Summer Vacation

No doubt about it, this is about the most beautiful place on earth in the summer. For our family vacation, we decided to stray not terribly far away. We took a journey north of the border to Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Since we were island bound, ferry travel was in order. We set sail from Port Angeles, WA to Victoria, BC, and from there drove up to the beach town of Parksville where we stayed in a vacation rental for a week. So much to do! We took in three provincial parks with great hikes, beaches and even caves. Parksville is along the Straight of Georgia, and the community beach boasts some shallow, which means warm and swimmable, water. Yes, warm water in Canada!

We took time to enjoy the very English sites of Victoria on our way in, and continued to enjoy the overall British feel of the province during our stay. We even came home with a can of Haggis! On our way home, we took a different route. Our ferry departed from the east coast of Vancouver Island and took us the city of Vancouver on the mainland. We saw some of the Olympic venues, as well as the beautiful views from the waterfront. The biggest deal of all, of course, was riding on the Skytrain, Vancouver's mass transit rail. When we looked at pictures of Vancouver prior to our trip, all the boys could talk about was the possibility of riding the Skytrain. Please, please, please, let us ride the Skytrain! Well, dreams do come true, for $1.75 Canadian.

From Vancouver, we drove back across the US border (cleared customs in a record 35 minutes!) and on back to our home in Bremerton.

Violence in the Media

Yup. My seven-year-old made the paper this week. Check out Andy's quote in this article about his piano teacher:

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/apr/25/business-spotlight-have-pianos-will-travel/

The First Six Months

I can't believe that we've been here half a year! It seemed like an eternity of waiting for Tom to join us (the first two months) but now we just cruise along. Today, March 1, reminded me that winter is drawing to a close, and I really need to post some pictures of the Brown family's first winter in Washington.

I should point out that, despite how far north we are now, the weather is fairly mild through the winter months. We haven't seen a single snow flake. We have seen our fair share of rain, but that's the way of things in the Pacific Northwest.

Here are just a few snapshots of our adventures here. Tom and the boys have enjoyed some great hiking, we've hopped several ferries over to Seattle, and we had the biggest Christmas tree ever, thanks to an abundant supply of huge trees out here, and house with a two story foyer.

OUR NEW PLACE

Not that one room living with the boys hasn't been a blast, but we are very excited to announce that we are moving into our new home tomorrow! I must give credit to the Bangor Navy Lodge (for you non-military types, a lodge is simply a hotel on a military installation). They put up with us for 10 days and were actually very nice to us. I think they felt sorry for poor woman in 116 with no home and no husband and four children. What can I say? I'll take all the pity I can get.

Our new house is in a great location and has plenty of room for guests, so come on out here and stay with us. We've even got a view of Port Orchard Bay, I think. There's so much water around here that I can't keep track of what's what. The moving truck arrives tomorrow with all our household goods that we haven't seen in a while. I'm sure getting unpacked will take me a long time, but breaking open boxes is better than living out of a suitcase.

WE'RE HERE!

Saturday evening, Amy, the boys and I crossed Puget Sound into Bremerton. Hip hip hooray! It's still hard for me to believe, but the Brown family (minus Tom, of course) is on the other side of the country.

We settled into our home for the time being--the Navy Lodge--and we'll begin the hunt for a house right away. We spent today driving around and checking out the neighborhoods around the naval base, and just seeing the sites we'll get to enjoy for the next couple years. It's really very pretty, and the salt water smell in the air is perfect for this Navy family.

The sad news is that Amy has to leave us tomorrow. We wish she could stay with us, but in addition to being Aunt Extraordinaire, she is also Geography Teacher Extraordinaire. She has to get ready for her upcoming school year. That means I'm on my own. Yikes!

WE'VE COME THIS FAR...WE MAY AS WELL KEEP GOING

The last two hotels have had poor internet connection, so I'm so happy to finally get some new pictures of the cross-country progress we've made. We had our excursion to Niagara Falls, and from their drove to Chicago. That was our longest leg of the trip, and it didn't help that Girlzilla (aka the Garmin Nuvi we installed last week) kept trying to get us to cut through Canada. She was pretty insistant too. She's got a British accent, so maybe she's got some Canadian loyalty going on. Or else she hadn't gotten the memo about Americans no longer being allowed to go willy-nilly into Canada. I'm not sure. Thankfully, Amy and I are skilled at map reading, and we managed to get back on course the old fashioned way.

From Chicago, we drove to Sioux Falls, SD, via Wisconsin and Minnesota. The big excitement out of Minnesota were the wind farms. I've seen pictures of those big wind mills, but I've never seen one up close, nor have I seen huge numbers of them clumped together. It's like something out of a sci-fi move. Unfortunately, I can't get the video we took of that to post, but it was pretty wild. Wisconsin has a lot of cheese.

We met up with my parents at the hotel in Sioux Falls (they are currently on their own semi-cross-country trip) and drove with them to Mount Rushmore. We all really enjoyed that.

We arrived this evening in Gillette, WY. Nothing against the rest of the midwest, but Wyoming is really much prettier that our previous states. As the kids experience meltdowns during all these long drives, our redirect tactic has gone from "look at the corn!" to "look at the rocks!" The kids are really holding up pretty well. The days are very long, but the fun stuff we do on the road along with the Fruit Loops the hotels serve for breakfast (yes, I've caved. I'll go back to my old ways when we settle in somewhere) get them through the day.

Tomorrow, we head for Missoula, MT. That will be our last stop before Bremerton. Woo-hoo!

NIAGARA FALLS? YES IT DOES!

From this morning's excursion. A little out of the way, but worth the trip!