Happy Birthday!

Happy 5th Birthday Lauren!

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm

After a week of colds, we felt well enough to get out a little bit on Saturday and head south towards Woodburn to see the annual Woodburn Tulip Festival.  This farm was covered in gorgeous tulips in full bloom as well as lots of mud!  We were prepared with rain boots, so we could splash through puddles and slurp through mud all we wanted.  The girls complained a lot of the smell, not the beautiful flowery smell, but the manure smell.  Lots of it.  That's life on the farm.  Only here, there were no animals, just their by-product.  Okay, enough of that. 

 It was Canon appreciation day so every Tom, Dick and Harry were out with their fancy lenses and not so fancy point and shoots competing for the best shot and eyeing each others gear.  Hey, I do that too!  :-)

This farm has a catalog online and a Facebook page with information for ordering bulbs to plant this fall.   If you visit and pre-order at the farm during the festival, you get a discount!  

My beautiful flowers!

Amazing colors!

This windmill is the tulip farm's signature piece (other than the flowers, of course!)

Yes, it was very muddy!  This is just before we discovered Lauren's boot was coming apart at the seam.

The farm had a children's play area and Lauren just had to ride a pony!  The kids also went in an inflatable jump house/slide, rode swings, had rubber duck races with old fashioned pumps and rode the animal train. We enjoyed watching a few men hand carving wood shoes from a tree trunk, canes and tobacco pipes.  

The rain held off just until we rode the hayride back to the parking lot after getting a good three hours of touring the farm.

We highly recommend a visit to this farm for a family outing with fun things for everyone to see and do!

Spring Break

The family enjoyed spending their spring break vacation in Northern Idaho this year, making day trips into Spokane, Kellogg and Coeur d'Alene. On our way home we were able swing by Moses Lake, Washington and have a of couple days with my folks.  Here are a few snapshots from our week.

Harry helping my dad hang flower boxes on his house.

Alyssa let me play around with her hair this day and we braided a crown for her :-)

Lauren's black eye is starting to look better after a collision with a door frame a week prior.

Spokane's famous Radio Flyer wagon slide.

Riverfront Park

Gigi with her great grand daughters.

Arrowpoint Resort, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

Old Mission, oldest standing building in Idaho.

Vintage pinball machines at a soda fountain we stopped at for lunch in Wallace, Id.

We fell in love with beautiful northern Idaho and look forward to visiting again in warmer months when we can really get into the many great outdoor recreational opportunities that are found here.