Kiddoville: Father's Day

We had a great Father's Day this year! Our tradition on Mother's Day & Father's Day is to do an excursion or day trip as a family... it usually involves one or more meals out and we try to go somewhere new. Today we started out early - we were on the road slightly before 9:00am which is a real feat for the four of us. We were heading to the Washington coast, so we stopped for breakfast at IHOP in Olympia, where they served up a scrumptious and inexpensive feast. The kids were ravenous and we enjoyed every bite. What's not to love about pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream on them?

Then, we drove west on a very scenic drive through timber country to the town of Westport, WA. Not much happening there - we barely got out of the car (kids did not). Turns out Westport is a fishing town and it was D.E.A.D. So we backtracked to Aberdeen and headed to the north side of Gray's Harbor to Ocean Shores. Now that was a cute beach town with a fantastic beach! There were a bunch of very cool gigantic "kites" (or windsocks?) that were being flown on the beach and the kids were FASCINATED. Even Jack saw them through the window as we drove in and started pointing and yelling. Leo had his first taste of the beach. Too bad we only had an hour to enjoy it before we had to head back! Justin did accomplish his one big goal for the day - to fly his own kite, with some help from his little assistant, Brooke.

Dad and kids on the beach - look at those kites!

Mom and kids - that's a rainbow slug behind us!

Brooke loved this penguin.

Justin and Jack - My two handsome young men

Kite flying from the back of the car!

Our kite!

Our plan was to go straight to a very cool new(ish) Mexican restaurant at U-Village and meet Justin's dad, Jim, there for a Father's Day dinner. However... due to the rollover accident on the freeway, we spent over an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic and missed our reservation (we first called and moved it an hour later, then realized we were going to miss that too and the littlest family member was grouchy having skipped his nap). So we canceled it and met Jim at our house for Chinese takeout, which was delish.

A nice day indeed. Happy Father's Day!