weeklong 4th of july

My sister and her lovely family came up to visit for the 4th of July weekend! I was so super excited to have family come up here because it had been 6 months since we've had visitors. Janelle, Tom, and Shay flew in Wednesday night and after that, the schedule was jam packed full of F-U-N!

Thursday we headed out for Northwest Trek, which is like a miniature Yellowstone Park and a Zoo.  We took a bus/tram, whatever you call it, around the park, and some of the animals were right on the roadside!  Shay definitely had a blast seeing all the animals.

Friday, our friend was so kind to watch Shay while we all went to watch Eclipse!!!  It was simply amazing :)  Janelle got her and me Team Jacob shirts so it made the whole thing that much better to go watch. ha ha ha  We went for lunch at BJ's after that, came home and crashed, then took them out for some seafood here in the great northwest at Duke's.

Saturday, the sky cleared up so we headed for the beach!  We drove the couple hours to Ocean Shores to play on the beach and the skies were perfect!  It was a little chilly, but the water was surprisingly warm, at least just for wading in it.  Later on, we rented scooters and drove along the beach which was a blast!  I think the guys had way too much fun with those things.  We went to dinner that night at the Spaghetti Factory which was so much fun once again.  

Sunday, we went to church, came home, then headed for Seattle/Burien.  Tom's Aunt and Uncle live there and let us come party for the 4th with them on the waterfront at their gorgeous home!  Well, needless to say, we were the only ones there that didn't drink, and Aunt Andrea was so kind as to have a cooler of water and pop for us.  People started showing up and someone brought jello in these little plastic cups in the colors and formed a flag out of it!  I had to get one of those, they looked so cute!  Well, Andrea warned us that they were alcoholic. :( Bummer.  BUT, there were other ones with mini marshmallows in them that weren't.  Tom didn't get the memo when she told us that, so Clay and I got some and started eating them.  Tom just had this disgusted look on his face, like "what are you guys doing? um, you know there's alcohol in that!"  We just played along saying that the marshmallows counter acted the alcohol or something so it was all good.  Ha, we sure got him. Anyway, it was fun to just lounge around.  Janelle and I were getting cold though so we went inside for a little bit before the fireworks.  I, however, ended up falling asleep through the whole show, which Janelle did too, so I missed the whole 4th of July fireworks show :(  I guess that's what you get when you're pregnant.

We stayed the night there and woke up Monday morning and got ready to go in to Seattle.  Tom and Janelle wanted the ferry adventure, so we parked in West Seattle and took the water taxi over into downtown.  We spent quite some time in Pike's Place, ate some delicious cherries, had lunch at Ivar's, took the bus to the Space Needle, and let Shay ride some of the carnival rides.  So we were trying to get back on the bus so we would make it early enough for the water taxi ride, but caught the bus on the wrong side of the street and started going north again.  We finally realized what we were doing, got off, and had to wait another 15ish minutes to catch the southbound bus, and we caught the same bus with this jerk of a driver that we had earlier.  We missed the water taxi by like 10 minutes, so we just lounged around for 40 minutes while Janelle and Tom went to take more of the Seattle life in.  We got back to Andrea's, ate dinner, and Janelle said bye to Tom as he was flying home that morning and she was staying a couple extra days.  

Tuesday through Thursday was just so nice to be able to relax and chill with my sister!  It seems like the only times we have had together were only for a day or so.  We were able to take Shay to the Tacoma Zoo, do a couple of crafts, and head out to the South Center Mall in Tukwila before she flew out.  It was so nice to spend some extra time with her!  I owe it all to Clay (and Tom for letting me keep her) for letting us be lazy while he slaved away keeping the house clean and doing the dishes.  LOVE YOU BABE!!!

It was such an awesome time spending it with the Lungrens!  Can't wait to see you back up here when baby Fenton arrives :D  Thanks for coming!