Simpsons in Seattle

Our first camping trip of the summer was a success!  We tried out Dosewallip State Park for the first time, and truth be told, when we pulled up to the campground, Scott and I both were pretty disappointed. Our site was mixed in with the RVs, backed up to the camp entrance road, and had very little shade. With the burn ban going on right now, we took one look at the campsite and was like... this is going to be lame.... Looks can be deceiving though! We ended up pushing our tent way to the edge of our site to get some partial tree cover and then we were fine! Between our site and the main road was a clump of trees where we set up a hammock and the girls (especially Nora) had a ton of fun playing around in. And, since the set up around us was pretty open, it meant the kids ended up having a BLAST biking around the campground and eventually become buddies with all the other kiddos near us and did laps around our little area over and over again.  We had booked this site knowing that clammi

Scott has been super keen on looking at vacation properties on Whidbey Island, so we did a last minute trip the other day. It's been a long long time since we've gone and explored the island so it was pretty fun to drive around to the various neighborhoods. The highlights: - Penn Cove Brewery has not one, not two, but THREE taprooms on the island! I have never even heard of them before this trip! We stopped by one of them and while it was chilly/breezy out, there was lots of open space for the kids to run around. The food from the food truck was on the expensive side, but it was pretty tasty and we had some fun beers to try. - For Ebey State Park is a neato place that we will want to go back to for sure. We've done the hike on Ebey's bluff  before and this was a different part of the park, and just as beautiful. Definitely someplace to explore some more. - Whidbey Island Ice Cream - Exploring DoubleBluff beach. I'm not sure why it's called this, but the girls ha

We had record heat in Seattle a few weeks ago (getting up to 110!!!) and it's since cooled down to a very pleasant low 80s for the past week or so. It makes for really pleasant dinners outside in the backyard, and nice evening walks in the neighborhood. Here's a few scenes from some of our summer days! Nora was freshening up her armpits with lavender! Flower "tacos" for dinner. Cooling off in Lake Union Nora cleaning the boat Hot but happy girls We went outside at the height of the heat just to say we were outside in 111 temps.   Shady hike Nora helping us with some gardening.