Olympic National Park

Since we are moving soon, we decided to check out some of the beautiful places in Washington before we have to leave it.  Here we are at Lake Crescent at Olympic National Park with my parents.

The girls!

On the road we received the results of my pregnancy testing--including the fact that I am expecting a girl.  Nathan took the news really hard.  He was really hoping for another brother to share his room with.

We spent some time at beautiful Rialto Beach near LaPush.  The kids loved the gorgeous driftwood with all its fun shapes.

We had a gorgeous view!

The kids had fun building sand castles.

The sunset was quite amazing too.

We had a fabulous time exploring the Hoh Rainforest.

Look at all that moss!  Jared thought is looked a lot like the fire swamp in The Princess Bride.

The kids had fun exploring.

 Jared saw an otter here, but is swam away before he could get a good picture.

We spent our first night in Forks.  Luckily no vampires got us!  When the kids asked why it was called Forks I explained that forks grew out of the ground there.  They totally believed me.  It was hilarious.  (If you cannot tell in the picture, I'm holding plastic forks.)

The kids were excited to see some deer up close.

We spent one morning at an animal park in Sequim.  It was fun to drive around and see the animals and the kids enjoyed feeding them.

Bald Eagles even swooped down right in front of our car.

The peacocks were fun to watch strutting about.

The bears were by far the kids' favorite.  There were some swimming, sleeping, and rolling around in the grass.

This one got up on his hind legs and seemed to be signing "Please" to ask us for more bread.

The life of a bear.

The bison and yaks were fun except them they tried to stick their heads in our van windows to get more bread.

We took a beautiful hike out to Cape Flattery--the northwestern most part of the conterminous U.S.

Beautiful views!

Jared with the kids.

There were a lot of cool sea caves.

There was an island not too far out with a lighthouse and rock filled with sea lions.

Another pretty view.

We had fun hiking to the 90 foot high Marymere Falls.

It was fun to check out Port Townsend, Fort Worden, and the Point Wilson lighthouse.