July felt like it was forever ago. We are traveling again and believe it or not I have more time when we travel to blog. When I'm at home I have little babies climbing all over me when I'm at the computer. So, whose idea is this that we are traveling again?? Haha mine! Luckily Dan's new job has discretionary vacations so he goes on vacation whenever he wants as long as he doesn't abuse it. The 8 weeks paternity leave was really nice for all the traveling we did this year. We got the travel bug! Just want to keep doing it. I think it's all the invitations I get from my sisters..."come see us, come to this place and that place with us!" Grateful for a good job that allows us to be able to do that. I scored marrying Mr. Daniel Stevens!
Without further ado I will go right in to discussing the Stevens family reunion. I feel so blessed to be married into Dan's family. Great people they are. We made them travel from all over to Seattle. The first to arrive was his eldest brother Lon and sister in law GayLynn and family. We were so thrilled they decided to come up earlier so we could have more time with them. We took them on a little hikr to Snoqualmie Falls, and they went to a few places in Seattle to tour themselves. That's the way to do it. It's far up so why not give the area a few days and enjoy it's beauty. They and their boys adore little Darion! Lucky us. There is something sweet about having families in your home visiting.
The day arrived and everyone including Great Grandpa Evans who we prayed and prayed he'd make it up to join us at the reunion. He was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year and we saw him in April when he had his first chemo and we didn't know if his body was strong enough to undergo more treatments. But this man is a fighter! He is amazing and we are so lucky to have him in our lives. I love calling him on the phone and talk to him.
Everyone arrived at our house, except for Jeff's family who went to the Lake house first and Jenn and Tiff who arrived at the lake house later. The girl cousins were all giddy when they saw each other. My girls decided to take Krista's girls into the woods behind the park near our home and they found some bees. They claimed they didn't bother the bees but somehow out of sheer luck they got the bee's attention. Every one of them ran out crying and had bees on their arms, legs, hair. Some, their uncle Ryan had to brush off their clothes. It was not a good start. They cried as they ran in the house while Dan's Mom was giving some people a tour of our home. What a way to start the reunion. Thankfully no one was severely allergic. They will always remember this story I'm sure!
Peaceful serenity. How I wish I could live in this lakehouse forever. The weather was a perfect 75 degrees. A break for those coming from the hot desert
I think these pictures show it all. There were fishing poles, wet suits, flippers, snorkels, and life jackets as well as canoes for the entertainment. Seriously we didn't need to go anywhere else for fun!
But when will everyone be back, who knows. Maybe we should do more inviting like my sisters do to me. Dan has been trying to get his family to talk more through text messages and he has been enjoying seeing his parents on the group chat as well. This is how many family has been communicating for years. I love it! Siblings are God given and relationships mean a lot to me. I'm opinionated but I ain't cold. I will continue inviting. We are sincere when we tell people we will pay for their flights. It's cheaper for us to have them come visit than for all of us to go. But somehow we still do the trek down
Ferry ride...Although common to us this ride is one of the many rides in Seattle area for travelers across the sound. There are many islands and they each have their own ferry system. One of my favorites is the one going to the San Juan islands. It in itself is the trip worth seeing.
For the sake of time, we just took everyone to the famous 30 flavor ice cream shop on Bainbridge island. Ice cream before lunch? Yep that's the Dan and Thuan's way. That's how we roll...
The French crepes restaurant next door was phenomenal too. We told everyone to find their own place to eat lunch and we would head to the CANAL.
The Hood Canal is my absolute favorite place for clamming. The night before we were wondering if we should make a stop at this waterfall - Rocky Brook Falls. This is where our greediness came in. We hadn't seen this Fall and we wanted to see something new. We should've stuck with going clamming but instead we decided, let's make a quick stop over at the Falls first. Well the quick stop wasn't quick. We hit some traffic, a draw bridge and a bad incident including a man falling 150 ft from the top of the Falls causing a huge scene with his screaming. What a sight to teach our group to be careful climbing the rocks nearby. The Fall was pretty, though no where near as impressive as Snoqualmie Falls near our house! No not in the least bit. We all felt so bad for the man and I still check in occasionally to see if there are any updates on him. Poor sap.
Half of our group had to go back early to cook and the other half was way too tired to continue our trek to the beach for Clamming! I'm shouting BC I really wish we had just go for clamming rather than that water fall. I LOVE CALMMING!! I wish everyone had come. There were so many clams and oysters!!!
This is my voice student/friend/amazing cake artist. I traded a lesson with her for all of her cake making tools to make that cake for Reena's double digit Harry Potter birthday. She is from Argentina so with Dan's brother and his nephew Chad also serving there, she fit right in.
On the last day, which is to say the second FL day, which is also to say darn that was too quick. I cannot emphasize how much I love being with people, and yes even In-laws! To me it doesn't change a thing. We tried hard to convince people to stay longer but of course everyone has work schedules they have to stick by. Not everyone is as lucky as Dan in terms of work vacation days.
The beach was fun. The boys played ultimate frisbee and the girls hung out watching the boys. I wanted to show the kids crabbing but unfortunately forgot to check the schedule and found out that that day is crabbing day off, allowing the crabs to mate and grow and all that good stuff so we don't run out of awesome crabs in the Puget Sound area. We did have another chance after the reunion where we took Dan's brother Troy and his son Camden crabbing and Camden got a good size crab. We cooked it up for him and ate it at the Zillow tower.
I didn't take any pictures here and will have to add some on when I'm back at my desktop to show that we started some fire and had s'mores for everyone as a snack. We sent them off to various places like Pike place market for lunch and shopping...which is a really cool place and lots of yummy restaurants on the alley way. but if you didn't do any of that then that place is pretty boring to you.
While everyone was at Pike Place, I went back to the lakehouse and decorated the place up a bit for Reena's party. I knew it would be a bit hectic to have the whole family there and have a party going on with a few of Reena's best friends from church and school and her second cousins there, BUT SERIOUSLY THERR IS NO BETTER PLACE FOR A COOL HARRY POTTER BIRTHDAY PARTY!!! How could I not take advantage of the grandier tall ceilings, which I was so in love with??? I just couldn't pass!!! I had called up a friend of a friend for a 2 hr boat ride for Dan's family. Sid, oh what a wonderful person he was to have done that for me. It pays off so much to be friends with lots of people, if for nothing else, for connections for occasions like this. I have checked and would've had to pay $500-$600 for the 2 hrs if I had hired someone, but I paid practically nothing. Actually I wrote out a check for him and I'm not sure he even cashed it. He was so sweet. A few kids had fun tubing with him on his boat and overall had a good your of Lake Sammamish.
So how cool is her cake eh??
And the decor. OK this just needs its own post. See you on the next post!
