Last night we decided that we would go to Forks, even though we knew we could not get a hotel there. That's what happens when you make plans of going out of town the day before the holiday. Lesson should be learned, but I am SURE this will happen again. The Twilight books were set here because vampires don't like sun, and Forks is known for it's cloudiness and rainfall. Over the last 6 years the average annual rainfall is 119 inches! Just to give a comparison Tacoma's average precipitation is 38 inches. Anyway, we got a late start after sleeping in and then stopping by Papa's house to learn how to use the GPS. The VanderHoeven's had set up a really cool geocache all about Twilight, that takes you to all of the important parts in the book. As soon as we arrived we saw a park and decided to stop it looked like there might be some fun stuff going on, we were wrong. The kids had fun playing on the cool toys they had there though so we played for a few minutes, before heading out to the first cache.
We told the kids we were in 'vampire land' and they needed to be on the look out. This caused a mix of emotions in the kids, mostly anger and fear. It was okay though I told the kids about how vampires don't like the sun so they were leery, but functional hahah.
I'm going to finish the rest of the post with the pics, so it seems like less reading. HAHA
Our first stop: Bella's truck. It had been in the parade earlier in the day, so it was still on the trailer they pulled it with.
Ashten was zonked out from the long ride over. Comfy??
AJ, despite the look on his face LOVED this toy. You just hang on it and it slides you across. I would guess it's about 25 feet long. I could be way off. When I would get him down he would say Up, up, up!
Ayden loved it too!!
Ashten wouldn't even try it.
Second stop Bella's home
Third stop: Dr. Cullen the Daddy vampire works at the hospital, where he has his own parking spot.
Ayden and
Ashten were getting nervous that vampires might be lurking, they couldn't g
et back to the car fast enough.
By this stop the boys were a little irritated that I would make them get out because there might be a vampire in their house, but at the same time mad that the sign said they had went to the forest because of the sun.
Phew! We made it out of 'vampire land' alive. Did I forget to mention that we were headed into 'Werewolf land'?
La Push. This is the home of the werewolves. The kids could have cared less. They saw water and ran!
Ayden, Anderson, and
Ashten
Aj loved finding all of the smooth rocks to throw in the ocean
Ayden was soaked from head to toe. I don't know how he was not cold. The water was freezing, and it was overcast at this point
K this picture is not to show my child. Armand spent some time chatting with the jerky guy at the beach, and he mentioned that you could camp at the beach, I didn't even realize how many tents were there
until I looked at this picture. I know it's probably kind of hard to see, and a lot of them had tucked away behind big piles of driftwood. We are looking forward to trying this out over the summer.
Ashten's favorite park of
LaPush was gathering up all the
firecrackers people were shooting off on the beach.
Aj and Daddy
Ok so we finished all the caches, so using the points we got from the previous caches we came up with a location, and drove to it. Armand took us up this hill and parked, while we found the cache that was 441 feet straight down into the forest. We found a trail so it seemed like we were doing things right.
Unfortunately, I did not know how far 441 feet was. It is a lot!! When
Ayden,
Ashten, and I ended up at the visitor's center at the bottom of the hill, I knew there was a problem. I did not have my cell phone and the center was closed. I didn't know how long we were gone but I knew it had been a long time. I found a man and asked to call my husband
because at this point we had tried to make our way back up the hill but kept ending back at the same center. And it was getting dark. Especially in the forest. Armand
didn't answer the phone because it was a California number so I left a message and hoped he had a signal and would check it. I decided we should try one more time to head back up the hill. This is when I (wearing
flipflops) had a 12-18 inch stick stab into the top of my foot. OUCH! I ripped it out and we walked back to the center ....
Ashten was the leader, we'll blame him for getting lost;)
Ayden during the lost portion of our trek
...where I saw the VAN!!!
YAY!! In the car I realized that I still had something stuck in the top of my foot. Luckily, I have like 3 pairs of tweezers in the car. I pulled out a
piece that was a good 1/2 inch. (I was scared i would be too mad at Armand when he hurt me pulling it out, so I pulled it myself so I couldn't get mad
HAHA) Anyway, I decided that we had the wrong final number and changed it. I got back out alone this time and equipped with my cell phone just in case.
At this point I knew I was on the right track.
FINALLY, After a combined total of more than TWO hours, I found the cache. Obviously, I am still a newbie. And yes, this is a self portrait...gotta love those:)
After not eating for 9 hours we decided that we should go get some dinner. We found a
Chinese restaurant, it was expensive but pretty good. Afterwards, it was almost time for the fireworks. We drove back across the street to the park and parked right up front. The big boys ran off to play at the park some more. We kept joking that this was Forks and the show would be a few minutes long, if we were lucky. But they put on a really good show, and it was right above us. When the show was done I was ready to start driving home, but Armand wanted to go to
LaPush and watch fireworks out there. He was trying to make us sleep there, in the van with no
blankies. Finally, at midnight, I started driving I was wide awake and very antsy. At 2am we found a hotel in Port Angeles. It was a long day but so much fun! I am loving that the kids are getting bigger and can enjoy the trips we take.
AJ- loved the pool!! I mean LOVED it!
Ashten could not even strip down he was soo hot
Ayden - Swimming in his underwear
It was a record breaking 97 degrees today! YIKES!! It has been a nasty week for heat. One time I looked out and saw the kids including the neighbors huddled around the hose. I felt so bad for them and then I remembered that last year at the end of season I picked up a big pool for a great deal! It took awhile to set it all up, but it was well worth the wait. Every time we leave the house and come home the boys strip down and jump in. It's a pretty funny site, but we have gone through a lot of clothes this week. Some kids don't quite get that we shouldn't swim in our jeans.
n it like that before. We had to park across the street up the hill in the furthest parking lot. I didn't even know that this place existed. We walked around and found a place to sit after we finished looking at the waterfall. We found a table in the shade and ate cherries that we had picked up at the 
and helping 
Thanks to 
The boys
