Camping w/Gma&Gpa and a Special 9-11 Concert- Sept 2012

This year, my parents bought a membership to an RV resort.  They have like 10 resorts in Washington and they can camp there for no additional cost (plus have one extra tent and one extra vehicle on their site for free.)  So they have been trying to take each of their kids' families and spend time with them.  We were trying to decide on a date and a place that we wanted to go.  Then we remembered Grant's 9-11 concert that he was asked to be a soloist in, in Mount Vernon.  He was suppose to attend the two final rehearsals and the two concerts, all within a week.  They said that they would pay for his lodging, however this worked out even better.  He still had a bit of a drive (about 45 minutes) but it was less than half of the drive he would've had from our house.  We stayed up in Blaine, WA, from Tuesday-Friday night.  1st picture-- My favorite thing to do when traveling is to gather up some of my favorite foods for the drive... and my friend made me some cookies... yum, yum!  :)

The first day, we enjoyed breakfast in the comfort of my parents' RV.  Then we ran into several monkies in a tree... LOL!  Later, the girls discovered a huge berry bush/tree really close to our campsite and had themselves an afternoon snack.  Next, we went and played tennis.  Grant and I used to play tennis a lot when we were first married and it was super fun to teach our girls how to play.  (We even purchased a couple of kid rackets and some new balls, when we heard there was a tennis court here.)  They had a lot of fun, even those who weren't really big enough to play.  It was like being in a giant playpen.  Grant and I even played some tennis for a while, just like old times.  And we weren't as bad as I was expecting us to be after not playing in years.  LOL!  For lunch, we had yummy taco salads with Tia's chips.  That was so nice of her to share her chips with everyone... ;)  Sariah ate hers in a tree... silly girl!!  That afternoon, we went swimming together.  They had three swimming pools and at least three hot tubs.  They had a set for adults only, one that was deeper and a shallow one just for little kids.  We had fun and went back several other days.  Our girls love swimming!

The next morning, we had a really yummy breakfast of scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, etc.  However, we cut a few corners to make the prep easier, like buying precooked bacon and sausage... it cooks so much faster that way, just a minute in the microwave.  After breakfast, we played on the playgrounds.  Later, Sariah was playing by the trees and found these two crazy spiders.  They had created a spiral (a funnel or tornado type thing) web in a hole and had several live ants and termites trapped inside their web.  It was the craziest thing ever.  It reminded me of Ursula, the sea witch on Little Mermaid.  We googled the spiders and found out that they were Hobo spiders- one male and one female.  The female was the dominate one and it is actually really rare to find them together.  However, we read that August is actually mating season for Hobo spiders.  They were so creepy!  Grant totally killed them for us, as they are quite dangerous.

Later, we went swimming some more.  Afterwards, we took these pictures.  I had to include both of them because of cute little Aurora.  She is so stinkin cute!!  In the first one, she is totally copying Karina, leaning over with hand on her hip.  In the other, she is doing another super cute pose of "surprise" with her hand in a silly pose.  She cracks me up!!  After the pictures with the Orca, we took some pictures of the girls on the covered wagons.  Later that day, we played the game "Hedbanz."  It is pretty much 20 questions.  It is a lot of fun and the girls love it, even the little ones.  That night, we started a game of Phase 10.  That game takes a while, quite a few rounds, but we had a lot of fun... even Joe and Grandma played with us.  That night, after dinner, we had smores!!  You can't go camping without smores!!  :)

Another day, my Dad took the girls for rides on his scooter.  They loved it... well, except Calyssa.  She wanted to sit on it but did not want to go for a ride.  We played some more games and even popped some popcorn on the stove.

On the last night, my Dad left with the girls and drove home, while Joe, my Mom, and I went to Grant's concert.  We went to a dinner first, which apparently was $100 per plate, however Grant received 4 free tickets.  It was pretty fancy stuff, even purple cauliflower!  Crazy!  And the cookies were SO good!!  Especially the chocolate chunk ones... I tried to control myself!  They were heavenly!  Grant sang two different solos and also sang in the choir.  He sounded great!  (There were 2-3 other soloists, including Mr. O' Canada, who sings the National Anthem for all the Vancouver Canucks games... I personally thought Grant was better, but then again I am biased... right?)  It was pretty neat to see him on a stage, as the soloist, with a full orchestra and full choir behind him.  Plus, he has always wanted to participate in a 9-11 concert, as one of his missionary friends was killed in the pentagon.  The concert was very patriotic and it was really neat that Grant was able to be a part of it.