Camping, Seattle trip

Last week was a crazy fun filled week. On Monday I packed the kids up and we headed to Alturus Lake (near Redfish lake). My phone GPS was confused and told me it would take almost three hours and it took 4. That was unfortunate, especially since I was driving with my kids alone. We arrived and set up our things and headed to the beach even though it was not warm enough to play in the water. Kids don't seem to care about such things. The adults sat and watched the kids play in the water and the sand. Nothing much happened between that other than Ryan falling down 10,000 times it felt like, and when I say falling down I mean full body face plant belly flops. This boy may have gotten my coordination skills and they aren't good. He also refused to where any type of shoes for more than 5 minutes and then he would cry when he stepped on something. Genius! Piper mostly stuck to my side along with Ryan the whole time. She did play with Gabby and some cousins a little bit but not much. Gabby and Corbin had a great time playing with their cousins.

The conversations around the campfire are always the best part about camping (especially because Ryan was asleep) ha. Monday night Piper was complaining about being sick so I was hanging out with her in my parent's camper when she started to barf a little. Time went on and she barfed a ton. I thought she would be okay after that and I went to sleep in my van with Ryan and left Piper with my parents. I was wrong. Piper woke up dry heaving every 15 minutes all night long. Sorry about that mom! The next day I had a case of diarrhea and let me tell you that having diarrhea while camping and using an outhouse is FANTASTIC! Luckily I took some Imodium AD and got in control although I still had an upset stomach the whole day. Around 5:00 pm Ryan barfed twice and started in with the diarrhea. At this point I would have just high tailed it home but my kids were actually going home with my parents the next day so we had to stick it out. He continued to have diarrhea and that night he and I joined my parents in the camper because it was going to be FREEZING that night. He ended up barfing one time in the night. The weather on Tuesday was cold. We all ended up wearing our winter coats the whole day. A lot of the kids still managed to get on swimming suits and go play at the beach while the adults watched in their winter coats. My dad ended up getting the bug along with two of my brothers. I'm not sure if there were any other victims. Sorry about that!

On Wednesday morning my parents headed home with my kids and I headed back to Boise. Scott bought tickets to go to the Dota International in Seattle months and months ago. My parents agreed to watch our kids while we went. We haven't been on a trip in over 4 years. It was time! It was especially nice that I actually had a little mini vacation from my kids at home before my actual vacation. On Wednesday I still didn't feel great and I ended up laying pretty low and tried to rest so I wouldn't be sick on my trip. On Thursday I was feeling better and I got a lot of stuff done around the house before we left. That night Scott and I flew to Seattle. We stayed in a nice hotel in Bellevue. On Friday morning we had breakfast at the hotel that was not continental. It was spendy but we were on vacation! We walked around Bellevue a little bit. We were right in the hub of downtown and we checked out ridiculous stores like Neiman Marcus and Gucci and Scott showed me the Valve building which is the company that produces his favorite video games. After that we drove to downtown Seattle so Scott could watch the Dota tournament. His childhood friend Dave lives in Seattle now and took the day off and watched with Scott. I decided it would be a good time to go visit my sister Kelsey who just had her first baby 2 weeks ago. I was pretty nervous to drive from downtown Seattle to her house and back but I sucked it up and did it. I have figured out my phone GPS which is amazing. I did pretty good driving there, I only cut someone off and got flipped off once. Ha. It took me about an hour to get to her house. I just chilled at her house for several hours. I held her baby and we watched lots of Parks and Rec and I took a nap. I eventually mustered up the courage to go back and drive back to downtown Seattle and pick Scott up. I did it! Phew. I am really growing up. Ha.

Saturday morning we ended up meeting some friends for a long brunch. After that Scott and I headed back to the Dota Tournament and spent the day there. Lucky for me I have lots of experience of hanging out for days in a gymnasium during Drill Team competitions in high school so it wasn't that big of a deal. It was crazy to be there though. The nerds go all out people! It was an experience for sure. It was pretty great to be there. I mostly checked out facebook during the games. At one point I took a nap and then I went out and read a book for awhile. We bought tickets to go on the space needle at 7:00 pm and after that we headed over to some Royce and Annika's house to spend the night. We haven't hung out with them since our friends cruise over 4 years ago. Royce and Dave are Scott's good childhood friends who both happened to get jobs in Seattle (one works for Google, one for Amazon) and they are in the same ward there. We had a BBQ and talked and played games until 1:30 in the morning. It was fun. Now if only we could move to Seattle and join them. It is so beautiful. We came back to Boise today. I still need to drive to Arco at some point to pick up my children...

Corbin and Cooper built a fort. They also went on lots of hikes. Corbin wanted to hike the whole time.

Great Ryan face.

Beach time!

Big Crew

Talks around the campfire, so good. 

My kids at Granny's

Taking them on a 4 wheeler ride.

Granny putting them to work

Cool butterflies in the Neiman Marcus store. Cool!

Heck yes!

Valve headquarters

Driving past the space needle

A jumbo tron of the international was set up outside for people that didn't buy tickets.

Indian tacos...yum!

Watching the events

Hall of Heroes

Huge screen to watch the games. The stadium was packed with nerds. The players are down on the floor.

Top of the Space Needle