Road trip to Victoria, Canada

My grandparents are currently serving a LDS mission in Granite Falls, Washington.  My father decided that we needed pay them a visit and make a road tip out of it.  So in August, my parents, Jonathon, Jasen, and I all ventured out to the North West.  For the road trip, we went through Boise, Idaho, visited my grandparents in the Seattle area, camped the San Juan Islands and toured Victoria, Canada.

While in the Seattle area, we toured the Boeing manufacturing plant and paid a visit to Pike's Place Market.

Check out the market's gum wall:

After Seattle, we took a ferry to the San Juan Islands.

When we arrived on the San Juan Islands, we took a 3-hour whale watching boat tour.  Sadly, we did not see any whales, but there was a lot of wild life to observe.

On the islands, we camped,

looked for marine life in tide pools,

and visited the American and British camps (from the late 1800's)

The island had so much character!

From the islands, we took another ferry to Victoria, Canada.

In Victoria, we went through the Royal BC Museum, 

strolled through the enchanted Butchart Gardens,

 

visited the Craigdarroch castle with it's exquisite interior wood work (Jasen was in heaven here),

and browsed the downtown.

 

Happy Anniversary

On August 14, my parents celebrated 28 years of a happy and loving marriage!  Just look how cute they are together:

Wild Garden

The past few years I have been the main gardener of my parents' vegetable garden.  This year with the whole wedding thing, I handed over the vegetable gardening duties back to my parents.  Well, my parents ended up having a very busy Spring and Summer.  To everyone's surprise the forgotten garden turned out to be a wild beauty of sunflowers and tomatoes.  Sunflowers from the field behind my parents' yard planted themselves in the open soil and last year's tomato plants also replanted themselves.

Also, a couple of weeks ago my parents had concrete edging poured around the flower beds. My mother hopes this will help her in the battle of the weeds.

Honeymoon in Hawaii

Last week Jasen and I returned from a week long honeymoon in Kauai, Hawaii.  We had such an amazing time.  Here are some of the things we did:

Look out onto Waimea Canyon State Park (the Grand Canyon of Hawaii).

Journeyed through Kokee State Park on a crazy, muddy trail.  Check out these amazing views we had on our trail. 

     

Side note: where ever we went, there were chickens.  They roamed wild and free on the island.

 

We drank coconut juice straight from the coconut, saw a blow spout, and ate very hearty Hawaiian pancakes.

    

    

The highlight of our trip was a 8 mile hike along the Na'Pali coast to huge 300 foot waterfall.

    

    

I ate 10 guavas during the hike.  The trees were everywhere!

   

Our breaths were swept awake with the Hawaiian views and sunsets

We toured the Fern Grotto, a cliff covered in wet ferns

    

We kayaked and took a boat cruise down the Wailua River.

We also spent time at the beach - snorkeling, body boarding, and getting sunburned.

And, of course, we relaxed.