We are without internet for the most part because as of this morning, we are officially on an Alaska cruise! When our original Alaska cruise fell through two months ago I was devastated, mostly because we've been trying to make this happen for 7 years and this summer was kind of our only window for several more years. When Jared saw that many cruises were back up and running and prices had even dropped for the end of summer, he booked us a new cruise for the week before he starts work. We had to get negative covid tests within 2 days of departure (check) and we'll wear masks on board when we're not in our room, but I'm so grateful we get to do this. I just have this feeling that it could be several, seeeeveral years before we have the opportunity to do a good vacation like this again.

Well, gotta finish packing up (I'm writing this on Sunday and scheduling it to post tomorrow when we'll be gone). Pictures to come next week!

Out of Office

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Jack's only Lambert cousin, Mae, came to visit from North Carolina for two weeks! She's 7 and Jack's 3, but they played really well together. Until they didn't. Because that's how it goes with kids. And also because they both have good, strong personalities. 

Mae stayed at Grandma and Grandpa's mostly. Jack and Jared went and spent a few days down there while I recovered from an awful cold and finally got our house an acceptable level of unpacked and put together. Hallelujah. We even got our fridge, washer, and dryer finally delivered two days ago. Unfortunately there was a misunderstanding and the delivery guys refused to do installation even though it was included in the order. After several phone calls, Jared got someone nicer scheduled to come and do the install on Monday. So excited to wash all our mildewy towels that have been used to sop up portable AC messes. It's been a messy transitional time, but not as bad as our transitional time moving to Grenada. Gotta remember that. 

Mae came to our house for a sleepover one night last week. High on her and Jack's list of sleepover activities was running through the sprinkler and having popsicles. 

My favorite part was our hike to the Ice Caves about a half hour drive up in the mountains. Jared's mom and brother joined us. It was a bit intense and required a river crossing, but absolutely worth it for the scenery.
^^Ice cave! Formed by water running through this big ice mound. Glacier? I don't know what it technically is. But several people have died in the cave from collapses/falling ice, so you don't go inside. We just felt the nice frosty breeze and peeked into the entrance.
^^Jack's point of view when he had my camera :)
^^So pretty! If we can't be in Utah, I'm glad we're here.
^^There used to be a fancy resort here during the railroad/logging days. It's long gone now, but the big lodge fireplace remains. Bummed they tore it down! How cool would it be to visit a resort here?

The rest of the sleepover involved pizza, a movie night, and a trip to the Seattle zoo (the others went while I stayed home and recovered/waited for the appliance delivery). A successful cousin sleepover overall!
Ice Caves and a Sleepover

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 You guys, today the high is in the 70s and I am so happy! Living in a house without AC has really changed me. Summer used to be my happy time. Now I'm just wondering what's taking winter so long. When we visited Utah two weeks ago, I enlisted my brother Tim to find a portable AC unit on KSL that we could put our bedroom to have one place of refuge in the house. That's really helped, but I'm still having a hard time getting our place all unpacked and put together when our thermostat in the rest of the house constantly reads "87." Washington heat wave be gone!


Ok, onto some pictures from our fun family reunion in Idaho. My friend Tori recently said she refers to vacations with kids as "work trips," and that's the most accurate description I've ever heard haha. Now that all my siblings have kids or are pregnant, we should have called this "Haines Family Work Trip, 2021."

My blog pictures usually load backwards, so I'll label these as they come, even though the trip really started with a lake day and ended with Yellowstone.

On our day in Yellowstone, we started with a hike around some hot pots. Jack and Asher thought it was so cool to see the different colors of mud and the smelly steam. This short hike had a great view from the top, too.
^^I wish you could see the waterfall behind us, but it was kind of hard to get a good picture at this angle. This was the longest hike we did. It was pretty short, but Jack made me and Jared carry him on our shoulder the whole way back up a series of steep switchbacks. 
^^Dad life.
^^The whole group, including Jordan's bum. 
^^I miss having hair long enough to put in a ponytail. I'm having haircut regrets!!!
^^Tim and Abby going hard on the swinging game, just like Jack likes it. 
^^We also spent a day on the water at Island Park. The boys mostly loved playing on the beach, and we all took turns on a little rental boat. I must be old/a parent now, because tubing doesn't do it for me like it used to. I like the excuse of going with Jack so I can get a guaranteed smooth ride instead of flying off and getting a lake enema. (Yes that has happened to me.)

^^Jack had fun his first time on the boat, but the second time he had missed his nap and kept getting unexpected waves of water to the face.
^^Jack and Cole. Jack was in cousin heaven all trip. It's so fun having Cole old enough to play with Jack and Asher now. Next time the two younger girls will be old enough to play with them, too. 
^^We got rained out from doing an evening campfire, so we put a solar lantern under the covered patio and Dad led campfire songs around it, and then Peter helped us make smores with his welding torch haha. Jack loved the campfire songs. He couldn't stay in his seat--he kept getting up to stand in the middle of the circle and do dance moves. Love that lil' bubs. 
Until next Work Trip! We're in charge of the reunion two years from now. We'll probably keep it simple since most of us will probably have little babies around that time. One benefit of all of my siblings having kids at the same time is we'll all be done having kids around the same time too, and then the kids can all grow up together and enjoy more involved reunions when they all become teenagers at the same time. We've got a fun life ahead of us!

Island Park + Yellowstone Reunion

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We made it back to Washington! It was a hectic, smoke-filled 15-hour travel day back from Utah, and me and Jack are both sick with intense colds now, but it feels good to be home. Took a full day of unpacking the kitchen and the arrival of our couch to feel like this place really is home, but I'm starting to feel it. I'll do some posts about Idaho and Utah later on, but for now, I am sick in bed and going to squeak out a shorter post about this little swimming hole we found 5 minutes from our house. 

^^First off, I accidentally chopped off all my hair! On our last day in Utah I spontaneously ran to a cheap haircut place because it occurred to me that haircuts are probably twice as expensive in Washington and we won't have a paycheck for another month and a half. I told the hairdresser I wanted it cut just past my shoulders, but when she measured it and said, "That's 10 inches. If you do 12 we can donate it and give you a free haircut." I was like, yes, let's do that. Then when she was about to start cutting she was like, "Ooh, it's actually shorter in the front. We're going to have to go 2 more inches." I was like, fine, whatever, very invested in this donation/free haircut situation now. But I think she did another inch or two on top of that, so now it's to my chin! It's a lot shorter than I wanted, but I don't hate it. And my hair grows really fast. But next time I'll be getting an expensive haircut to my exact specifications.

Five minutes from our house is the Pilchuck River. There's a fish ladder and some waterfalls going down enormous granite boulders (this is why our town is called Granite Falls--how picturesque?!). Yesterday we discovered that if you walk a little ways down from the falls there's a tiny sandy beach and a slow-moving, shallow swimming hole. Next time we go (which will probably be this week since we have some 100-degree days coming up and no AC), I'll take my nice camera and we'll spend several hours swimming and picnicking.

That's all I have for you today. Jared is going to take Jack down to Grandma and Grandpa Lambert's for the day to play with his cousin Mae who's visiting. We've found that it's all but impossible to get the house put together with Jack around, so hopefully he'll see lots of days in Woodinville while I try to get everything unpacked. Moving is a beast.

Swimming Hole at the Falls

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We have been on vacation in Idaho and Utah! We had a family reunion in Idaho, and when Jack spent the last evening crying that he missed his Wyoming home and wanted to visit Grandma and Grandpa Haines and his cousin Asher in Utah, we decided to pop down to Utah for a few days before going back to Washington. More on our reunion in next week's post (we're enjoying visiting our favorite Utah hangs this week and haven't made room for much down time). But today I wanted to post these pictures of the inside of our new Washington house for Grandma to see. I thought I took pictures of every room, but when I put them on my computer I realized that most of the upstairs rooms are missing. I think this will give a good enough picture of how everything is laid out though!

^^Jack at the top of the landing when you go up the stairs, with mine and Jared's bedroom/bathroom in the background. 
^^This is our front door. I like how there's a window (a transom I think it's called?) above the door, so you can get daylight but still have privacy. We'll get some blinds for the side window. The door on the left leads to the garage. The door on the right is a coat closet. 
^^Coming in the front door you can go down a hall into the kitchen and living room, or up the stairs to our bedrooms and the playroom. 
^^This is a guest bedroom on the main level. There's a laundry room on the right and a bathroom across the hall. I like this setup because if you found yourself unable to use stairs you could get by just fine living on the main level. 
^^The downstairs bathroom. It's small, but there's a walk-in shower behind the door. 
^^Our kitchen. I like that we have an island in this house, but other than that I kind of miss our old kitchen in Wyoming, with its soft-close cabinetry and hidden trash. I'd love to paint this cabinetry and install some cute hardware, but that'll probably be well down the road. The dining area is behind Jack. We're going to use Jared's parents old dining table since we had to leave ours in Wyoming. There are also sliding glass doors leading to the backyard from the dining area. 
^^This is the living room. It's the biggest gathering area in the house, and as you can see, it's not huge. It'll be just fine for our little family though, especially since there's a good-size playroom upstairs. We've already got a rug in there, and we bought a Costco sectional (waaaay cheaper than everywhere else) that will be delivered next week. Eventually I'd love to install tongue and groove on the fireplace wall and paint the wall a dark green. This is the last of the downstairs rooms. 
The first room upstairs is mine and Jared's bedroom with an attached bathroom. The bedroom is bigger than our last one, and I think the bathroom is too:
^^My favorite part of our master bathroom is the big tub with the window next to it that looks out to some tall trees and the sunset. We'll get some blinds for this window, but when you're laying in the tub you can't see any other houses. I'm leaning toward getting motorized blinds so you can open the blinds from the tub and watch the sun set. 
^^This is the view looking out from our bedroom. There's a linen closet straight across where I think we'll also store games and holiday decor. Down the hallway there are two bedrooms on the left, a big playroom at the end of the hall, and then on the right is a smaller bedroom that we'll use as an office. I forgot to get pictures of the actual rooms, but right now there's not much to see. Just empty squares. Here's Jack's room. He can crawl out of his crib now so we took the front off until we can buy him a twin bed:
And that's our house! Nothing too exciting at this point. I'll be sure to share pictures of rooms as we finish them. I have a feeling it'll be along process getting to that point. The backyard is just dirt now, but I'll post pictures of that soon. Hopefully we'll be getting it fenced in by the end of the summer. 


Home Interior

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