Washington Trip!

Yes we did. We traveled to Washington state this fall to see Papa's side of the family. We had a BLAST!! Packing was fun. I stood at the table and the kids ran to their bedroom and got the clothes I asked them for and we packed 4 outfits per child. Pants, shirts, underwear and socks all in neat little piles. 3 sets for daily wear and one for American Thanksgiving and pictures :) 

After driving 12 hours we made it across the border and to our 1st nights hotel. The kids love hotels :) We were messaging to Grandpa G who met us the next day in the tri cities area to visit with his mom; Granny. The next morning we drove 5 hours to Granny's house. We had a great time on a long stretch of road watching the tumbleweeds cross the road in droves. We carried 3 of them with us into the city! 

The visit with Granny went really well. The kids had a blast in her yards and eating the snack lunch. After lunch we went to a local park and let the kids play on the playground! Even little G was all over that playground! When Grandpa took Granny back to her place we found some crackers in the truck and headed down to the water to feed the geese! They saw the crackers and mauled us! Ok MAYBE maul is too strong of a word, but we were surrounded and the crackers made a quick snack for a bunch of apparently starving geese! They were super tame and the kids were petting them. We also took a walk down to the boat launch area where we last said good bye to Granny's husband Bruce on our last trip to Wa. two years ago. 

That night we went out for supper at a Mongolian BBQ with Grandpa and then got back in the truck and drove a few more hours before stopping for the night in Hotel #2. This made our last leg of our trip MUCH easier the next morning and gave us more time to SHOP in Spokane!! :) Toys R us!! Here we are!! After spending several hours picking out Christmas gifts and eating at one of our old haunts, Longhorn BBQ, we finished the drive off while most of the kids napped and made it to Griggs House right after they'd started eating supper ;) We do tend to be late :) G's birthday party was the next night and here she is having a bath in Gramma's tub while J3 looks on... actually I think he was stripping.. He was soon in the tub as well. 

Pies are TRADITION at every Griggs Holiday feast and man were they ever good!! YUM!! We had smoked turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, cranberry sauce, 2 kinds of stuffing or dressing, squash, ham, and I'm sure I'm missing somethings!! 

Papa's parents had the unique privilege (or not?) of having all of their descendants under the same roof while we were there! Here is a picture of the kids with their cousin Morgan taken on Thanksgiving day! Our family picture on the Christmas letter was also taken that day. 

We were quite busy, haha actually I spent a lot of time Baby watching which suited me fine, while we were there. Auntie Ruthie gave E, R and J3 their very first ride on a horse! J and L both have had rides before but neither of them really remember.. so it was a pretty big deal to all of them. I'd have taken pictures of their ear to ear smiles but the sun was going down and the lighting was lousy. They went hiking, and hiking and exploring in caves and streams and canyons and hiking some more. We had a wiener roast and another hike and mine exploring at M&J's, Papa's aunt and uncle, before heading home to play games and do puzzles and play games and cards. We lost G twice as she learned how to climb stairs while we were there. She climbed up all the stairs to the second story and explored up there before finding the toys in Morgans room! She can move pretty fast when she wants too!! Auntie Ruthie and I drove to town and spent a goodly chunk of a day shopping and enjoying ourselves just the two of us :) 

This game of Risk started out with kids and Papa and slowly became Auntie Ruth and Papa. R officially won even though she did very little playing. Lots of fun, some tears and quite a lot of cheering.. along the lines of  "Get Papa, Get Papa." lol. The game lasted much of the day and this picture was taken so they could set it up again after supper! 

When the time came to leave we packed everything up, we had to add two totes to our truck!, said our good byes and wished we didn't have to go just yet! We fueled up at our favorite little store ever where Papa found a friend to talk to, and headed home... 12 hours of driving later we arrived at home. I don't actually remember much of the trip. Turns out I was fighting more then just morning sickness and motion sickness, I also had a bit of an ear problem that made noise un bearable and spent much of the day trying to sleep and wishing the Tylenol would stay down!! We did stop for fuel a couple of times, to puke once, to eat a few times and of course with every stop a bathroom run. The kids had new games to play and had a good trip home. Papa was a bit barn sour as they say and I just looked longingly at every motel we passed. We were all very glad to be home!! Tucker grew a couple inches and Chip climbed in the truck when Papa opened the door!! 

J kept a tally of animals we saw on our trip. We saw

100 buffalo

10 swans

36 ravens

40 sea gulls

390 ducks

14 wild turkeys

2 grouse

1 nuthatch

3 moose

17 deer

24 bighorn sheep

21 hawks

4 eagles

7 pigeons

and 6 flickers.

I did a rough count of cows on the way down and got around 2000. Thankfully all the critters stayed off the roads and we had safe driving there and back! 

Total hours in the truck equaled out to about 32 in 8 days. 

We just want to say A HUGE THANK YOU TO GRAMMA AND GRANDPA, AUNTIE RUTHIE AND MORGAN for letting us stay with you and feeding us so very well!! Also to Morgan for sharing her room and toys and showing us around her school, which was neat as it was the same one Papa went too for a while. Thank you very much too for all the laundry you did!! I was amazed at how it piled up with only 3 outfits and two sets of PJ's per kid! (Next time I will pack more per kid!!) I was doubly amazed at how it seemed to magically get washed and dried!! :) And thank you too for Grandpa meeting us in Tri cities I know you all gave up something so he could be there with her and us. 

THANK YOU!!!