Deception Pass

I was able to spend Sunday (May 1st) with my sister Julie and my brother David. I grew up in a family that loves to spend a beautiful day, out in nature. And as you know, it rains a lot in Seattle, so when we happened to have a beautiful day, especially after a lot of rainy days, we would drop everything and head out to see the sun. That's how my parents raised us. I remember my dad coming in and waking us up early in the morning on a Saturday morning telling us that we were headed to the mountains or the beach because it was going to be a sunny day. I know this is hard for my Vegas friends to understand... but it is true. You take advantage of blue sky days in the Pacific Northwest. And if that sunny day happens to land on a Sunday, you just might have to spend the car ride listening to church history tapes and enjoy Gods creation in a reverent manner. That is what we did last week. I was in town, it was sunny and nature was calling us!

We went to one of our favorite places, Deception Pass. It's about 2 hours north of Seattle.

My sister Julie and hubby Gary and their 2 boys, Vincent and Andrew came and my brother Dave and Natalie came. (Rebecca and Tiffany were in Utah for the weekend, bummer) And then my cousin Craig decided to join us. He brought his 3 boys. It was great to see everyone!

Dave and Vincent hitting rocks into the water...

I think this stick is a little big Dave...

Vincent gathering more sticks... (the rocks would break them)

It's so pretty there!!!! This is our secret beach. The other parks around the bridge are really crowded.

Julie making lunch...

Yummy lunch!

Julie is the official photographer. Most of these pictures are hers.

We went on a little hike up to this beautiful view point...

Natalie taking it all in..

Craig and Dave catching up...

Relaxing and enjoying the view...

check out the moss growing on the tree!

Dave and Natalie watching the fisherman below...

We have a game where we sit on the beach and try to throw rocks into a bucket... the bucket kept getting closer and closer to the water and eventually rolled in... Julie went to get it and the boys kept tossing rocks at her... little buggers!

We drove over to the bridge and walked across it. It's so cool. The currents below are what they named the pass after. The currents go every direction and cause little whirlpools and it's almost impossible to swim across. Small boats have a hard time crossing because the currents are so strong and deceiving... hence the name "Deception Pass".

Julie's good looking family...

walking under the bridge...

The three middle Westra's. (I am the actual middle child of 9 kids, Julie is the one older than me and Dave is right below me.)

My cousin Craig and 3 of his 4 kids. Kyle, Christopher and Connor.

Dave, Andrew and Julie

See all the currents? You can see the cascade mountains in the background if you look close... to pretty!!!!! It's days like this that I wonder why I am living in the desert??? Actually, I'm not sure I could live there after living here this long. I have learned to love the sun and I think the clouds everyday would make me crazy. But, I do want to visit this beautiful place more often!

I can't wait to take my family back to Seattle. It's been a really long time since we have all been there.

I loved spending the day with family!

BYU-H Reunion

In the fall of 1985 I went to BYU-Hawaii with my good friend Suzanne. Suzanne and I grew up together, our families went camping together, we were in the same ward until we were 12, we went to high school together and eventually became roommates at college. We had a blast at BYU-Hawaii. I still remember the night we decided to go there. We were both accepted to BYU Provo and it didn't feel right. Suzanne came over late one night, I snuck out my window (sorry mom and dad... It didn't happen very often) and we went to Denny's and talked. We felt like we wanted more of an adventure and decided on Hawaii. I remember going to school the next day and no one believed us that we were really going to go to Hawaii. But we did! We made some great friends there. One of them was a girl named Alison who was from Vancouver BC. We hit it off immediately. We called her Allie and me Allison. We stayed close friends for years and roommates in Provo. And sadly after we all got married we didn't keep in touch as much.

Suzanne and I hadn't heard from Allie in a few years so we found her a few months ago and found out that life had thrown her some hard curve balls and she needed some cheering up. We planned a girls weekend to go see her in Vancouver and then Suzanne found out that "Time out for Women" was going to be in Seattle last weekend, so we met there instead. We had a great weekend together and reminisced about old times in Hawaii and Provo.

The day we got there we did some shopping. We went to this really cute set of shops up in Everett.

When we got back to Suzanne's we found this...

Our good friend Mimi was going to join us and at the last minute she couldn't come, so she sent us this... it was delicious!

The three of us took this picture at Pike Place Market in Seattle in 1987 (i think)
We thought it would be fun to take another one.

The new one...

Lunch at a little greek restaurant...

Walking around Pike Place Market... so fun!

We spent Friday evening and all day Saturday downtown Seattle at the Benaroya Hall for "Time Out for Women." There were some great speakers this year. John Bytheway, Miriama Kallon, Michael McLean spoke Friday night. I loved them all.

This is all the Speakers on Saturday. They were good too. I can't remember all their names...


I saw this teriyaki place on Friday night and knew that was what I wanted for lunch on Saturday... I thought about it all morning. Not sure I got much out of the morning speakers because I was so excited for good Seattle teriyaki. It wasn't as good as Teriyaki Madness in Kirkland... but it was definitely better than what we have here in Vegas.

We sat at this park looking over the waterfront and ate our lunch. It was a beautiful day! It was hard to go back into the conference. I wanted to go wander the streets of Seattle and walk down to the water... Oh well, next trip!

People laugh when I tell them that my high school mascot was a totem pole (the Sammamish Totems.) But they are part of the history in Seattle. So cool.

After the conference we went over to Bellevue (my actual home town) and had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with our good friend and my cousin in law Mauri. (she married my first cousin and she was a good friend through high school and college... I love that we stay in touch so good because we are related now!)

We ordered all appetizers and shared them... yum!

(It looks like the people outside are sitting with us)

There were 6 of us that roomed together in Provo and they called us "The Brunettes."

We obviously liked the cheesecake!

I am so glad I was able to go up there and visit my old friends! Hopefully it won't be another 20 years to get together again.

Easter

We had a nice Easter Sunday. Church was great. I enjoyed the talks and lessons. The music was beautiful. It was good to remember the true meaning of Easter and hear messages about the Savior and his resurrection and the atonement.

We came home from church and got the Easter baskets ready. This is the first year that the kids didn't decorate eggs and they didn't want a traditional egg hunt. It was a little strange. I miss my little kids! John and I decided to fill baskets for the kids and hide them.

Ashley was the first to find hers. And Scotty was last. Ashley had to help him a bit...

We had our good friends the Lords over for dinner. Dinner was yummy and I tried a new dessert and it turned out great! After dinner we watched the video "Finding Faith in Christ." It's a good one. Then we played catch phrase. It was really fun! Lots of laughing!

F.F.F.F.

Forced. Family. Fun. Friday....

Tanner and I got home from Utah on Thursday night. As you can see, I never posted again from there... i was way too tired! 5 kids wore me out! They were very cute, but busy. Little Justin was cutting some teeth, so he was up a lot during the nights!!!! My body isn't used to that. I love those little kids and I am glad I was able to help out.

John took Friday off and Ashley called that morning to tell us she was getting off at noon. So we decided to take advantage of having the kids altogether. We went to lunch at Graziano's pizza buffet. It was yummy! Then we drug the kids to play mini golf. The kids wanted to go to the mall, but we won the argument and went golfing instead. I think they actually had a good time!

John and I both got a hole in one! So our names got put on the wall!!

I love my little family! I am so glad we got to spend the day together!

Nanny Auntie

My brother Todd and his wife Sharolyn live up in Midway Utah. They have 5 very cute kids. Tanner and I are up at their house watching the kids while they are in the Philippines. Todd is the entrepreneur of the family and he is there working on a new business. We got here Saturday and we head home Thursday.

The kids have been very good! I really can't complain. They get along, say please and thank you and help out with little Justin. The first night was a little hard. Justin was up every few hours. He has a bad cough and he kept waking up coughing. Last night he slept all night. So, I am hoping for that again tonight!

The older 3 kids are at school all day, so Tanner has been a little bored during the day. Hopefully the weather will be good tomorrow so we can go do something fun. Todd's tv's are a bit high tech, so it took us 2 days to figure out how to watch one of his movies. (no cable) Next time he needs to leave detailed instructions on the remote!

It stopped raining tonight long enough for the kids to play outside for a bit. They have a really fun yard that connects with all the neighbors yards. One has a great putting green...




Tanner and Dallin....



All the boys....



These neighbors have an igloo and they have turned it upside down and the kids have had more fun playing in it!




Tanner and Justin...



Justin was pretty happy when I pulled out the camera! He had lots of cheesy smiles for me!

Charity and Emily playing with friends on the trampoline...





Todd has a chicken coop. You should have seen us trying to get the 3 chickens back in after they escaped. I hope no one was watching! I was exhausted when we were done!




We played "Spin UNO" for FHE and Tanner made his favorite scotcheroos for dessert.



If you don't hear from me the next few days then you know I am exhausted!