Summer Magic

We love Seattle parks. This one has a zip line I love, and Ethan loves this really long, fast slide.

Seattle also has great beaches in the summer. We had a fabulous bonfire with the Taffs and the Louiseaus the other day and the views were spectacular - too bad you can't see them!
Then onto our now-annual (let's see if that can last) trip with our dear friends - Kathryn and Briel Louiseau, and Dave and Jen Stevens. We love these guys and hope we'll be friends forever - seriously! We decided to go camping to the Olympics - as in Washington, National Forest/Park, not Beiijing - and we decided to take the ferry out of Edmunds to get there. Well, two hours later we finally got on the ferry. Gotta love the ferry.
The two hour wait on the ferry must have been indicative of the difficulty we would have in finding a campsite, but we found one and Ethan was in heaven. It was a great spot by the river, and big enough for two very large tents and one average sized tent. Ethan was in heaven of course and all he wanted to do was throw rocks in the river. The boys had several skipping contests, and who knows who won by the end. We had lots of free wood for great tinfoil dinners, smores, banana boats, the works. Oh, and let's not forget the many truths and deep, dark secrets that come out around the fire. Wait a second, most of those secrets were the Connell's - ours! P.S. If you want to know what these are, you'll have to take us camping and start a fire!
I think we look way too innocent to have "secrets" to tell around a campfire.
Well, you would think we would realize we were traveling to the rainforest area of WA, so we should bring rain gear, right? Well, yes it rained, but we didn't name our tent "Trusty" just because we thought it was a nice name! Let's also not forget to mention that two members of our party were "thoughtfully" told in our minds to cover the chairs and DRY wood, but did we listen - NO! Dangit. As soon as the rain started, I couldn't sleep for worry of everything getting wet. What's more interesting is that I didn't do anything about it. Hmmm... Ethan slept great, and we slept okay.
Didn't I tell you the beaches were spectacular here. We decided to go to the coast and we found starfish, crab, shells, etc. Too bad it was overcast. To get to this beach we had to pass through Forks, and I really tried to find some sort of vampire, but sorry folks, no vampires, just Tsunami Evacuation Routes. Hmmm...
We all decided to scale some rocks and explore while the tide was out. We barely made it back to shore because the tide came in so fast. I did not want to get wet!The only adventurer brave enough to go in the water.
Try to look past this beautiful family and see the cool rock formations in the background.
The gang: Steve, E-man, Krista, Briel, Kathryn, Jen, DaveSo it only took me a week to clean up. When we got back Seafair was around the corner. We love the Blue Angels! Can you see them in their formation?