Kendall’s First Washington Trip

Before I get to our trip to Washington, I had to include a few pictures from the week after Kendall’s birthday when my folks were still here. One of my best friends, Brooke, sent Kendall the best car ever for her birthday! I told Brooke she’s created a monster…Kendall LOVES riding around in the car and cries whenever we take her out of it! Here she is on one of her first of MANY rides:

Kendall’s Grandpa was good about sitting out under the tree and swinging her as long as she liked, which was often close to an hour!

Here’s our big girl with Grandpa and Nana on the day they headed home!

We hadn’t been to Isaiah’s home in Washington since Fall ‘09 because of Kendall’s early birth and subsequent quarantine. So, we packed up in early July and headed out (north)west to visit the Morgan clan in and around Spokane for 10 days!

We spent July 4th with Isaiah’s mom’s side of the family at a gorgeous park at Liberty Lake. After all the drought, horrific heat and brown grass around here, it was fabulous to see green grass and be able to sit outside without melting into a puddle! Kendall took a lil’ nap while the rest of us had lunch…isn’t she considerate!?!

Isaiah’s cousin Menesia has three sweet kiddos, but the orneriest by far is Miss Ellie, who is seven and just as sweet and sassy as can be! As you can see, she and Isaiah get along just fine….

After happily living as a family of four for many years (with 12-year old Eli and the aforementioned Ellie), Menesia and her husband Jason were surprised by an unexpected blessing just a month before Kendall was born. Welcome lil’ Mr. Tovias, who runs circles around Kendall in the walking, talking and eating departments! Here are the cousins, both getting diaper changes. Can’t wait to show these later when they are grown up! :)

We were blessed to spend a good bit of time with Gene and Lola, Isaiah’s grandparents who raised him. They are so sweet and we love getting to hang out with them. Kendall wasn’t always so sure about being held by all the new people, but these were two people we wouldn’t let her say no to! Here’s my favorite pic of Kendall and Grandma.

Reading books with Grandpa!

During one day on our trip, we didn’t have any plans so we decided to spend the afternoon as a family, just the three of us at Loon Lake, the lake Grandma and Grandpa’s town is named after. There’s a great little beach area with a floating dock, and even though the water is cold by Texas standards, we had a great day! Despite what the picture of my two favorite people below shows, there were other folks there…

Kendall and Daddy:

Although she did great about the cool water, Kendall enjoyed surveying the scene and all the flirty teenagers from her perch on my shoulders! (Keep in mind this lake is frozen for several months of the year!)

Our sweet girl was even nice enough to take a little nap on the beach so Daddy and I could swim by ourselves and keep an eye on her. Here she is after waking up…one of my fave pics of her from the trip.

The first time Isaiah asked to put Kendall in the carrier and take her for a ride on the four-wheeler, I thought he was nuts. Alas, everybody else looked at me like I was nuts for not letting him! And of course, it was probably her favorite thing she got to do the whole time! When he would slow down to stop, she’d start fussing at him. I tell you…based on her love of her little red car, tree swing and four-wheeler rides, we may have a busy little bee on our hands!

Here they are, driving by in the street in front of the house:

The view in front of Grandma and Grandpa’s house…Isaiah and Kendall had just gone over the hill…

Yep, I think she enjoyed herself!

In the middle of the week, Menesia brought her two youngest and our nephew Zeek out to spend the day at Deer Lake with us. We just lounged by the lake, swam, ate all the kids’ snacks and frolicked in general. Here’s my little lounging lady…check her out with her foot in the air! :)

Isaiah is always good for hours of entertainment for the kiddos, as shown below. Here he made a float-train and paddled Ellie and Zeek around…

On Thursday, we packed up and drove the three-hours to Isaiah’s Uncle Pat and Aunt Deborah’s house outside of Brewster, Wa., which just happens to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. They live right on the Okanogan River, which drains into the Columbia River just a few miles downstream. The river is right out the back door, and a pear orchard, apple orchard and yummy-smelling green hay field are out the front door. One of Isaiah’s cousins and his family came too, as well as a few of Deb’s grandkids. It was pure chaos with six adults and eight kids, but we had a great time!

Here’s Kendall with Carlie, who is 12, and just so happened to be the only person Kendall would always let hold her. What is it about certain people that make kids like them so much?!? Wish we lived closer so Carlie could babysit!

This picture of Isaiah, our nephew Zeek and cousin’s son Ryan fishing the Okanogan was taken off the riverbank behind the house. There’s not many more peaceful places than sitting on that bank under the trees.

Dusk over the hay field…

The pear orchard (wish they’d have been ripe, but the cherries nearby were!):

Moonlight over the river, just beside the house…

It was cloudy the day we left to head back to Loon Lake, but I liked this picture of the Columbia River, and the snow-capped mountains in the background…

The day before we left was Isaiah’s 33rd birthday, and two of his cousins planned a party for him at Jump Off Joe Lake to celebrate! Here’s one of I think only two family pics we took the whole trip!

Isaiah blows out the birthday candle on his dragon cupcakes!

My favorite landscape pic of the trip, of the sun setting over Jump Off Joe… (doesn’t make you miss Texas much, does it?!?!)

The day we left – Isaiah and Kendall with Grandma and Grandpa Morgan…we love those two very much!

My mother and father-in-law (and honorary grandparents too!):

I wish I could say the trip home went as smoothly as the trip itself. We were bringing our 8-year old nephew Zeek home with us for a few weeks, so in addition to all the usual stuff you have to bring along traveling with a baby, we had another kid and his two bags. We made it just fine to Denver at 4:30 that afternoon, and the wheels fell off from there. Our 8 pm flight was finally cancelled at midnight, and rather than waiting 24 hours for the next available flight, Isaiah decided we should just rent a car and drive home…which would have been faster in theory. However, once we made it out of massive DIA, we found there were not only no cars to rent, but no hotel rooms either, as many flights had been previously cancelled due to weather. We just happened to be one of the unlucky last ones (thank you, United Airlines!).

We went all the way back through security, rode the train back to our terminal and asked the United folks what they expected us to do with a baby and eight-year old for 24-hours with no hotel and no luggage. The guy was really nice, but he basically said he didn’t know…helpful, right?!?! After Isaiah called probably 10 hotels and they all told him they were booked and everybody else was booked, I found one that had one smoking room with a queen left. We told them we’d take it, but because all the hotel shuttles had quit running at 2 am and it was now 2:30, we had to play $43 for a cab to get all the way to Aurora!

When we arrived, we made Zeek a pallet on the floor out of the comforter and some pillows, and prayed to God that Kendall would sleep between us, it being her first time sleeping in a bed with Mom & Dad. As luck would have it, she drifted off quite quickly, but I suspect it was more due to it being 3 am than her being excited to snuggle with her parents! We slept until 9 when Isaiah went to get us all some breakfast before it closed at 9:30, then we all napped again from 10-noon! Thankfully we were granted a 2 pm checkout, so we headed back to the airport to wait 6 hours before our 8 pm flight would hopefully take off. We blew our airline food vouchers on an expensive lunch and then walked the concourses and waited…and waited…and waited. We finally got home and had the kids in bed by midnight. So yes, it took us 36 hours from the time we arrived at the airport in Spokane to get back home. UGH! Not something I would usually recommend, but thank the Lord in heaven for that smoking queen room (never thought I’d say that)! :)

We’re having fun with Zeek and Isaiah is keeping him busy with water gun fights, water balloon fights, Lincoln Log building contests, making smores, camping in the backyard, eating popsicles, etc. I just try to keep out of the way and follow behind, picking up all the wet and/or chocolate-covered laundry. :) My work is never done! Hee hee!