Big 3-0 Weekend

Last weekend was full of fun.  It was my big 30th birthday and Mother's Day!  Lots of love for me.  :)  Our adventure started on Thursday.  We picked Brooklyn up from school and headed to Edmonds to catch the ferry to Brett's parents.  Being that we have a small army of children we drove separately so we could leave a car for Brett's parents to haul the kids around in.  I got the kids and Brett got all of our crap.  While Brett got to relax, I played endless games of I Spy With my Little Eye.  I even tried to give up once which immediately prompted Brooklyn to shout, "Mommy, we are Krache's we NEVER give up."  Lectures from my four year old, awesome.

I knew it was going to be an outstanding vacation when we saw dolphins from the ferry.  Yep, dolphins.  I had no clue we have dolphins here.  It was pretty magical.  Brooklyn and I really got a kick out of it.  After getting the kids all settled in at Brett's parents we headed out to our destination, Ocean Shores.  Kidless for three nights and four days...thank you in-laws!!

View from the condo.

I was super excited, I love Ocean Shores.  We used to camp there every spring/summer growing up and I hadn't been back in quite a while.  On our way there we decided to stop at the one fishable lake I found in the area, Lake Failor.  You guessed it, it was a failure.  No fish.  But, it was a beautiful evening and we had fun none-the-less.  After an hour or so, we packed up our poles and continued down to our destination, arriving just a the sun was setting.  We picked up the keys to our condo (thanks Grandma and Grandpa Teece!) and loaded up on junk food and movies at the local market.  Our condo was on the top floor with an awesome sweeping view of the ocean.  So perfect.  We got all settled in and watch The Green Hornet, we were pleasantly surprised and really liked it.

Saturday we woke up early because we are parents and apparently once you are parents you can no longer sleep in past 8:00 a.m.  Awesome.  So we got ready for our first adventure fueled on the best bear claw doughnut I have ever eaten.  What, aren't you supposed to only eat junk food on vacation?!?  The week before we left my Dad sent me an email letting me know that Razor Clam season was going to be extended to include the weekend we were going to be down there.  Brett's Dad had a few clam guns so we thought, heck, let's try this out.  How hard can it be?  Hard?  Very hard.  But, surprisingly super fun.  We started out on an illegal beach, nesting birds or something...oops.  But, I believe it was the rope Gods that led us there.  Rope Gods are Gods that lead you to 200+ feet of "good crabbing rope".  Brett untangled this rope for a good half-hour while I ran for the car because it was POURING rain.  The gathering of the rope was followed by pure joy on Brett's part.  He would say things like, "Do you realize how many crab pots this will pull?"  And, "this has to be worth at least a few hundred bucks."  I would counter with, "Do you smell this rope?  It smells like vomit, mildew and must."  Ew.  Anyhoo, after we corrected our path and headed down the coast a bit further, we limited in 45 minutes.  You can only clam until noon so we headed back and after a quick outfit change decided that the weather (rain, rain, rain) warranted a movie. We lucked out and Fast Five was starting the exact time we pulled in to the parking lot.  Decent movie, cute little theater (thanks for the tickets Mom & Dad).  After the movie we grabbed some Fish & Chips and drove up the coast to scope out the next days clamming grounds.  It was opened every morning that we were there so you better believe we harvested as much as we possibly could.  Insert Brett lecture here, "We are Krache's, we live off the land."  So, you better believe Saturday - my birthday - we were up with the sun and had our limit by mid-morning.  It was a beautiful morning, the sun was even out!

Sexy hubby on the Jetty.

We headed back to the condo for a nap (me) and then headed out to walk on the jetty, a beautiful outcropping of rocks.  The weather was still super nice so we soaked up some sun and got back to the car just as the rain started again.  That night we walked to one of the nicer restaurants for a nice dinner and then took our time walking back.  Sunday morning, you guessed it, we packed up the condo and headed out to clam for the last time.  Gotta love double layer blisters on your hands!  I could barely move but I still limited.  I wasn't going to let those pesky razor clams win.  All in all, it was a very relaxing, fun and adventure filled weekend.  I was pretty shocked that we even managed to relax a little, a feat when Brett is around (I took a long nap while he was cleaning all of the razor clams).  :)  

Pretty sure the condo hadn't seen the likes of us!

Razor Clams!

The sheer number of people clamming was amazing!

Blue sky!

Sooo tired.

What?  We are incapable of normal pictures.

Love that blue sky!

Seriously?!?

This is what appeared at my back door after I finished unloading the dishwasher.

GAH-ROSS!

"I not eat it."  Yeah, right.

Fish Face

Fish Face!

Jameson has learned fish face all on his own 

and it seems his face is stuck that way now. 

 

Final Weekend Post

I promise, it is almost over.  We headed home early Sunday morning on the ferry...Brett with the big kids, me with Baby Emmett.  After naps we headed outside to enjoy the beautiful day with a jog.  Ugh, stroller jogging.  Not my thing, but I think I could possibly get used to it.  We'll see.  I would love to see what people think when we jog by with two strollers full of children.  Quite a sight.  When we got back we realized that we were running a little behind, typical of us.  My big sis Melissa was picking me up at 6:30 p.m. for a concert.  To the showers I went!  Ready just in time.

In true former Broughton sister style we made and emergency stop at Dairy Queen for a pre-concert Blizzard.  However, our emergency sugar run put us behind the longest train ever.  EVER!  So we paved our own path out of town and when we ended up at a red light we noticed this pimped out Mercedes next to us blaring music with some chain smokers inside.  Upon second glance I realized that they were Jake and Josh Harris from Deadlist Catch.  So I stared at them to verify their identities while Melissa refused to actually look.  Instead she spied from behind her polarized sunglasses to confirm their identities.  The same sunglasses she has owned for six years.  What?  You don't talk about how long you have owned your sunglasses?!?  Weird.

Anyhoo, back on the road.  We got to Seattle and after several parking lot mishaps we found a parking spot and in a lot with some hilarious false advertising.  Only we could get a kick out of finding somewhere to park!  We headed in to the Moore Theater and found some seats in our section.  Some dude named Willie William Williamsham opened for Chris Cornell.  I actually have no clue what his name was, but that is what I heard when he said it.  Chris Cornell was perfect.  His voice sings directly to my soul.  He is my voice soul-mate.  Melissa and I had a blast listening to the music and people watching.  It was a very interesting crowd to say the least.  The night ended with a battery falling from what seemed like thin air directly at us on the way to our car.  What?  Weird.  Gotta love Seattle!  Thanks Melissa for a great night out.

And with that, the weekend was over.  

Firefighter Stairclimb

If you know Brett, you know about the Firefighter Stairclimb.  It is an event that is near and dear to his heart and he dedicates the months of February and March to fundraising and training.  Okay, he trains all year but we live and breath stairclimb for two months out of the year.  He made me so proud this year.  Well, he does every year, but this year was pretty exceptional.  He raised, with the help of his team, over $16,000 individually and over $34,000 as a team.  Pretty awesome numbers.  He got the team to rally behind his idea to raise a ton of money to try and win the first place individual prize, a trip to Hawaii, to then donate to the family of a firefighter who passed away this past year.  Brett never ceases to amaze me with his selflessness and hard work.  When he puts his mind to something he makes it happen!

Weekend - Part II

Saturday was full of fun.  We started the morning with a run to the local Lowe's for more supplies to finish up his parent's garage.  Before Brett started in on the garage we headed back down to the beach that was actually a beach.  We dug clams, found lots of tiny crabs, hermit crabs and two baby starfish.  The kids had a blast.  So much so that our beach adventure was followed with very good, long naps.  Whew!

When they woke up from naps we headed to Brett's cousin Rachael's little boy Tyce's 2nd birthday party.  Follow that?  :)  We had such a great time, Rachael and Bill are awesome hosts and know how to plan a fun kid party!  I forgot my camera but they had an ingenious Pinata.  Instead of hitting it with sticks, each kid grabbed a string and pulled to make all the treats fall out.  That is probably a horrible way to describe it but it was super awesome!  Little did we know that the party was for Bill too...Happy Late Birthday Bill!...we really should read invitations more closely.  The kids had a great time, too great, they were a little on the cranky side so we had to cut the partying short.  Bummed, but kids will be kids!

Back at Brett's parents, Brett worked his butt off with his Dad to finish up the garage remodel while his Mom and I wrangled kids inside.  I am not sure who was most exhausted by the end of the day!?!  :) 

Weekend - Part I

We had a busy, busy weekend!  So, I'll divide these posts in to separate days.  Because, let's face it, while I daydream about the masses finding me interesting, only a handful of people find the historical documentation of our day-to-day lives compelling.  The fact is this blog is a little more self serving.  One day I will print it out for the kiddos to learn a bit about their lovely childhoods.

Back to the weekend, let's start with Friday.  Brett went to his parent's on Thursday evening to finish up the room he remodeled for his grandparents and continue work on his parent's carport/garage remodel.  Friday morning I packed up the kids and headed to the ferry to meet him.  It was my lucky day because I just missed the ferry at the one time that there was an hour break.  An hour, in the car with three kids.  Awesome.  Luckily it was tolerable.  Jameson insisted on taking his shirt off, Brooklyn covered her window with mysterious stickers (my biggest pet peeve) and Emmett cried most of the time...but we came out alive!  Man, I take ferry riding for granted, it is so beautiful!

We arrived at Brett's parents in time for the kids to hang out at the "beach."  You see the kids insisted on going down there before the tide was actually out and we found two tiny crabs for them to freak out about.  After it was time for bed for the kids.  After they were in tucked, Brett and I headed to Brett's grandparents to button up a few final details on the room remodel followed by a little TV watching and a lot of snoring.