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4x7 = 28 pictures this week.
No words to explain, no order of events, just shots I have enjoyed over the past several weeks.

A trip to the dog park....

Last week the girls and I took Ava to the dog beach in Edmonds. We had gone once before, but we were all a little more nervous the first time. Ava had a blast...

She met new friends...

we saw some bird families....

she left smiling... it was fun!

A trip to the farm...

In July our family didn't have a ton of family time together so we escaped for a day to do something really special together. We went to the Olympic Game Farm in Sequim, WA. I remember going to the game farm when I was the girls age and Bill and I have gone twice; once when Sadie was really little and once when Syrah was just a baby (she doesn't remember).

We took the ferry over in the morning (which again is a special treat because ferry rates anymore are crazy!)


Here are the girls on the top deck - all smiles as we go for our adventure!

It took quite a while to get there, but the scenery was beautiful; both girls feel asleep on the way there and Sadie woke up just in time to get a glimpse a road sign directing us to the Farm.

Our "adventure" was a surprise to them and so they were both overjoyed to find out where we were!

The Olympic Game Farm is a drive through farm that was founded as a rescue safe haven for old film animals; to read more about the history of this farm click here. Originally it was mostly circus bears and large cats that were featured in movies or on tv. Now however it is a rescue for all kinds of animals and also a buffalo farm.

The unique part of this farm is the hands on ability to feed the animals, the lamas, zebras, buffalo and Elk that roam the farm all know it is feeding time when the cars come through.

This is Sadie hesitantly feeding a yak... they have the worst breath ever!

This is a old film star, do you recognize him? There are several bears on the properly and although they are fenced in they will are willing to wave or stand up in order for you to throw them some bread.

Pictures were a bit hard as you can imagine, but here is a large female Elk getting a treat from Syrah.

And the buffalo - I have a lot of pictures that look just like this!

Had to share the photo of the Elk and the girls... the Elk actually get pretty aggressive (not in a mean way, but I want some food way and they are HUGE!).

We had a great day and lots of laughs, you can tell that economically this Farm is not the same as it use to be, but they are still rescuing and doing what they can. Just last March they took in a bear cub that had been separated and unsuccessful reunited with it's mother. The hope is to get it strong enough to release back into the wild.

On our way home we stopped at a little shop on the side of an undeveloped road where they had converted old train cars into an ice cream shop!

Enjoying some ice cream!

Here are the girls standing in one of the old cars.

Hope you can visit the Olympic Game Farm sometime too!

Museum of Glass

The first week in July (before my Grandma's surgery) I took the girls to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. I have always wanted to go down there and decided there was no better time then the present.

The Glass sculptures begin before you even enter the building. Here Syrah and I are standing outside what is called the Fluent Steps. At night it lights up which would be amazing to see.

You can't take pictures of the art inside, but you can take pictures of the hot shop; the hot shop is where glass art is being made live and each week they have a new featured artist. I could have sat in here for hours!! It was amazing to see that one piece takes an entire team and how one minor mistake can set an artist back hours. In this picture you can see a man on the far right holding a microphone. He takes questions from the audience and also you can watch the hot shop live and post a question which he will answer (technology is awesome!). The man behind him you can see is holding up a pole. There is women on the other side of the room (not in picture) holding a pole also and they are stretching a piece of hot glass to make a colored glass rod. These rods are used to make color within glass pieces. The entire process is quite amazing!!

The museum has an great area for kids. They have a craft each day (maybe it's by week) and also a contest where a child creates a photo and the hot shop team will select one a month and turn it into a piece of art. The museum puts the child's art and the glass piece on display, but they also make a second piece for the child to take home. If you want to read more about the contest and see some of the past winners and their work click here.

On our way out there was this water/glass display called Water Forest; the ripples in the clear is actually water flowing on the outside of the piece.

Around the corner there is an amazing stairway appropriately named the Grand Staircase that leads up to Chihuly's Bridge of Glass; you can see a gallery of the bridge which is in itself worth the trip to the Museum.

When you arrive at the top of the stairs you enter the bridge and this is what you find. The massive size is not even close to being represented in these photos! This section of the bridge was yards and yards and yards of glass embedded in this wall that was over the I-5 freeway.

To give a small indication of the size of these pieces of Chihuly's work; you can compare them to the size of this picture of Sadie and myself.

One of our favorite pieces is the one behind the girls in this photo. I am taken back by the stem of this flower. It is even more striking to see all this after spending time in the hot shop as you really learn to appreciate every tiny detail.

Just another one of my favorites; I have TONS of pictures of the ones I loved... there really isn't one I didn't love!

On our way out you find this display, Mirrored Murrelets, all glass birds (over 250) of them. I encourage you to take off and go to the Tacoma Museum of Glass and see all that they offer, we know we will go back!!

Tuesday's Time

Tuesday we had a ton of running around to do, but it was my first Tuesday of the summer with the girls (we have field trips planned for almost every Tuesday). In the midst of all the to-do lists I decided to tell the girls to get their suits on and get in the car. So, they did (joyfully) and I took them down to one of the local "water parks". It wasn't the nicest of days, so it was a bit cold, but the girls had fun while there were there.