Dode celebrates his birthday, in May

Friday Dode surprised me by staying home from work. Because he started with the Tulalip Tribes in August, he doesn't get any vacation time until August.  The only day he gets off is his birthday.  He's allowed to take it whenever he wants once his birthday has come.  His birthday was in January.  We kept talking about what to use that one day on but it's hard to come up with something special enough for our most valuable one day of vacation.  He'd talked about driving out with me on my big trip on the 1st day and taking a bus, train, or plane back.  Then, we found out his huge CFED test was the day after I leave.  So, Friday was the day to celebrate his birthday.    We started off with a stop at Krispy Kreme for donuts. 

Six kids=2 donuts each.  (Whoever ate 4 donuts isn't fessing up but there were two unhappy children.)

Then, it was off to Washington Park in Anacortes.  It's one of our favorite family places to go.  There was a minus low tide so we spent time at the tide pools.  This tide pool (the size of a medium mud puddle) was absolutely crawling with hermit crabs.  We also saw: anenomes, kelp crabs, rock crabs, star fish, sea stars (yes there is a difference). 

After Washington Park, we did a quick geocache over by the ferries.  The best part for the kids was a storm drain that went under a new paved trail.  There was a manhole that they could poke things up through while standing on the drain, and drop things down on their siblings through while standing on the trail.  The ones on the top got a lot more enjoyment out of that than the ones in the drain!  Next, it was off to Whistle Lake to visit our family tree. 

We planted this tree two years ago, the day our adoption was final.

May 2008

May 2010

 

Miriam was absolutely disgusted with how little it is and almost refused to be photographed with it.  It's there at our feet if you look closely, in front of Elizabeth.  (Jacob was sleeping in the van.)

We have a matching tree in our yard, just as little but I guess she thought the one in the forest would be huge.  We planted one out here so the kids can access it no matter who lives in the house we are now in.  Whistle Lake has over 50  miles of trails around it and most allow motorbikes so we brought the Trail 90. 

 Isaac got in a bit of riding before the worn out old tire in the front let a branch in to pop the inner tube.  We hit another geocache on the way out at the Grand View Cemetery in Anacortes and brought some very tired children home.

Dode reports that he enjoyed his summer birthday.  So did the rest of us!