Happy
President's Day to those that celebrate it in the US.
Today is a day that Americans use to honor our highest elected official. This holiday started as a celebration of President George Washington's birthday, which was February 11th. Then people started including President Abraham Lincoln's birthday, which was February 12th.
Now, it's a holiday commonly used to commemorate all past United States presidents and is held on the third Monday in February.
To most families, it's a break from the school route and is seen as an opportunity to get out of dodge for a few days. Since I am naturally drawn to water, I called (who am I kidding, I mean emailed) some girlfriends, we packed kids/husbands/gaitors/snacks and off we went in search of adventure. Yeah, I didn't say sun because we knew without packing plane tickets, we weren't going to find that for two days. We settled for looking for indoor fun.
We found it in Hoodsport, WA.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
This little sleepy town was the perfect spot to be holed up for a few days with six kids and four adults. I found a great house via VRBO, that was beautiful, clean and spacious. It faced the beach, resting right on an oyster bed.
The owners were wonderful and even worked with me on the price since my husband is not working right now. The house itself was well stocked with kitchen appliances and bed linens galore. And except for a few visiting ants that decided to come in from the beach, I'd say it was one of the girl's favorite houses we have stayed in yet from our travels in Washington.
The second we got there, the girls ran down the steps, leading from the patio to the Hood Canal, to explore.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
Which was great timing as a few hours later when the tide came in, those same steps looked like this.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
They found oyster shells as big as their feet.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
They found tiny crabs that were soon individually named before being moved into a makeshift bucket mansion. The girls also discovered that even a beach has slugs.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
And they found things that we had no idea what they were.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
We watched the tide come in and rise the neighbor's dock.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
It was a very lazy afternoon that spilled into an even lazier dinner and some time sitting around couches, building a puzzle together.
The next day started with homemade crepes. Followed by cuisine courses of slightly burnt
monkey bread and Krispy Kreme donuts
.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
What can I say? When on vacation, the calorie count goes out the window. And before you judge, we did have fruit with the crepes. Strawberries, blueberries and bananas. I'm sure if you look hard enough, you'll see them in the photo. You just need to look under the nutella, chocolate syrup and whipped creme.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
Since the day was to be full of rain, the moms took the kids to
Shipwreak Beads to check out their warehouse of awesomeness.
When we came back, we had a light lunch and I gave the kids the
scavenger hunt I had printed out. It keep them occupied for a few hours. We paired up the older girls with the younger ones and since I had forgotten to pack prizes, I told them that prize was a trip into town for ice cream.
They had a lot of fun doing everything on the list and even made some great looking strawberries and paper clip hearts.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
While the dads took the kids into town for ice cream, the moms got a little quiet time to ourselves to read and relax. I hand painted Valentine postcards with watercolors, listening to the rain. I gave the kids each one the next day with the date and location of where they were, to save in a scrapbook when they got home.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
When the kids returned, they headed back outside to play and collect more shells. We were so lucky the home owners provided extra long boots so the kids could get so much higher in the water then they could have with our city boots. There were more then two...the others were all being worn when I tried to take my photo.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
After, everyone had a wonderful Mexican dinner and relaxed even more.
The next day we said good bye and released our crab best friends.
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
And spent some time cleaning the house of children and the beach of trash (although my husband wanted to keep the golf ball).
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| Happy President's Day 2016 (and Vacation Recap) by A Crafty Arab |
We sadly said goodbye to the house and went into town for burgers at the local hangout before driving home, two hours away. We had so much fun and it was so nice to discover this little treasure of a town in Washington with kids.
Other favorite travel adventures:
A Day of Joeys in Seattle
