Vacation to Washington and Canada

*brace yourself- this is a loooong post- almost 100 pictures. Don't feel any pressure to read on..I'll never know :)

On Saturday, August 15, Jake, Mike and I left for our long anticipated vacation back to Jake's mission and to Victoria BC to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. We had a lovely 8 1/2 hour drive to Richland with Jake watching shows on his laptop and Mike and I listening to a good book on CD.

We arrived at the Lesters condo and were excited to see them plus Parker and Ryan. We visited then took their boat which is docked about 100 yards from their front door since they live at the yacht
club. That was pretty sweet! We stopped at a restaurant where they treated us to the most delicious seafood dinner. Jake and Parker went to a movie after that and Ken and Janae drove us around town showing us the highlights of the tri-cities.

The next day they fed us a 5 star breakfast and we were on our way at 8:00 to pick up the Hatch's and Jess in Seattle. They had flown in the day before. I was a little worried about the timing of everything since we had a 2:50 ferry to catch in Anacortes but it all worked out perfectly. It was so fun to all be together and headed to parts unknown by any of us. Riding the ferry was a lot of fun. It was so fun to see Evan walking completely now and loving exploring the ship. After arriving in Sidney, we drove a half our to Victoria and got checked into our hotel. That night we went to a grocery store and found a place for some take out pizza, brought it back to the motel and played cards while eating.

 Evan chowing down on Brody's hamburger. haha.

Monday we left the motel right after Evan's morning nap and spent the next 3 hours walking around Butchart Gardens. Words cannot do justice to how breathtaking and beautiful it is there. I'll let these pictures speak better than words can...

Evan preferred walking to being held, and being held to being pushed in the stroller. The stroller mainly served as storage for the diaper bag and our purses...

I absolutely loved spending day and night with this little guy for a week. It was heaven.

We all purposely wore flower shirts this day. Brody and Mike felt left out since they don't own any. Too bad they aren't the same size as Jake... he had several to spare...

Even the garbage cans were pretty!

Evan had his first merry-go-round ride. He wasn't too sure about it. He did crack a smile about half way through the ride.

Look at him! Isn't he the cutest thing ever?

This adventure wore this little guy out. He got a nap then we all headed to downtown Victoria to walk around.

We had some delicious seafood while enjoying the beautiful scenery, then bought some souvenirs and walked around a little more.

We came back at sunset to capture some stunning pictures. It was so pretty.

It was fun to see the city at night. We walked around a bit and got an ice-cream cone.

On Tuesday we caught the 12:00 ferry back to Washington and were in our VRBO- an apartment in downtown by 4:30. It was so awesome to be right in the city within walking distance to everything we wanted to do. I loved it so much. Here is the view we enjoyed from the living room windows. We walked a few blocks and found some great shopping then ate dinner at Zeeks- a delicious pizza place Jake had eaten on his mission. We also walked by his first apartment when he served in downtown Seattle his 2nd transfer.

This picture was taken from the roof of the apartment building.

Wednesday- Because of Evan's early wake up time, and because we decided to not wait around to give him a morning nap, we were on our way at 8:30 to explore the city. It was great being out so early before everything got too crowded. Since nothing opened til 10:00, we just walked around and enjoyed the sights.

We had fun riding the ferris wheel. Evan wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

We then checked out the gum wall next to Pike Place. It was SO gross, but oddly mesmerizing at the same time.

The first place we went at Pike was Golden Age. Jake as in heaven just walking around looking at stuff and not feeling rushed like he always did on Pdays. I loved seeing all the flowers and fruits and vegetables. They are amazing!

We then had a tasty fish and chips lunch at Ivars and enjoyed feeding the seagulls some of our fries. (notice how nervous the girls look and how Jake looks like an old pro...)

Brody stayed with Evan while he napped while the rest of us drove to Bellevue to attend the temple. I love how pretty the freeways are. Plants and trees on an overpass? Unheard of anywhere else I've traveled.
It was fun crossing the floating bridge over Lake Washington.

The Seattle temple is so pretty. I'm so glad we could squeeze a session in our busy schedule.

We picked Brody and Evan up and drove to a park that over looks the city. It was so pretty!
Jess volunteered to stay with Evan while the rest of us went to eat dinner at the Space needle since she and Brad ate there last year on their vacation to Washington and Alaska. THE only reservation we could get during the 3 days we were there was tonight at 8:00. It was so very nice of Jess to be willing to miss out. 8:00 was the perfect time to be there because the sun was just setting, so we got to see that plus see the city in the daylight then watch it get dark as we did our rotation around the city while we ate. It was amazing! I'm so glad we did it even though the prices of the meal were outrageous! It's good we knew it going in. We checked out the observation deck after dinner (which wasn't nearly as cool as seeing the views from the restaurant) then enjoyed our walk back to our apartment.

On Thursday we drove to a couple of Jake's old areas to see some cool attractions. The first was Snoqualmie Falls which was in his last area of North Bend.

Evan LOVES whenever we take him out of his stroller or backpack and let him walk around. It's the most adorable thing ever.

The best thing we could do to keep him from whining in the car was to let him watch a video on youtube about baby sign language. It was funny how transfixed it was. We all had a lot of the dialogue and songs memorized by the end of the trip!

We then went to Lake Sammamish and had a picnic lunch and devoured some Krispie Kreme's.

I love this boy so much! Look at that face! Who wouldn't be enraptured with him??

Jake was so excited to have us try one of his favorite places to eat- Pho. It's a type of noodle soup served at Vietnamese restaurants. The men liked it better than the women because we thought it was hard to eat. But it was tasty (notice how huge our bowls were- like a serving bowl!)

We then went to Columbia Center to watch the sun set again and see the city get dark from 76 stories up. It was awesome.

We thought the base of this building was pretty amazing- being so much smaller than the building itself.

On Friday we drove a half our to an area where one of Jake's really good friends was still serving because Jake wanted to try and find him and surprise him. Since one of Kylee's high school friends lived in that city, she arranged to meet up with her at the mall. Mike and I went with Jake to try and find Elder Stamos and we totally lucked out when we saw them walking down the street near their apartment. Jake was so happy to see and talk to him for about 20 minutes.

We had lunch at the food court, then while Evan, Ky, Brody and Mike napped, me, Jake and Jess walked a couple blocks to do some shopping at H&M, Ross, TJ Maxx and The Loft. The shopping in this city is incredible! We walked back to Pike Place to get some pictures in front of the famous sign, then had Teriyaki chicken and rice for dinner.
We then walked over to Safeco field to watch the Mariners take on the Chicago White Sox! How ironic is that? Seattle playing Chicago? It was so much fun and I loved being able to see the city lights come on for the third night in a row from a place with a great view. We were lucky enough to be there on a night that they do a 20 minute firework show after the game so that was a big bonus and made our $20 ticket even more worth it.

On Saturday we had to be up early enough to get all packed and the Pilot loaded and leave by 8:30 to get the Hatch's to the airport for their flight home. This wasn't really a problem since Evan woke up every morning between 5:30-5:45...We made it though! Mike, Jake, Jess and I then spent the next 8 1/2 hours visiting areas and people from Jake's mission. This was the part of the trip that I was most looking forward to. It was so wonderful to meet the people we'd heard so much about and who meant so much to Jake. We visited Zheng- one of his converts and the one who made it to the temple before Jake left and Jake was able to attend the temple with him and be his escort. He lives on a mansion on Mercer Island and invited us for lunch so that was fun.

We visited another convert- Victor and his wife and son. Jake really clicked with them on the mish and enjoyed talking with them about all the things they have in common. We also visited with 2 of his ward mission leaders, the bishop from his first area and one of the less actives he worked hard to reactivate.

In Redmond we visited the Root Beer store (run by an LDS family) that Jake loved going to every Pday he was in that area and getting half off) We stayed in a motel in Bellevue that night and had fun walking to dinner at Lunchbox Laboratory then walking to a really nice mall to do some shopping.

The next day, Sunday, we attended sacrament meeting in 2 of Jake's favorite wards. He wished we could have attended a couple more. It was so fun to watch him interact with the members and have them be so excited to see him. We drove part way home Sunday and the rest of the way on Monday. Here is what the skies looked like (because of all the wildfires) the entire time until we got just outside Logan. I'm so glad we missed it being like this in Logan for the week we were gone.

This vacation was everything I dreamed it would be- and I dreamed about it a lot in two years. It was so great to have our own personal tour guide and so fun to do everything with Jake that he had done on his mission (besides eating at the Space Needle). It was so sweet to be all together except for Brad and Cam whom we missed very much.