Vacation Photos!

Hi again!
Well, it's been a week & a half since we got back from vacation, & i'm still scrambling to catch up. But it was wonderful!!!! We had the best time!! First of all, you can see the complete photos on my photo album page. This post just shows a view of my favorite photos.

This was the kids' first time traveling out of state or flying on an airplane, so they were so excited--the morning we left they lept out of bed at 4am as if springloaded. Bradley thought it was so much fun going through security that he wanted to turn around & do it again. They were only a little nervous about flying, but once the plane took off apprehension was replaced by wonder. "Wow!!! Look at the cars! Look at the people from up here!!! Look how small everything is!" By the time we got home again they'd been on five planes, and become veteran flyers.

After we landed at SeaTac, my family met us & we all went to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. In case you've never been, it's sort of a theme-type restaurant with jungle decorations and animatronic animals. They have elephants, parrots, gorillas and a simulated thunderstorm every few minutes:


It's actually pretty fun to go with kids. The food is excellent even if the service is painfully slow. The higlight of our meal was the chocolate-brownie-icecream-hotfudge volcano the kids got to share. It even had sparklers stuck in it--wow, a chocolate dessert with risk of bodily injury! The kids loved it!

The first full day of vacation we spent driving up to Lake Quinalt. It is a scenic road through mile after mile of very tall evergreen forest. The kids were really impressed by this--"look at all the trees! Look how huge they are!" We took a walk along a nature trail that was absolutely STUNNING. The kids got to see their first banana slug, and look at the rings of a 300-year old tree. We also got to see the world's largest living spruce tree.

We also spent a leisurely hour lounging at the Lake Quinalt Lodge. It's a beautiful resort built in the time of Teddy Roosevelt. The back lawn has adirondack chairs overlooking a deep, blue lake. It's so peaceful that you just want to stay there!


We also got to spend a day touring downtown Seattle. We went to the Asian District and had dim sum at Sun Ya, a restaurant my family has been going to for more than 20 years. We wandered through Pike Place Market--the flowers and fish and sights are still fascinating. Unfortunately the place was more crowded than a Who reunion concert--I was afraid we were going to get trampled! I got to make another visit to my personal coffee mecca, the original Starbucks store at Pike Place Market. I got a mug & would have had a drink, but it was SOOOOO crowded with tourists buying armloads of souvenirs, that again, I had to run for my life. You can see the sign here in the window:

(Small aside here--In case you've never seen the original Starbucks logo, it looks more like a potbellied truck driver w/man boobs than a beatiful siren. You can see why they gave her a makeover!)

Perhaps the best part of this day was taking the ferry ride from the Seattle waterfront to Bremerton. While we were waiting the kids got to feed the seagulls at Ivar's french fries. Then we took a beautiful ferry ride across the sound. The views were stunning:

The rest of the vacation was wonderful too. I could go on and on! We spent two days in Westport, Washington, where the kids got to see the ocean for the first time. Bradley searched for treasure with a metal detector, and Shiloh looked for sand dollars.

There was fishing and crabbing for the boys, and shopping and lunching for the ladies. Alan & I got to spend the night at a beautiful historic bed and breakfast, the Abel House, in Montesano.

I haven't mentioned the best part yet--besides spending some time with my wonderful mom, it was COOL!!!! After 30+ days straight of triple digit temperatures in Oklahoma, it was blissfully, wonderfully cool. 70s during the day, 50s at night. I got reacquainted with my sweaters, got to sit by a fireplace, and snuggle under a downy quilt at night. It was a huge relief and refreshing in a way I can't describe. I felt reinvigorated. The kids didn't want to come home, and Alan's ready to build a summer home there.

Take care & I hope you enjoy the pictures! I miss you all!!! xoxo, Layla

New blog setup!

Hi again!
Well, you may notice the page looks different. I've changed to a different blog format (courtesy of http://www.blogger.com). It lets people easily add comments after a post, or email a link to a friend. If anyone has been considering setting up their own blog, I would HIGHLY recommend blogger.com. It's free, and incredibly easy to set up and use. They have a bunch of predesigned templates to choose from. It rocks!!! I'm also adding a new page of Fun Stuff for when you need a little diversion from work. :)

Things here are a little crazy right now. We're packing getting ready to go on vacation(!!!) Tuesday. After more than a month straight of 100+ degree Oklahoma heat, spending a week on the Olympic Penninsula visiting my family sounds just heavenly. 75-degree days... 50-degree nights... Sweater weather!! This week a plastic drink cup left in my car MELTED. Even the kids are saying they may not want to come back. This will be the first time the kids have left Oklahoma, their first time on a plane, and first time going to the ocean! So you can imagine how excited we all are.

The summer heat has been really tough on all of us here--even the tough-as-nails Oklahoma trees here are starting to wilt. I've been trying to keep my birdfeeders and birdbaths stocked with fresh food and water. Even though they're not eating as much, the birds still come several times a day for the water. It seems to be helping--this morning when I woke up there were several types of birds feeding in the backyard, plus a baby cottontail bunny hopping around between them. The whole thing was like a scene out of "Snow White". :) By now almost all the birds have fledged their young, so the birdfeeder traffic has slowed down to tired bird parents. It was hilarious to see them bring their "teenage" birds to the feeder. The teenager follows the parent around with mouth open and wings flapping, squawking as loud and fast as possible. The parents try to cram as much food as possible down the teenager's throat, while taking a little bite for themselves here & there. Sound familiar?!

Yesterday morning we had a crazy hummingbird encounter. I'd never hung up a hummingbird feeder because i'd never seen one in our neighborhood. Alan and I were sitting on the back porch drinking our coffee. A hummingbird flew up and checked out each of the bird feeders one by one. Then he flew up to the eave of the house right where we were sitting, and stared at it, hovering. Then he flew down even closer to us, and hovered looking Alan right in the eye for a good 10 seconds, as if to say "Where's mine?" Alan said he froze up & wondering if the hummingbird was going to swoop in and poke him in the eye. It was so cool!!!! I've never hummer investigate me quite so curiously. Needless to say, the feeder was up within the hour! Alan said he came back several times this morning, and even perched & rested for awhile on the feeder. My best guess is it's a female ruby-throated hummingbird:

Btw, hummingbirds are the rock stars of the bird world, and have loads of groupies dedicated to following their every move. Check out http://www.hummingbirds.net/index.html for everything in the world you could want to know about these birds!

The other exciting news is, there is a toad visiting my toadhouse!!! I put out toadhouses when I started this backyard wildlife habitat in June. Since then i've left them alone, resisted the urge to peek inside, and let the plants grow up around them. Lo and behold, when I went outside the other morning, there was a toad there! He looked something like this:



Check out this info on making a toad house (did I mention they eat bugs & are good for your garden???). Here's some info on cool toad projects to do with kids. Take care & I look forward to posting more soon!

xoxo,

Layla

Visiting Heartland Rabbit Rescue

Originally posted Mon. July 31, 2006 -- 9:15pm (CST)

Hi y'all! Hope this finds you well. The rabbits I wrote about last time got me thinking about, well.... Rabbits! I've thought about getting a house rabbit before--But, I don't have much in the way of "real world rabbit experience", and wanted to get some before making the leap(bunny hop?). Soooooo, i've been down the last couple of Saturday mornings volunteering at Heartland Rabbit Rescue, a rabbit shelter about 40 minutes south of here in Blanchard, Oklahoma. It's a delightful place where down-on-their-luck-bunnies can get sanctuary, and hopefully, a new start in a loving home. The place is run by a lovely woman named Jeannie, who gave me an orientation in rabbit care. But enough with the info! Here are some cute pictures of the rabbits I saw. Btw, all of these rabbits are available for adoption at Heartland.

This is Natalie, a gorgeous reddish mini-lop. Like most rabbits she was constantly moving and investigating everything, so it was hard to get a good picture. I kept getting "half-butt pictures" as she hopped away.

This is Harry, a Fuzzy Lop who was recently bereaved from his bonded lady rabbit. They're trying to bond him with Natalie now. Fuzzy Lops are half angora, hence the fuzz. Sitting there blowing in the wind(left), he looked like a long-haired sheep on the windswept Mongolian plains!

Although most rabbits don't like to be held, some go into this "trancing" thing when laid on their backs, and become very docile. The right picture is me holding Harry, just like a baby. A really, really FUZZY baby.

This is Willow, a lovely female mixed breed. She is larger, probably about 10-12 lbs.You can see her looking out of the exercise pen, wanting to go exploring. I gave her a pine cone to play with, and she very gently and delicately chewed it to smithereeens!! She was the most curious about me, and hopped all over me as I sat on the ground.

This is Woody, a male checkered Giant. You can see Jeannie holding him, and then laying him on the ground when he was "trancing". This 2nd picture made us all laugh our butts off! Did I mention this is another giant rabbit breed, like 12-15 pounds?

He laid there like that until we started to move around, and then POOF! He was awake and on his feet...

...And then was away in a flash! This "butt shot" is what 90% of my photos looked like.

For more info about Heartland you can click here to check out their website, or their very entertaining bunny blog. You can donate or sponsor a rabbit through their website if you want to. The blog has a really cute video of a day in the bunny play yard. It had this adorable picture of Harry posing in a field of wildflowers, sticking his TONGUE out. Is it "Rabbitude"?

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