Camping at Olympic National Park

Several weeks ago, we went on a camping trip to Olympic National Park.  It was just our family, which apparently, our kids thought was unusual.  True--we have gone on several trips lately with friends and family.  So our kids kept asking, "Who are we going with?" or "Will someone meet us there?"  The answer always was: "Nope, it's just us.  This is a family vacation."

The park was several hours away and it's the furthest away we've been camping.  So the kids got special treats in the car, such as fruit roll up, which you can see dangling out of Xiao Yu's mouth.

Along the way, we stopped at Taco Bell for lunch.  And to let the kids stretch their legs.

Gabe brought his orange cord and carabiner (that he got for Christmas) along to play with, and fell asleep holding it.

After a few "Are we there yet?"s, we finally arrived.  It was time to set up the tent and Xiao Yu helped.

And then it was time for lunch.  Cornbread muffins and ham were on the menu.

By the late afternoon, the mosquitos were out in force.  So the kids put on long sleeves, and also their wool caps with ear flaps to cover as much skin as possible.

We visited Quinnalt Lodge, which was built a long time ago and has an interesting rain gauge mounted on the outside of its tall chimney.

This rain gauge measures the rain in feet, not inches.  After all, we were in a rain forest.  We didn't watch our boys closely enough and caught one of them pulling on the rain gauge...moving it from 13 feet to 12 feet.  Ooops!

The Lodge faces a lake by the same name.  The kids walked onto a gangplank a little bit and miraculously no one fell in.

The Lodge also had a little game room which we availed ourselves of for a little bit.  The kids played foosball for the first time.

And then it was time for s'mores.  The highlight for some of our kids.

Elvin ate his s'mores gluten free without the graham crackers.

And finally it was time for bed!

Everyone was fairly tired, so the next morning no one woke up at the crack of dawn, which was nice!

We visited the local ranger station to get the lay of the land...

Karina, of course, picked up a map.

And then we were off on a hike!

It was really pretty, with some bridges over meandering creeks.

Very picturesque. 

We tried to make a conscious effort to take more family pictures and more pictures with the parents included!

When crossing the creek, Mommy had to lend a hand.

Since our kids are part amphibian, it was inevitable that eventually they got into the water.  Eliana started building a tower of rocks.

Karina followed suit.

Here's another creek...

The kids wanted to descend to this one too.

And Gabe built his tower of rocks (with Daddy's help.)

Eliana and Gabe have developed a complex and elaborate "handshake" which looks more like a dance.  Towards the end of the hike, they decided to execute it...

There were some amazingly tall trees in that forest.

We went back to camp because it was now time for lunch.  Which meant that it was time to roast hot dogs.  Which meant that it was time to light our campfire again and Karina was deemed old enough to light the fire.  Very exciting!

She also got to know the literal meaning of fanning the flames.  The fire was a little smokey but at least it kept the mosquitos at bay.

And then it was roasting time!  Karina put cardboard in front of her legs because she thought the fire was a little too warm.

After lunch we went down to the lake and rented a rowboat so that we could get down on to the water.  It was beautiful and felt very peaceful.

Daddy had to do the hard work of rowing against the wind.

At the mid-way point, when it was time to turn around and head back,  the girls said they wanted to take over and give Daddy a break.  Amazingly enough, they stayed coordinated and made forward progress.  The wind pushing us helped too.

And then we went on another little hike.  The kids wanted to count the number of rings on the fallen trees.  This one had about 100 rings.

This tree had a lot more.  Also, we think this picture may qualify for the "Awkward Family Photos" website one day.

And then it was dinner time!  We had pulled pork sandwiches for dinner.

In the evening, they kids had a fun game of Uno by lantern-light.

The next morning, we drove a while to the Hoh River Valley, which is another part of this immense national park.  The Hoh River meanders along the side of the road and at one point, we noticed a herd of elk relaxing in the sun.  We pulled by the side of the road to look using our binoculars.  It was pretty neat being only about 150 or so yards from these animals.

We joined a ranger-guided tour which turned out to be quite interesting.  The ranger explained that this national park had some of the cleanest air in the world and the EPA uses the air quality there as the measure against which all other air is compared to.

In a stream, the ranger pointed out fingerling salmon the eventually will find their way to the ocean.  In January, they return to spawn and the ranger said that you will find bobcats and bears that come to these streams feast on the fish carcasses.

The ranger also pointed out that the three leafed clovers along the trail, called oxalis, was edible and tasted like green apple.  But to not eat too much of it unless you were constipated.  Gabe wanted to try some and he ended up liking it!

The trees have a huge amount of moss growing on it.  Indeed, this hike was called the hall of mosses. 

The ranger said this moss was years and years old, and could hold as much as 3 tons of rainwater!  Which the trees grow roots into and use as a reserve source of water during the dry season.

We made our way back to the visitor center, which had some neat things, like this leg of an elk.

The kids got Junior Ranger booklets that they could fill out.

Karina was the only one that finished it.  So she wanted to turn it in, and then in turn got sworn in as a Junior Ranger, committed to protect the environment etc.  She's never had to raise her right hand and give an oath before; we think she was a little surprised at the turn of these events!

But in the end, she got her badge and her certificate signed by an honest-to-goodness real ranger!

On our way back, we stopped by Ruby Beach, which is also part of the national park.  

A huge part of the beach is strewn with tons and tons of logs and driftwood, which you had to scramble over.  At this point, it started sprinkling--but what do you except at a rain forest?

People had used this driftwood to built little shelters, which the kids thought was pretty neat.

They collected rocks and shells to take home (which we're not sure is legal or not--to remove natural objects from a national park.)

Gabe said he was cold, so he went back to the van early while the rest of the kids continued to play...

By evening it was raining pretty hard, so we retreated back inside our tent.  Here's another game of Uno while daddy prepared dinner outside in the rain!

The kids ate pasta with alfredo sauce inside the tent.

Yum yum!

So it rained pretty hard all night.  During this, we realized that our tent leaked!  It wasn't a huge leak; it's just that at the seams, the water was seeping through.  But since it was raining all night long, it was enough where some of our sleeping bags were wet at spots and also a patch of the floor of the tent was quite wet.  

We got our ginormous tent about 8 years ago when we went camping at the San Juan Islands and it's served us faithfully ever since.  Unfortunately, we will need to buy another one and get rid of this one as having a waterproof tent in the Pacific Northwest is a must.  Goodbye tent!

By the morning, the rain stopped and we started up a fire to use up our wood and dry off some clothes.  Elvin put his shoes by the fire to dry and ended up melting them a little!

And the kids found a banana slug and admired it for a while.  We learned from the ranger that banana slugs love feasting on bear poop!

And as we were packing up the car, Gabe picked up his shovel and pretended it was a guitar.

Here is a rendition of some song that got caught on tape.

Then Xiao Yu joined in...

Here are the two of them...

And Eliana, our true book worm, spent the morning chillaxing in the rain forest, immersed in her book.

And finally, everything was packed into our trailer!  (Yes, we now need a trailer to haul all of our stuff around for camping trips!)

And after 4 hours we finally got home, and lay all of out things out to dry from the rain.

So that was our trip to the Olympic National Park!  We hope to return someday as there are other areas to explore!

Karina is 7!!!

Our Karina turned 7 years old in early August.  We had a simple celebration at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  She also shares a birthday with her Uncle Charles and so they blew out candles together.

We also usually organize a party that the birthday kid can invite their friends to.  This time, however, instead of having a traditional party, Karina opted to go to the zip line course that we had gone to earlier, and have that be her birthday.  Since this was going to be more expensive, she was allowed to invite only a couple of friends.

And so off we went...it takes about an hour to drive there and I guess that's long enough of a ride where Ruffy needed to bring several stuffed animals and blankies.

Once we got there, it was time to gear up!  She invited a couple of friends, seen to her left and right.

And now she's ready to go!

Elvin stayed on the ground with the boys.  There is a mini-zip line with handles that the boys rode on over and over.

And there is Karina waaaaay up there.  Eliana went too.  They didn't seem to be bothered by the heights.

What is Karina's favorite part?  She'll tell you that hands down, it's the actually zipping down a cable.  The faster the better...

Elvin realized that not more than 10 minutes away was a sake brewing factory.  And, they conduct tours every hour.  So even though he was not sure it was a good idea of not, he buckled the boys into the van and off then went.  It was an interesting tour where they got to see the facilities where the rice is brewed into sake.  They had you wear funny booties to keep the place clean.

They also got to see and smell the starches in the rice actively being converted to alcohol.

After about an hour, they returned to the zip line place and it was then time to open presents!  Karina wanted and got a "Baby Alive" doll.  It comes with a play-doh like substance, which you mold into "food" for the doll.  After feeding it into the dolls both, the food drops down into the dolls hollow body and then comes out the bottom in the doll's diaper.  Nice huh?

And then we tried to have candles for Karina to blow out.  However, it was very windy and we couldn't keep the candles lit!

We finally gave up and the kids dug in.  Karina had a cupcake without icing because she likes them plain.

And afterwards, we ate dinner at the Chinese restaurant on that side of town.

And on the way out of the restaurant and into the car...some of the kids got an urge to dance...

Karina had fun the following day feeding her baby and then changing her diaper.

Another present that she chose to buy with some birthday money was a mermaid tail blanket.  It was a lot bigger than we realized when she picked it out!  It's more like a mermaid sleeping bag!

And the other present she got was two Lego Elves sets.  With it, you can build some pretty cool looking dragons.

Karina enjoyed building the dragons, sometimes with Daddy's help.  Here are her dragons!  

So now that she is older, she is allowed to do more things...such as being trusted to use a paring knife to  chop apples without chopping off the tips of her fingers. 

And also she gets a new daily chore--vacuuming the dirt and grime that inevitably finds its way on the kitchen floor.

So that's our Karina!  She's growing up fast... This past year, she has lost her two front teeth; one has come in fully and the other is about 2/3 of the way in.  As the summer is ending, she will be starting 1st grade being home schooled at home.  We look forward to what this next year will bring.

Visit to the Zoo

A couple of weekends ago, Elvin took the kids to the zoo.  Emily wasn't feeling well so she stayed at home.  We realized that we had memberships still but hadn't gone for a long time during the day.  The last few years, we had only during at night to see the lights.

Quite a lot has changed since we were last there.  For one thing, they've changed the big sign in the front.

There is a goat statue in the front and the kids always like to get on it.

We watched the Bird Show.  It was really neat because they had many of the birds fly from behind the crowd to the front where the stage is at.  They had this red tailed hawk fly so close to where Elvin and Gabe were seated, that Gabe jumped off of Elvin's lap, "just in case" Gabe said.

The zookeeper asked the audience to guess how heavy this bird was.  People's guesses ranged from 9 pounds to 15 pounds.  She then let us know that this hawk came in at a mere 3 pounds!

We went to the bear exhibit and the kids compared themselves to the bear figures on the wall.

They had feeding time for the elephants and enticed them to go into the elephant enclosure's swimming pool by feeding them slices of apples and sweet potatoes.  The baby elephant, which does not look like a baby anymore, liked to perch himself on the edge and open his mouth wide like a baby bird.  The keeper then tossed the goodies directly into his mouth.

The polar bears were having a special treat as well.  They threw down a salmon carcass and the bear was happily devouring the whole thing, fins and all.

Again, the kids wanted to figure out how big they were compared to the actual size of the animal.  You will notice in the picture below that they lined themselves up by matching the size of the animal to the size of the kid--meaning, Eliana being the tallest kid stood in front of the tallest bear, etc.

We've been having a heat wave up here, with temperatures getting up into the 100's.  It was still in the 90's but the kids still enjoyed getting themselves wet in the misting station set up by the zoo for this exact purpose.

How does Xiao Yu measure up to an orangutan?

Here is an actual female orangutan.  We found out from the zookeeper that she was 57 years old!  That put her as the oldest animal in this zoo and also the animal who has been the longest at this zoo. She has had 6 babies and is now "retired" and is now living out the rest of her life here....the zookeeper said most orangutans have a lifespan of up to 60 years.

We also watched the penguins being fed.  They got to eat anchovies.

Here's a video of the cute little penguins diving for their fishy treats.

Because it was so warm, the kids got to eat shave ice.  Two kids had to share one.  The only problem was that Gabe knocked down the one that he and Karina were sharing, so about 70% of it fell on the ground.  He had to mooch off of Eliana to get any as Elvin wouldn't let him eat much of what was left of his.

There were some planters around and Elvin videoed a hummingbird, in slow motion, feeding on the flowers' nectars.

The kids enjoyed petting the goats, especially Xiao Yu.

In the goat enclosure, there are various structures and equipment for the goats to play with to keep from getting too bored.  Elvin caught our boys on tape, nudging up against a huge bristly thing that looked like it was for goats to scratch their backs on...

Towards the exit, there were little statues of pikas.  Which for some reason Gabe was enamored with.

And there they are on the poor goat statue again.

By the time they left the zoo, they have been walking around for six hours and now it was dinnertime!  They stopped by a nearby Chinese restaurant which is way better than any of the restaurants in Vancouver, and everyone ate their fill!

Bicycle Ride!

Elvin tries to organize one-on-one time with the different kids and on a certain (very hot) weekend in July, it was Karina's turn.  Elvin had considered taking Karina on another backpacking trip.  But after talking to her about it, it came to light that she really does NOT enjoy hiking.

On the other hand, riding her bike was very fun and so that was that!

They went off to an area on the west side of town, where there is a 6 mile biking trail.

It was forecasted to be over 100 degrees that day, so they went earlier in the morning to try to beat the heat.

The scenery was pretty.

And they made good time and got to the end of the trail in no time!  The destination was Vancouver Lake.

A regional rowing and crew championship was taking place at that time, and so they got to watch boats get launched from shore.

 

Karina got to drink what might be her favorite drink in the world--Coca Cola.

It was getting really hot, and so after lunch, they stopped to get a lemonade slushy.

The event organizers had set up a misting station for all the athletes.  Karina stopped to take advantage of it and cool down as well.

And then it was time to head back!  It was much cooler when riding because of the breeze.  The breeze also made her dress blow up like a ballon!

And we made it back to the car!  Here is Karina also showing off the box of Shopkins band-aids that she got.

Monopoly!

The kids saw the Monopoly box and so wanted to play it.  We have never played it before with the kids and they had to learn all about paying rent, buying houses, and passing "Go".

After about an hour, they were still having lots of fun.  They had to pause the game for the night, to re-start the next morning.  At that moment, Karina was probably in the lead with six houses on her properties.  Gabe has three houses sprinkled amongst his red and yellow properties.  Eliana owns Boardwalk and Park Place, with a house on each (but we all know that people rarely land there!)