lake quinault, washington

now, i slightly lower my voice and speak in a whisper for this post. because dude, this day on our trip was so incredible it deserves a respectful whisper…

seventeen years ago, i took my husband {at the time, he was my fiancé} to visit lake quinault with my dad. husband instantly loved this place, as i already did. right at that moment, we said we would go back. over the years, we have often mentioned wanting to go back. then, we mentioned wanting to take the kids… and then, it happened. we went back with our kids. and it melted my heart that they all loved it.

one more place to call ours. one of my favorite places on earth.

there was a lot of chess played on this trip. in the backseat while we were driving. at families homes we visited. in our hotels… i couldn’t decide if it was good or bad for our relationships when the games would become SO INTENSE and inevitably every game ended with someone in tears, or holding back tears.

regardless, there are very few things as sweet as seeing siblings play together —

i packed my ugg slippers just for this morning on our trip… i couldn’t wait to wake up, put them on, and hang-out at the lodge.

let me remind you, that as much as our family loves the outdoors, we’re not very outdoors-y. hence, soon after husband was paddling our row boat {with some struggles} out into the lake…

our daughter who is more keen to the outdoors than all of us put together, took over—

we didn’t catch any fish while in our row boat, but kj and myla fished from shore and had great luck! i was over by the lodge when all of a sudden i heard all my kids, MOM! MOM! MOM! myla caught a fish!

somehow i was the one who had to unhook that fish. all the knowledge i have on doing this i learned from my dad during the first twelve years of my life. needless to say, i struggled a bit and the poor fishy did not look good {minus one eyeball} when i released it…

then, kj caught a fish and myla did the releasing. no eyeballs went missing.

on our way out, we packed up the SUV and headed down the road…

i cheerfully announce to my family,
everyone out of the car! we’re walking .3 mile to see the world’s largest spruce tree!

my teenager:
can’t we just drive there?!?

{TEENAGERS!}

like larger than life trees, our epic washington road trip continues… i had a goal to get all the washington blog posts done by midnight. tonight. i’m sure you are all tired of reading about it, i just want it to be perfectly documented for our future blurb books.

lets see if i can get it done by midnight next monday… ::winks::

{all photos by me.}