Vacation to E. Washington

 Our final family vacation before school starts this year was to eastern Washington.  We visited Levenworth, Wenatchee, Lake Chelan and a couple other little spots in between them.  In Levenworth we had a picinic lunch and played in the river.  The water was COLD, but it was a hot day so it felt good.  Then we went to the next little town over (I can't remember the name right now, but it starts with a C) and went to the candy factory where their specialty is aplets and cotlets.  Basically a turkish delight with fruit and nuts added.  We took the 10 minute tour to see how the candy is made.  Most of my kids didn't really like it.  I prefer chocolate myself too.  However, for what it is, it was good.  We bought some apple syrup and marionberry syrup to try out as well.

Cody enjoying the river.

 Dave and the kids in the river.

Wearing their hair nets during the candy factory tour.

Our next stop was Wenatchee where our hotel was.  We went to Rocky Reach Dam where they have a visitors center, museum, picinic area and playground.  We got to check out the fish ladder which was pretty cool.  You can see the ladder from above the dam as well as a small portion of it underwater in the visitors center.  The museum had lots of cool stuff in it including some things to try to make your own power by riding a bicycle, turning a wheel really fast etc.  When you did them right, as in fast enough, then little light bulbs would turn on.  Cody thought that was pretty neat.

At the top of the dam (you can kind of see part of the fish ladder to the right of Cody).

Next to the stuffed cougar in the museum.

That night we just hung out at our hotel and swam in the pool.  Everyone else enjoyed the hot tub while I looked on.  Four more months until this baby comes then I can indulge in hot tubs again!

The next day we headed to Lake Chelan.  We got there kind of early in the day so it wasn't really very hot yet.  Cody and Dave jumped right in while the girls were a little more hesitant to freeze ourselves.  Eventually everyone got in and enjoyed swimming around a bit.  Dave had bought a blow-up alligator which the kids had fun playing with.

After lunch we drove a couple minutes up the road to a water slide park.  Everyone had a blast and despite the fact that there were a TON of people there we were able to do lots of things.  Abi and Mommy ended up being the two casualties of the day.  Abi tripped and scraped her leg on the edge of some concrete.  Mommy almost went down for the count in the women's bathroom that had an over-enthusiastic water faucet.  It went not only in the sink, but all over the floor too.  The shoes I was wearing ended up being very slippery on that surface and I slipped and twisted my ankle before catching myself on the counter.  Luckily the counter was there or I would have gone all the way down to the concrete floor!

Everyone had a good time despite injuries.  By the end of the day Kaitlyn was so tired she almost fell asleep in my lap while we were on an enertube in the lazy river.  We packed up and headed back to the hotel.  Then came back home the next day.  Since school starts in 2 1/2 weeks we probably won't have anymore family vacations this summer (although we may do one more camping trip with Nathaniel and his family when they move here).  Not too shabby for a last summer shabang!