Great grandparents are great and grand!

What a wonderful week we just had. We had our grandparents, the kids great grandparents here for 4 days. We couldn't have had it any other way. We had so much fun and the kids adore their grandparents. First day of arrival they were greeted with a little sprinkle of Seattle rain (something everyone hopes to see when they're in Seattle:), but that lasted for 5 minutes and then there was sunshine. That's spring! They got to witness that even though the forecast says it's going to rain that doesn't mean no sun, otherwise would there be over 3 million people live here? Well we were sure glad the weather was great for them so we could do these things!

First day: We took them on the Viaduct to see Puget Sound, took them to the International District close to Dan's work and had them try Dim Sum for the first time. Then the kids and I took them to the Space Needle where upon we saw the whole Seattle metropolitan area from above.

Naturally I forgot my camera but here is a pic from G'ma and G'pa's camera to prove that the kids loved them right away. I think we should've donated our other camera, or at least my phone, to them.

Second Day we went to Snoqualmie Pass, Lake Sammamish, and had a 5 course dinner and lots of joking around with grandpa. Now he sees the sarcasm side of me. BTW grandpa's the best person to use sarcasms on. A well spent day.

Third Day Puget Sound's Alki Beach, hour long (which only seemed like a half an hour because everything was new) ferry ride to Bremerton where we had them try calamari for the first time. A drive through Pike Place and all together another wonderful day together.

Fourth Day Snoqualmie Falls - A must see place. An inexpensive beauty. Needless to say, great grandma and great grandpa loved it. Spring here is beautiful. This year it came around mid February with lots of sunshines. The light green leaves and the dark evergreens provided a lot of beauty!

Time flew by too quickly when we were having fun. We didn't want to say goodbye. We wish everyday could be like the last 4 days.

Beautiful Things of This Week

Reena got to go inside this Vancouver Temple. She was so excited! She asked "is this temple open?" She thinks that the Seattle Temple is always closed because she can't go inside it. We went there when it was dusk (btw, random fact: if you do a search for dusk on google and go to Wiki page, a picture of Seattle skylight shows the meaning of dusk) and the light was lit up when we walked out. It was beautiful.

This is Skagit Valley, a little over an hour outside of Seattle, home to a lot of Dutch, hence the tulips. The Tulip Festival is going on right now and it is gorgeous. At Tulip Town they had a tons of kites flying in the air and if you wanted to do a tour of the valley they had aircrafts that take you around. There were a tons of events as well. Needless to say we had a wonderful time.

Friends from Utah. When they saw this, they immediately scheduled another visit this summer to come up for a longer stay. We had so much fun eating dim sum in Chinatown and hanging out at the pier and watching the waves at Alki.

My friend took this picture of Brie and I when we weren't looking. I think I won't look at the camera from now on. ("_")

My little lady in Chinatown.
Brie is now wearing 18 months old clothes. She's getting so tall!

My beautiful children. They make me so happy. They are the reason I blog. My facebook friends also love a peek into our life's journal and my families enjoy this as well. Thanks for your time!! These are beautiful things of this week that we've enjoyed and some other heads up for next week.

We're excited to go to the Kitsap peninsula and to the lakes and

beaches and waterfall next week with Dan's grandparents. Most of all, we're just exited to be able to spend some time with them and for the kids to get to know their great grandparents.

Check this link below out and let us know if you want to join us this summer on this cruise. We're thinking about checking this island out for the Stevens 2017 reunion and the Nguyen's family reunion this year.

http://www.visitsanjuans.com/index.cfm

Enjoy!!

It's so warm and sunny outside right now and I'd much rather go outside and play but I must prioritize and get this blog done because we had such an amazing trip. This week is supposed to be nice now that the storm is passed. it's seriously is like childbirth, you forget that it rained because when the sun comes out, this place is so beautiful. We love you Seattle.

A couple of months back we sat down and laid out our plans for 2010 and the first one was to Philly. We booked our tickets but the weather back East was so bad our flights got canceled. The next big event was having Dan go to Vegas for a get together with his brothers for a surprised priesthood session with their dad. His older brother Troy had this idea and we were up to it right away. We looked at plane tickets and one of our plans involves going down to Utah to meet our renters to make sure they're not destroying our house. We juggled with different ideas and finally decided to make it a family trip, not flying, but driving. So with our car so packed we headed to the Cascades and out to Walla Walla.

We drove to Walla Walla Washington and spent a night with our friends, the Frasers. They had plans to go down to St. George and it couldn't have worked out more perfectly. We caravanned together and the kids had a blast. We got to see many pretty places and what surprised us a lot was how dry the East side of Washington was. An hour and a half out from Seattle, pretty much past the Cascades were desserts like that of Nevada and Arizona and Utah. We felt like we were already in Vegas. Oregon and Idaho were fun states to drive through as we got to go through what felt like December with a bit of snow on the high parts of the mountains we drove through.

Debrie got over her 1 month stranger anxiety or teething sometime during the drive to Walla Walla. When we got there, Zach held her and I watched as he brought her head close to his chest and I guess that was the trick. She didn't fuss once when he held her and fell asleep in his arms. He put her down that night. When we got into to Utah, her uncle Lon did the same thing. Unfortunately we didn't take a picture but we have proofs of her aunt Thanh and aunt GayLynn holding her. She's a very cuddly baby.

When we got into Utah, we spent 2 nights with Lon and GayLynn and their family. The weather was colder than it was in Washington and we got some snow. But the kids were so happy to see us and ran to give us warm hugs and kisses. Our kids surprised us at how not shy they were on this whole trip. It started first with Zach Fraser holding Debrie and then her uncle Lon also held her right when she got there. She's very cuddly so if you hold her close, she'll love you right away. Reena had fun Easter egg hunting and playing together with all of her cousins and when we told her that we would be seeing more cousins, she said "More cousins? There's a whole bunch of them!"

We did some eating out to celebrate my birthday. My adopted grandparents, the Haslems drove 2 hours from their home in Roosevelt to celebrate my birthday with me at Chuckarama. I felt very loved. Also, this year I got to celebrate my birthday together with Lon since his birthday was 3 days after mine. It's becoming a tradition that every couple of years or so we share a birthday cake. GayLynn bought us a cake and my sister Thanh came up and stayed the night over at their house. We had a lot of fun doing crafts together and we stayed up 'til 1:00 to chat.

The next day we headed back down to Salt Lake and went out to eat with friends at La Cai Noodle House, one of my favorite places to eat. Diana and her sibling and cousin came along and she paid for all of us. Again, I felt very loved. I love my friends.
After we ate we headed to Cedar City to stay over at a hotel so that we wouldn't have to drive all the way to Vegas and drive back up the next day. We made a stop in Spanish Fork and saw some friends, neighbors and met up with our renters, There will always be a special place in our heart for Spanish Fork, but we are sure glad we've moved up to the Seattle are. We love the hills and highlands here.

The next day we met up with our friends the Frasers again in St.George for the in between conference shopping gala. We stopped at Deseret books and grabbed some gifts for Jeff's kids since we don't get to see them very often and their birthdays are coming. We didn't waste much time because we wanted to make sure that we get in town on time for the BIG event...surprising Dan's dad. We arrived in Vegas and had to take off our sweaters so to us it was summer! We went from cold wintery weather in Utah, to Spring in St. George to Summer in Vegas. No wonder it's so dry there. It was only April. We had a great time visiting with all the siblings and the cousins got reacquainted. Debrie gave them all hugs. Conference was great as always and we found out that our Stake President, Phillip K. Bussey was called to be the area general authority. He's also in our ward so we know him and his family. We're happy for him and his family.

The biggest and probably most memorable event of this trip was the surprise Dan and his brothers gave their dad by showing up and inviting him to the Priesthood session of Conference. My father in law is one of the most spiritual man I've ever met so you can imagine the emotion that was involved in this event. He froze at the door at the sight of his 4 boys in their best and his eyes were wet and he was speechless. It was wonderful to hear him expressed in person how happy he was that Dan came down. Let me just say that if you ever want a lot of hugs and kisses from your in laws, do something similar to this. We added a little extra boost to the event by timing the nice coffee table photobook of their trip to Seattle to arrive to their house that weekend. Everything went so well and it couldn't have been more perfect.

With that we started our way back up. We drove straight from Vegas to Salt Lake and joined my sister and her friends for a night of Easter celebration. She and her friends hid Easter eggs and had Reena walked around the house doing an Easter egg hunt. Reena really enjoyed that and they enjoyed watching Reena. She also joined them in playing Mario Party and didn't want to go to sleep that night. My sis and I and Diana stayed up 'til Midnight chatting. It was wonderful.
The next day we headed back home to Washington and on the way stopped by the Twin Falls Temple and saw the gorge on the way to it. We stayed the night again at our friends, the Frasers house. we drove home the next day and again was in awed when we drove through the Cascades. After the desert came tall mountains with lots of evergreen trees and flower blooming trees. We were home at last!

I kept putting this blog off until now. It was so nice and sunny the last couple of days (temptations to play was too strong). We have much to look forward to not just in terms of weather but in terms of seeing more families and friends as they come up for a vacation in the near future.

Well, that was the most amazing birthday trip ever! 27 finds me happily married to an incredibly handsome man who gave me 2 beautiful kids. 27 is old old old but thankfully everyone still think I look 22. It's a blessing to be Viet!!

6 states, 5 beds, 4 seasons, 3 occasions, 2 kids, 1 wonderful vacation!

The title tells it all. We're home safe in beautiful Seattle. This is just to let you all know we got in safely. We've had a blast and I can't wait to blog in our wonderful trip.