Lon's 8th Birthday!

Today Lon is officially 8 today, at 1:05pm.
When we woke up today, Lon looked at me and hopefully said, you did hold back a couple presents for today, right?  Well, no, but I did have a couple I could  give him.
Daddy said something about having leftovers for dinner, and Lon said, um, no it is my birthday and I should pick out what we have to eat.  He picked going out to La Corona.

They are not Legos. But they are! Lego movies!

Sadly, La Corona's air conditioner broke. It was HOT outside. But it was still way more fun than heating up the stove!

After they cleared the plates from our dinner they brought out the sombrero and the fried ice cream. Lon did not even mention he wanted the fried ice cream, but they know him so well. The staff sang him happy birthday and took his picture for their facebook page.

He ate the entire fried ice cream. He loved it
It was a wonderful day.  Lon said it was a good birthday day!

Lon's 8th Birthday Party!

Today was a beautiful day for a birthday party!

All ready for his party.

The spread

Cake and cupcakes and boy scout popcorn !

Enjoying being outside and some good food!

One of our activities was to color little wooden birdhouses!  We had a scavenger hunt, a prize walk and a guess the legos in a jar.  The kids had a blast!

The best activity, was, of course, the Ice Cream Truck.  Rico was the best ! We love Chillz Ice Cream Truck.

The kids were very orderly getting in line for ice cream

They all enjoyed the treats! The adults did too

Lon wanted to open presents next and since it was his birthday we let him.   He mainly got Legos!
no duplicates!

A few months ago, some one sent me a link that was going around. It was for this very fun candle. You light it, it slowly burns, then Poof!  a BIG sparkly flame, the petals come down and it spins as it plays happy birthday!  SO cool.

Not sure is you can see the petals are down and it is starting to spin. Coolest candle ever.
Lon had a great day. It was hot and no rain, lots of his friends came.
It was a wonderful birthday party!

Going Home

This morning we woke up in Lake Chelan and we would go to bed in our own beds.

The morning view. It was going to be a wonderfully sunny day. A good day for a drive!

The kids on the deck.  They lined themselves up this way. So cute

Such a pretty place

We had a yummy breakfast and packed up the car. Our first order of business after that was getting the Jr. Ranger Badge!  They all did well and got the badge and the patch! She said for them to come back when they are 9 and get the next one in the series, and they can get another patch. Lon really thinks that would be a good idea!

The kids were getting wiggly in the back and I thought they would be having the Aplets Factory going today. They did not. Darn it.

The kids were able to release some of their wiggles. They had fun running in the park

We stopped at Snoqualmie pass to use the rest area.  I wanted to get a picture of Lon, and just as I snapped the photo, this guy pops in. I am thinking this guy has done more than his share of photo bombing. He got it down!
Lon does not look impressed

All by himself this time

Beauty Shot on the way home

Last beauty shot on the way home.
Rochelle did ALL the driving. She rocks!
Thank you again for a great mini vacation!

A Fun Day at the Lake

Today, first thing on our agenda was to go to the Ranger Station and get the Jr. Ranger badges.  Sadly, when we walked in, there were NO rangers! One was up in Stekehekin doing interpreter stuff and the other one was giving a fire safety workshop.  They will be in tomorrow  by 7:45 am, we won't be in that early, but we will be there too!
We then went downtown to see what we could see

Do a little shopping. Pool Noodles and a pair of goggles, those were very much needed

Petting dogs was a wonderful thing to do in the early afternoon

Lon did not want to go into any more stores, so we snuck away to the Lake Chelan Museum! They had a treasure hunt for kids. I called the others and said to come on by when they were done, this was FUN
Luckily, they found the smashed penny machine, only one design and got one for Lon before they came over. All the kids had a ball finding all the stuff on their lists. The lists were all different too!  At the end, the kids got a polished agate. Lon got the orange one.   I highly recommend this little museum, it was fun, the people running it are great. They have some wonderful things in there. Beautiful Native things, some Forest Service things, some old hydroplane stuff, and lots of cool things all about Lake Chelan.

Sadly, I can not recommend this place at all. We went in, asked if we could sit outside since it was a small place inside and there were 7 of us.  It took forever to get someone to come out and take our order. We got menus when we walked back outside. Then once we did give our order it was ALL wrong, every single bit of it. I got a tomato slice and I ordered a margherita. The other ladies got calzones, but they were wrong and not even warm. As if they just had them on the counter left over from the earlier lunch rush. The pizza was wrong for the kids. They made them a pepperoni pizza, with a TON of pepperoni on it. We most certainly ordered a cheese.  It took over an hour to get it right. They did bring the kids one bread stick each. They were not bread sticks really, just thin strips of pizza crust with parmesan on them.  Being with hungry kids for that long was not pleasant for anyone. The reason we decided to eat downtown was so we would get something fast. Did not work out that way, and they did nothing to make it right. They said the most she could do was give us the complimentary bread sticks free.  So very not cool. I did write a review on Yelp and I usually don't do that.  When Brandy called back later on this evening to talk to the manager, she was told she could not talk to the manager since no one was there, they were not closed but no one was there.  This is not the way to run any place of business.

W

We left and went back to the hotel to get ready for some pool time!  Lon's new pool noodle and cheap goggles

Noodle rider. The pool was 87 degrees and the hot tub was about 110.  It was oh so nice on my knee. I went into both the pool and the hot tub.

Lon making new friends

After two hours in the pool and hot tub it was time to go back to the room for dinner.
The kids had hot dogs, the adults had pierogi and elk and antelope steaks.

Brandy took this photo of the kids hanging out on the porch

Then Compass came to visit. He cooed at us and strutted his stuff.  Then went off to find George

The kids watching a movie waiting waiting for the adults to get done with dinner so they could go get s'mores

Marshmallow roaster ! We did see his new friends making s'mores too. This place is so much fun, they supply all the ingredients for s'mores. For an hour every night. Between 7 and 8, and if they run out before 8, they will replenish the supply tray.

S'mores are still yummy.

I stayed downstairs to enjoy the fire a bit more, and everyone else went upstairs to see the game room. Lon, I was told, has the makings of a pool shark. He is pretty good at the game.  Lon's new friends were up there too. He was having a great time playing with boys!

The way the light was hitting the hillside it just did not look real. It looked to me like a painting.  It was beautiful

The sun sets on our last night in Lake Chelan. Tomorrow we all sleep in our own beds.  We all had a great time. Thank you so much to Rochelle for making this happen!

Busy at Lake Chelan

This morning we went to the Ranger Station we passed on our way into town yesterday.  I was hopeful that we could get the Jr. Ranger badge without having to go to Stehekin. All 7 of us on the Lady of the Lake is a bit cost prohibitive.  They were so nice, of course we can! They gave us the booklet to work on today. Not only will they get a badge but a patch also! They are doing the bear level.
From there we went to Blueberry Hills Farm. To see what the Upick item was. It might be blueberries or strawberries.  It was strawberries! They were almost going to spray for slugs, but since it was going to rain they held off. Lucky for us, so we got to pick some!  The buckets would hold 5 pounds. We told the kids not to fill up the whole bucket!

Checking out the grapes! If you look close you might be able to see the tiny new grapes growing.

Kids on a bench

The roses that were growing next to the blueberries

Picking only the best berries

The kids working together to get as many berries as we would let them

With buckets less than half full each, we walked back up the hill to the weighing machine.  The man behind the counter told us each kid picked two pounds. I think there may have been a two pound minimum.  They were two dollars a pound.

All that fresh air and berry picking made us all hungry! We went back to our lovely hotel room and got lunch. Lon ate his entire hot dog, then half a peanut butter and potato chip sandwich!  His milk was in the coffee cup. No coffee for him!

After a filling lunch we headed off to Orondo. We read about a cider mill out there. Since Lon had been to a cider mill in Connecticut (Clyde's in Old Mystic)  and seen how it worked, we wanted to see if this one was the same kind of set up.
But first we had to cross the Mighty Columbia!

There was a cool log truck out front that immediately  caught the attention of all the kids!

Watching the apple bits and pieces go into the trays. All the apple bits were wrapped up in a cloth, then another tray put on top. When they got enough trays stacked up to barely fit under the press they moved the stack down to the press and turned it on. An amazing amount of cider came out of the apple bits.

All the kids watching the work of apple pressing. The whole place smelled wonderful
They also had a machine that almost instantly made ice cream. Nitro ice cream. We would have tried it but at 3.95 per small cup, we gave it a pass this time. What we did try was the apple cider slushie. That was wonderful. We also all had apple cider doughnuts. Lon had two.

Back to the truck for a few minutes

Apple bins. When we were outside we saw a big truck with bins labeled with what kind of apples they were bringing in to the press. Magi was being pressed today.

Face in the hole!

Playing on the giant tire. There was a spider somewhere inside the tire which provided a good amount of screams and shouts.

There were goats! Four lovely goats. They were very friendly and so very cute. Tail wagging, happy bleating goats.  We love goats!!

More goats! The rusted iron sculptures!  (I am having trouble cropping right now, so I hope to be able to go back and fix these later)

Back to our hotel room for a little bit of rest before heading out to the Farmer's Market. We walked down there, it was not far from the hotel.  This mural is on the side of the Chamber of Commerce.

Petting the big cat statue downtown Lake Chelan

We had high hopes for the Market.

Sadly, there was not much to the market. It was some soaps, some jewelry, a couple of baked good placed offering very little. A wood fire pizza place. One lady offering strawberries, we had enough of those, so we told her they looked good and moved on. We saw the Orondo Cider Works were there. We had another sample of their wonderful cider and they gave me a shopping bag since I had been out there. Lon told them we were moving to South Carolina.  That was very nice of them. Lon also bought me a stone ring.  I was hoping for more fruits and vegetables!

We stopped at the Variety Store. I forgot tooth brushes for Lon and I.   They had inexpensive toothbrushes! And a fun T-shirt for Daddy!  Lon thought it would be good. I looked at a zippered hoodie for me, but gave it a pass.
We went back to our hotel and had a wonderful meal of rigatoni and pasta sauce. We bought some bread on the way home to have with it. Before our dessert all the kids finished their Jr.Ranger badge books. They are ready to turn them in tomorrow!  For our dessert we had fresh strawberries and cream over a brownie.  It was a good day. Even if it was a little rainy and over cast and we did not make it to the pool today.   We hope tomorrow's weather will be better for swimming. If not, we can find something good to do!