Who Turned Out The Lights?

Me, Ashten, AJ, and Ayden My boys
See that tiny white dot behind the boys? That's the tunnel we came through
Ayden was so excited when it was his turn to use the head lamp.

That bright white light is the end of the tunnel.
Armand tried to take Ayden to the top of the tunnel but it got too steep.

I'm the king of the world!
Ashten getting ready to walk back this is an interesting look. I guess he was super excite about the head lamp also.This is the AFTER picture..everyone was beat! This morning we didn't go to church because the kids are getting sick. We wanted to go do something fun though (being that it is a holiday weekend) and not too "not keeping the Sabbath Day Holy" SO I got online and asked Valerie V. if she had any ideas and she suggested The Iron Horse State Park: Snoqualmie Tunnel. (Thanks for the awesome idea!!) We borrowed a jogging stroller and a GPS in hopes of doing a geocache at the end and were on our way. (we didn't even hit the freeway til 3pm). The Snoqualmie Tunnel (See link )http://www.nwsource.com/outdoors/scr/of_detail.cfm?category=biking&rt=41234 was awesome. Ashten was a little creeped out at first, but after awhile he started to have fun and forget that it was pitch black in there. At first, when you walk in you can see a little pinpoint of light which is the other end of the tunnel, 2.3 miles away! It took us 45 minutes, which I thought was great considering we had 3 kids in tow. During the walk our favorite things to do were to turn off all the lights, the kids would say "Who turned out all the lights", make scary and funny noises and listen to the echo, and the boys loved swinging their glow sticks to make cool designs in the dark. A few times bike riders would pass us up but for the most part we were all alone! When we got to the end of the tunnel it was 5:45pm. We had tons of snacks and water and then we explored the area a little. There was a waterfall and if you climbed up it you could stand at the top of the tunnel. After an hour we went to the bathroom and then headed back. We decided not to do the geocaching because it was going to be an extra mile to add to the already long walk. The boys got very tired very fast on the way back. We took turns doing piggy back rides stroller rides. Anderson took a nap while Ashten rode on top of the stroller thank goodness it was a sturdy one. The whole walk ended up being 6.4 miles from car to the end of the tunnel and back! It was a great experience and everyone had a blast. The kids aren't sure about doing it again right now but they assured me that when they were bigger they could come again and ride their bikes!

Before we had decided to go to Snoqualmie Tunnel, we thought about driving to Rexburg to go to Sonic. Armand is in LOVE with the slushes there (of course I was really trying to push this so that we could go see the Guddat's) but it was an 11 hour drive. On our way to the tunnel, we decided that we would at least find out where the closest Sonic was. We found out there was one in Wenatchee. We were thinking Wenatchee was only like 30 minutes away from the tunnel...turns out it's more like an hour and a half. So at 8pm we headed out. The kids were soo excited Ayden kept saying " 'What does Sonic has it other's don't' have at it?" (This is the slogan on the Sonic commercials) By the time we got there only Anderson was awake. We were able to wake up Ayden after much torment by Mommy and Daddy. Ashten was dead to the world! Thirty dollars and 3 orders later Armand had 4 drinks and we all had our food.

One more thing: On the way to Sonic we got pulled over. Armand was going 70 in a 60...darn. But in addition My dad had just told me on Saturday morning that my tabs had expired AND when I went to get the insurance card it was also expired (Aug 19). Luckily the police was VERY nice and let us go with a warning on ALL counts! PHEWW that would have been a VERY expensive trip to Sonic!!