Seth and I decided to take a trip to Washington this summer to celebrate my birthday and our anniversary. We were married in Spokane 5 years ago! Crazy how time flies! Anyway, we started out by staying in the same hotel we did in Spokane on our wedding night, a nice little downtown place.

We decided to go out to dinner and picked this place out of the restaraunt guide that decribed the food as "Euro-Asian fusion". Sounded interesting so we thought we'd give it a try. I got the chicken risotto. Here's me before I tasted it. It was so gross! Just bland and no flavor at all! I sent it back which is something I never do, it was that unappealing. I was not paying a fancy restaurant price for that! I got meatloaf instead and it was good. Seth and I thought it would also be a hip place, but it turns out that we shared the restaurant with a bunch of people our parent's age. I think we were the only ones in there without gray hair. The sad thing was we were still really tired from our trip and they were alot livelier than we were...

...but we worked up some energy and hung around Riverfront Park later that night...

We did a few things while staying with my parents at their house in Colville. One day we drove up to Canada (not too far) and went to Grand Forks and ate borscht at a Russian restaurant. It was really good and there were even these old men sitting behind us speaking Russian. We also went to the aquatic center there that I went to as a kid alot. It still looked the same!

While there we indulged in some country pursuits, including huckleberry picking...

fence sitting (me and my best country girl impression)....

Seth even helped mow my dad's field with the tractor. Doesn't he look cute?
Well, the week went by fast. We also ate at Ronnie D's and Zips, swam at my parents beach, and went to the drive in movie. It was fun, but Seth had to get back to work, so I stayed for a few more weeks because my sister was coming up. Here are some of the things I did with my family.

We went on a drive one day, searching for a new huckleberry patch, but ended up going to this lake I'd never been to before. It was a pretty little lake that looked perfect for kayaking or canoeing.

The fam: Mom, Dad, Austin, Mae, Annalee

The next week we did end up finding a pretty decent huckleberry patch. Austin and Annalee had a great time their first huckleberry excursion.

Dad in his wheat field. He's very proud of it!

We went to the beach quite often. It's nice that my parent have a little private beach on their property. Here's Kyla waiting in the truck to go drive down. There is even a creek that runs into the river and Dad caught a nice trout for dinner one night!

Mae and Annalee at the beach!
While I was there, we also got to hang out with out cousins. Sad I didn't get any pics of that. We had a family party one night and played a Kubb tournament, which is an outdoor game with wooden blocks. It was fun, but the best part was the Divis boys getting beat in the final game! They are really competitive, so I bet there will be a rematch sometime in the future. My cousin Carly was on the winning team and it was a victory for all the girls in the family. Go Carly!
So I am home again. It was nice to have a Washington summer. I picked raspberries, made raspberry jam, found huckleberries (the family obsession), hung out with cousins and went swimming at the river. What more could you ask for?