Pacific Northwest Trip 2026- part 2

It is tradition when we are in Washington to visit Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. Sometimes it's just a few of us. Sometimes it's the whole family.

This year, Grandma, Grandpa, all my kids, and I headed there. We enjoyed the wooded area.

Nichole got some awesome pictures. We left the birding camera with Jeremy so he could get some pictures in California.

I got some juggling pictures and videos.

My in-laws let us continue on to the looooong boardwalk without them. We saw some snakes along the way.

When we got to the boardwalk, Lucky wasn't feeling the best so he and I headed back to the parking lot while Nichole, Jr., Jr. Jr., and Jet continued on to the end and back.

Nichole was happy to inform me that the bald eagle from last time we made the trip was hanging out at its usual spot. 

When Lucky and I got back to the van and explained the situation to my in-laws, we got him some food and he took a nap while I started a book I needed to read for another online book club.

Lucky felt better after his nap.

Nichole took so many good pictures of so many things. I really had to limit what to put on this post. 

When she and the other boys got back, we ate lunch, chilled for a while, then headed out. Jet fell asleep on the short drive.

After Nisqually, we went to visit more in-laws: Jeremy's brother, sister-in-law, with their kids. Jeremy's sister came with one of her kids that day as well. More family time!

Jeremy's brother's family has ducks and a couple of geese. Jet had fun feeding the ducks last time we visited. This time, he did so again (and helped collect eggs) and this time he got to feed the geese. 

One of the geese is very protective of the other goose and will chase away ducks. It, however, got so comfortable with Jet that at one point, Jet was sitting on a blanket and the goose waddled up to him while making contented noises then sat right next to Jet so Jet could pet him.

So cute.

I had a good time chatting with family.   

Nature and family. I love them.

Our Vacation, Thy Creations, and Our Relations- Part 11

July 10 was Don't Step on a Bee Day and National Kitten Day. Creativity took over.

Jeremy's sister came to visit that day. It was nice to catch up with her.

Jet uncovered some slugs in grandparents' backyard. They weren't banana slugs but one was a leopard slug.

 

July 11 was Blueberry Muffin Day.

Road Trip!

When we went to Mount Rainier we saw where the Nisqually River came from the glacier. We wanted to see where the Nisqually River emptied into the Puget Sound so... Nichole, Jeremy, and I headed to Nisqually Wildlife Refuge. We love Nisqually Wildlife Refuge anyway. It's one of the places we always try to visit when we're in Washington.

 

Some highlights of this trip:

Bald eagle hanging out in what people told us was its usual spot, where we could walk right up to it... or right under it.

From its spot, we could look out and see seals sunning themselves on a sandbank. They were so fun to see. Adults and youngsters.

We also saw seals swimming in the water. There was a mama and baby swimming together that were so cute. Baby kept climbing on mama's back.

There were so many great blue herons out that day, both adults and juveniles. So many.

We went all the way to the end of the boardwalk, about a mile. 

From there we looked back at Mount Rainier which we had visited just two days before. So we went from where the Nisqually River started one day to where it ended another day. 78 miles.

As we were walking back through the forested area of the refuge, we stopped at a pond to see if we could find a frog. We found a frog then another then another. There were so many. I loved it.

We found out while we were there that this year was the 50th anniversary of the refuge so we just had to get a souvenir mug as it is one of our favorite places to visit in Washington.

I'll share more of our wonderful vacation later.

Kokanee Salmon

The National Days Calendar our friends gave us earlier in the year has a whole bunch listed for September 26, 2020. There's National Pancake Day, National Singles Day, Public Lands Day, Hunting and Fishing Day, Family Health and Fitness Day USA to name a few.

So for celebrating Jr. made us chocolate chip pancakes before we all set out for a drive with our water bottles and little packets of singles flavoring. Originally we thought about heading to a public land but we thought that it might be too crowded since it was free entrance that day. Like his brother before him, Jr. Jr. recently got a national parks pass so we can go to public lands as a family anytime for free for a year. We decided instead to go to Jordanelle Reservoir to the Rock Cliff Recreation area where we hoped it would be less crowded. We didn't go to the fish trap at Strawberry Reservoir to see kokanee salmon this year (and they're not doing salmon viewing events this year) so we thought we'd try this place which I recently read was a good place to see them.

 

There were boardwalks to walk around on to get our exercise in (health and fitness) and there were indeed some salmon in the river where we could see them from the bridge we stopped at (hunting and fishing). There were also trout swimming along to snatch up the eggs deposited by the spawning salmon for a nice meal. We learned about this because while we were there on that uncrowded bridge, along came a couple of volunteers from DNR to check on things in the recreation area since there had been flooding in the Spring and because it was kokanee spawning time. They were very friendly and very happy to tell us things about the salmon and about the area. It was very informative and they were great to answer our questions. 

Nichole was great to get pictures of the salmon.

At one point, Jr. fell down so I offered to give him a piggy back ride. He's not as small as he used to be. I thought it would be funny to give him a piggy back ride since he's taller than me now. I can still lift him.

"Will you marry me?"

If you look really closely in the background of these pictures, there is a great blue heron sitting in a tree. Nichole took pictures of the heron while I took pictures of Lucky.

We had a good time. Love that family bonding.