good! I love cherries but Rainier cherries are so good and more expensive. We hit the season just right!

Cascade Falls

We went to Glendale, UT for Merril's Dad's family reunion. On the return trip, we decided to try and hike Cascade Falls. We hiked it when Maxine, Jack, and Juliet were little. This is July of 2008. I was thinking it wasn't that long ago but that's 14 years ago.  

We were hoping there was water coming out of the falls. This time is was Juliet, Mark, and Mikayla.

It's less than 2008 but it's been a dry decade. I was still pleasantly surprised. 😁

I'm hopeful of the monsoon season. I would love it to bring lots of rain. 

4th of July 💥

Today Juliet is riding with the mountain bike team in the 4th of July parade in Hurricane. She looks so cute in her tech tee. 💗 

We scored a free t-shirt and tons of cheap candy. 

We bumped into Ellen and took a pic with her to send to Maxine.

And then we tried a different location to watch the fireworks! We paddled the kayaks over to the island and watched from there. I don't have any pictures from the island because I was worried I would drop my phone in the lake. It worked out way better! After it was over, we weren't fighting with boats to get out of the water. We paddled back and loaded up. Jack's truck hauled all the kayaks and he only got it stuck for just a second. Merril's still riding around in Canada so he missed this year. No worries. There's always next year.💥