Dinotown

Ever since I saw the commercial for Dinotown in Bridal Falls B.C. for the first time (years ago), I wanted to check out his place. It opened first in 1975 as "Bedrock City" with everything modelled after the Flintstones. I don't know when it moved over to the "Bones" Dinosaur family, but it did not matter to the kids.

Last Friday finally, my friend Julie and I took the girls to Dinotown. It was a 3 hour journey, but a beautiful drive, especially through Watcom County. Off course, as soon as we got there, it started to rain. Luckily the 12 acres of the park are filled with many large cedar trees, which give a lot of cover against rain and sun. We had both that day. My first impression of the park was not stellar, but the greatness was in the detail. It is definitely designed for the younger crowd (our 2,3,5 and 6 year olds loved it). We rode a little train, we climbed in the Flintstone cars and played in the buildings. We saw the little dance and sing along shows, and we heart stories at story time. There was a large tree house, manual bumper cars, mini golf and a water playground, where the kids could spray each other with water while the parents sat on shady benches and just watched. My favorite was a canoe ride. We got to sit in a little boat and everyone got a paddle. We paddled around an artificial island. It was a lot of fun trying to move a boat with three children "helping" paddling.

The park itself was not very busy, so we never had to wait for anything, which was very nice. Overall it was a great day, and I think we are going to make this an annual event.

Summer Vacation Part 2

In the early morning hours of the 5th of July we started driving south to meet Jason's family in Gold Beach at the southern end of the Oregon Coast. Considering all the traveling the girls have been doing, they behaved very well. It took us 10 hours to get there, but it was well worth it. Our hotel was right at the beach. The sky was blue and it was not too hot. The most difficult part was probably the strong winds. Amelia did not like it at all at the beach. She was too low to the ground and got blasted with fine sand. So while the "big " boys and the two Marlenes played at the beach shooting off rockets, Pam, Amelia, and I drove to Bannon to visit this cute little seaside town. The girls loved spending more time with all her cousins. Unfortunately we only had two short days, until everyone had to head back home. We stopped a night in Portland to break up the drive and visited the Portland Zoo the next morning. For breakfast Jason took us to a fabulous little bistro close to "Powels" that he had discovered while working in Portland, called "The Everett Street Bistro".

Girls on the 4th of July

We had a very quiet 4th of July this year, since we had just returned from California the day before and getting ready to head down to the Oregon Coast early the next day. Our most patriotic act was to BBQ and paint our toe nails.

Summer Vacation Part 1

Summer has officially begun now. School was out on Friday the 22nd of June and in the early morning of Saturday the 23rd we flew down to San Jose. Shannon, Jason's old childhood friend was getting married in Santa Cruz that day. We had decided to make this our summer vacation. Jason had to fly back on Tuesday, but the girls and I stayed another week.

Thanks to Jason's dad we were able to go to the wedding by ourselves while he watched Marlene and Amelia. It was probably a good thing, since we had to get up at 3.30am that day and the wedding did not start until 5 pm that afternoon. This way we had just ourselves to worry about. The Wedding was fun. The setting in the hills above Capitola was perfect; the weather was not too hot, and we got to party with a lot of Jason's old friends.

The following days were filled with swimming in the pool, going to playgrounds, and doing some tourist things. Marlene and I had made a "summer Action Plan" of things we want to do this summer. It always seems, that at the beginning of summer, we want to do so much and then it is over all of a sudden and you wonder where the time went. Not so this year. We are marking things off!

We went to the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz and rode all the (kids) carousels. Marlene even went with Jason on the Log Ride. Another day we drove with the cousins down to Monterrey to go to the Aquarium. It was very busy, but Marlene and Amelia loved being with Katie and Sam. The four of them spent a lot of time together. Going to the beach is one of our big things. So here we are at the beach in California. Too soon it was time to fly back to Seattle for 4th of July, but we knew we would see the family very soon again in Oregon.