Festivals, Family and Feildtrips

Charity got a chance to get together with all 6 of her sisters this last week. They all met in Seattle and spent the night, since all of them were flying in from different areas. The next day was spent at Pike's Place in Seattle, where they posed in front of the Famous Gum Wall. They spent the rest of the weekend staying in the farmhouse at the Lavender farms in Sequim. It was so much fun and so nice to do nothing but hang and catch up.

Before she left though she had to earn her mini vacation with 3 feildtrips packed into one week. First they went to the Fish Hatchery and watched how they kill the mature salmon to harvest their eggs and "fertilizer" Isaiah and Elijah's favorite part was when they hit the salmon over the head with the aluminum bat. :( The guys were so great there and really let the kids have a truly "hand on" experience. I had not picture my kids ever handling so many poped out eye balls, followed by handfuls of slippery salmon eggs. They all got to feed the babyfish and loved to watch them jump like crazy for their food. It was so much fun for the kids and they actually did learn a lot.

The next day we got to go to a beaver habitat that a college student was studying to write her thesis on. She was so great at letting the kids ask questions and bringing lots of props for them to play with. Below, Isaiah has a rubber replica of a beaver foot and he is trying to figure out why they have only one toenail on one foot that is purposly split down the middle. (it is so they can use it like a comb). Kenya is holding the skull of a beaver and learning why their 2 front teeth are orange colored. (cause they are an iron calcium mix, so they don't break as easily) Annecy is holding the outer layer of beaver fur (who knew they had 2 layers). The college student told the kids to look for clues that we were getting close to the beaver dam. The clues were; beaver tracks, beaver smells and chewed on wood. Elijah took this search very seriously and ended up collecting and saving all of the chewed on wood peices he found.

Lastly, the day after Charity got back from her Sisters weekend, we took on 4 more kids for the week as our friends "The Wheelers" were headed out of town. If Charity learned anything from her mom having 10 kids, its that the more worn out they are the less you notice they are there. So she did her best to wear them out over the weekend. Friday was quarter swim at the pool, so with 10 kids in tow, she went to swim lessons, followed by 2 more hours in the pool, home for dinner and some very tired kids to bed. The next morning was football and soccer games followed by a harvest party at a local company's farm. The kids got cupcakes at the cupcake walk followed by donuts at the "bobing for donuts" station and all wrapped up with a couple runs through the hay obstacle course. It almost seemed like having 8-10 kids at one time may not be such a challenge after all! JUST KIDDING! I think we may survive and be ready for another vacation by next week.