Road Trip Day 11

When we were in Kelowna, it was the relaxing part of our trip.  It was GREAT to be busy and see lots of things in Washington and then it was nice to have a few days of not having much on our agenda.  These are pictures of Jared’s Uncle + Aunt’s beautiful front yard and house.

This is the backyard (view from the deck)

The kids enjoyed their sandbox

Their main floor is 1500 sq. ft. with a full basement (mostly unfinished), and they have a 450 sq. ft. upstairs.  There are 2 bedrooms upstairs + a bathroom, so that’s where we slept.  In the morning, we drove around for a bit.  A lot of the houses in Kelowna are just incredible!  I find it so interesting how many of them are built on hills.  This post could also be called All Kinds of Houses Part 2!

We took a long bridge across Lake Okanagan

Such a gorgeous lake set against the mountains

We took the kids to Rotary Beach Park and the kids LOVED swimming at the beach!

I was sitting on the sand and I zoomed in and got this picture of her laughing, which I love!

After the beach, we went back to the house and the kids really enjoyed painting on the covered deck with Aunt Diane.

In the evening, we went to Jared’s friend Justin’s house for supper.  He moved to Kelowna several years ago and got married last summer, so we also got to meet his wife, Bri.  The neighbor’s dog kept coming to visit because we had a bbq and he was very interested in our food.

They live out in the country on a farm.  Here’s a picture of the cherry trees (there was a whole field of them.

Their house

Their neighbor’s ridiculous house on the same yard (they also own the house Justin + Bri are living in)

We ate outside and the sunset was beyond amazing!

I can’t remember the last time I saw pink like this! 

We put Haley down to sleep on a blanket on the floor in one of their rooms, which we’ve never done before, and she slept, so we were able to stay until 10:00 and visit.  We had a great time!

Continuing on our Journey

On Sunday, July 15, we packed up all of our stuff into the van and then went to Art + Jenene’s church.  I think there were about 50 people there, so EVERYONE knew that we were visitors. :) I was in the nursery with Haley and Jenene + Sophia, so I didn’t get to hear the message, but I could hear the preacher passionately preaching, even though 2 sets of doors were closed!  After church, we went for lunch to Jack In the Box, which was a great, cheap burger place.  They only make the burger when you order it, so it takes a bit longer, but it’s fresh + tasty!  After that, we went to a place that I had been wanting to go to all week, so we quickly squeezed in at the very end of our time in Bellingham: Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt!

They have 14 different flavors of frozen yogurt, which we took ourselves and then you can see the counter full of toppings that we put on ourselves.  We brought to the cashier and she put it on a scale and then we paid by weight.  I can’t remember what flavors I chose, but it was yummy!  Then, it was time to say good-bye to Art + Jenene. :(  I have no idea when we will see them again…it could be a year, so that’s hard.  I try not to think about that.  We then began our 6-hour drive to Kelowna, B.C. where Jared’s aunt + uncle live.

Massive palace house out in the country

I LOVE how green it is…almost looks fake

The color contrast makes me smile

I like how they have these signs when arriving at a city

The clouds were very low, or we were very high

I think the flowers are pretty

There’s nothing like a sleeping baby

We got to Jared’s uncle Gerald and aunt Diane’s house at suppertime and they had a great meal prepared for us!  Soooo nice of them!  We visited for a while, the kids played outside in their sandbox, we got our stuff in our bedrooms (I shared one with the girls and Jared shared one with Blake), and then went to bed.  I think that was the only cloudy day we had during our whole trip and we were driving for most of it, so that worked out great!

Reflecting on the First Year

On Sunday, August 12, my baby turned 1 year old!  I’ve been thinking about the past 365 days and in some ways, it has been the hardest year of my life.  Before Haley was born, I had a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old who kept me incredibly busy.  Then, Haley arrived and I found a new meaning to the word busy.  3 kids is a whole other ball game, and I can’t imagine how people have 4 or more.  Honestly, there were many days that I was SO incredibly stressed out that I didn’t know what to do.  Times when 2 or 3 kids were crying at the top of their lungs, the house was a disaster, and I was going on very little sleep were hard for me.  There were days that I felt like I had too many kids, although I loved them.  Also, a year ago in September, I received devastating news about someone I love, so I had that to add to my plate.  When I found out that someone had been living a lie and done horribly hurtful things, it was a painful blow unlike anything I had felt before.  I wish I could say that the situation has resolved itself, that the person has repented and turned back to Jesus, but that’s not the case…yet.  I have faith that God will do miracles!

On the flip side, Haley joining our family has been a HUGE blessing!  For all of the crying + chaos, there has also been a lot of laughter!  At the beginning of the year, God gave me His word for this year of my life and it was “joy” (which also happens to be Haley’s middle name because that is God wants for her life).  I have learned that joy is a choice.  It is choosing to praise God + be thankful in every situation.  Choosing to focus on God instead of the problems.  I’m reminded of Habakkuk 3:17-18 “Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord!  I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!”  I wish I could say I have mastered that, but it is something that I will be learning for the rest of my life.  I did make a decision early on that I was not going to let the painful situation control my life.  I choose joy, regardless of the other person’s actions.  Choosing joy is often the harder choice and many times I have failed, but that continues to be my goal. 

We have reached an easier stage than a year ago, a stage that includes more sleeping through the night, starting to communicate with Haley, Kiera starting Kindergarten in a few weeks and Blake starting to potty train!  My digestion problems have definitely improved since I was pregnant with Haley, which I am so thankful for.  Jared has been at his new job for 3 months now and doesn’t miss his old job one bit!  We are tremendously blessed!  No matter what the situation, this song is so true:

God is so good, God is so good,

God is so good, He’s so good to me!

Seattle Take 2

On the 9th day of our trip (this is starting to sound like the 12 Days of Christmas), we decided to go back to Seattle, since our main purpose in going there the day before was to go to the Museum of Flight.  Since we took 5 hours to get there and then getting to the restaurant took so long, we ran out of time.  This time we did NOT take the scenic route (although it was still nice), and just stuck to the freeway and got there in less than 2 hours. 

University of Washington

I like that you can see the Space Needle from the freeway

This truck full of “honey buckets” was beside us at one point.  I’ve never heard them called anything but outhouses, so I thought that was funny.  We were joking about someone being in one of them on the back of the truck!

U.S. Public Health Service Hospital

Found out that this is the baseball field where the Mariners play.  Thank you once again, Google.

The Boeing Factory is right next to the Museum of Flight

The outside of the Museum of Flight

The Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress, called “The Boeing Bee” (you can see the picture of the bee on it)

On the day that we went, they had a helicopter air show (flown in from the American Heroes Airshow), which they don’t normally have, and it was free!  It ended up working out extremely well that we hadn’t gone the day before!

The same helicopter after it landed

A better picture of the US Army twin rotor Boeing CH-47D Chinook.  It’s a heavy lift and troop carrying Chinook helicopter.  It can carry up to 8.85 tonnes, or 19,500 pounds and the main cabin can hold 33 fully equipped soldiers.  It’s faster than many helicopters with speeds up to 315 km/h (195 mph).

My first time in a helicopter…too bad it wasn’t airborne.

US Army Black Hawk

After seeing all of the helicopters outside, we went inside the Museum of Flight.

The one on the bottom is the Lockheed M-21 Blackbird. Conceived nearly 50 years ago, the Blackbirds remain the fastest and highest flying (85,000 feet) air-breathing production aircraft ever built.  It carried unpiloted vehicles for intelligence gathering.

The kids standing underneath it

The plane on top is the Lockheed Martin RQ-3A Dark Star, which is an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) used by the US Air Force.  These airplanes could fly high over defended areas, observe and record information, and even locate and mark targets -- without endangering a pilot.

Wright 1903 Flyer Reproduction

The kids kept wanting to play where they weren’t supposed to. 

Inside the plane

The yellow airplane is the Fly Baby, which was the winning entry in the 1962 Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Design Contest.  The little plane specifically met the EAA's requirements for a low-cost, folding-wing plane that can be towed or trailered and is easy to build and fly.

A DC-3, which was built for American Airlines in 1940

This Boeing 100 was part of Boeing’s family of fighters which were nearly indestructible in flight and offered outstanding performance to execute maneuvers unknown to earlier generations of pilots.

Same family as the previous plane

Sikorsky HH-52 Seaguard, used by the US Coast Guard, which is credited with saving 15,000 lives and $1.5 billion in property loss and damage since its deployment with the Coast Guard in 1963.

Douglas A-4F Skyhawk II

The MA-4 was built in 1966 and flew with the Navy in Southeast Asia. Active in Navy squadrons throughout the 1970s, the plane was transferred to the Blue Angels in 1980. This aircraft was often flown in the number 4 or "slot" position. When the Blue Angels fly in diamond formation, the slot flies directly behind the leader, surrounded on three sides by other aircraft.

They had an area that the kids could play in which was pretty cool!

After that part, we walked across the street on the T. Evans Wyckoff Memorial Bridge, which is named after a long time museum supporter.  It was playing the Star Wars theme song inside of it, which made our walk across more exciting!

The Museum’s new Space Gallery

The next 2 planes I was the most interested in.  This is the Concorde.  The supersonic jets offered a luxurious and speedy trip across the Atlantic for 27 years. Capable of speeds over two times the speed of sound and at elevations up to 60,000 feet, the Concorde could fly from London to New York and return in the time it took a conventional aircraft to go one way. Flagging demand and rising operating expenses finally ended Concorde service.

Inside it

The first presidential jet plane, a specially built Boeing 707-120, is known as SAM (Special Air Missions) 970. This aircraft, as well as any other Air Force aircraft, carried the call sign "Air Force One" when the president was aboard. Delivered in 1959 to replace Eisenhower's Super-Constellation, the high-speed jet transport is a flying Oval Office with a modified interior and sophisticated communication equipment.  SAM 970 has carried presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon as well as VIPs such as Nikita Khrushchev and Henry Kissinger.

Inside it

The view before we walked back across the bridge

I had packed a bunch of leftovers for lunch, which we ate in the van in a nearby almost empty restaurant parking lot.  Then we had another scenic drive on the freeway back to our rental house.

I went shopping for a bit and then Jared got Subway for us to eat for supper.  Then it was time to pack up all of our stuff as we were leaving the next day.  Haley watched us.

We were very thankful we had the time to go back to Seattle and see all of that!  We had such a fantastic time with Art + Jenene in Washington and would love to do a trip like this again!  Roger Wilco, over and out (apparently pilots don’t actually say that, but I couldn’t think of a different ending)!