Always an adventure!!!

well....our absolutely lovely time at Mt. Ranier was mildly disrupted by a certain larger-than-it-appeared to be rock in the middle of the road in the park, which punctured the oil pan on the Alford's car, and oddly enough, there is no other oil pan in the state. sooooo......this little hiccup resulted in 14 people (including 4 car seats) AND the luggage for 14 people squeezed into 2 cars for the roadtrip from Rainier to Seattle. it was AWESOME!!!  It's not a Saccenti Family Vacation without some sort of ridiculous incident.  Anyway, we all LOVED Rainier, and can't wait to go back! The pictures from the Rainier trip are yet to come, as we forgot our camera at the cabin, and will have to get the pictures from someone else's.

Anyway, we spent the day in the northern part of Seattle, and we had a BLAST!!!!! The girls wandered around the Fremont area, while the guys headed in to try to get a new rental car.  We discovered the Fremont Troll hiding under the bridge.

Notice Nova (aka fraidy-pants fraidy-pants) is not in the phot.  she was convinced the troll was going to come alive while we posed for the picture, and stood at a safe distance, ready to spring into a full on spring if he did magically come alive..

Here I am trying to convince Nova to get near the troll to see that he isn't real

 That little plan did NOT go over very well!!!!

 This afternoon we decided to try out some stand-up paddle-boarding on Lake Union for the guys, and kayaking for the girls! it was AWESOME!!!!

 Nova was very brave, and jumped out of my kayak and onto daddy's paddle board in the middle of the lake....Doesn't every princess need a prince to paddle her in to shore?

 Of course it makes perfect sense that nova is wearing a pink princess dress while paddleboarding...Here she is saying "I'm a surfin' girl!"

 Not to be outdone, Juneau jumped out of her kayak and onto Uncle Kyle's paddle board.

 Juneau left Aunt Becky's kayak, leaving her to fend for herself :) She seemd to manage!

 After our water sports, we met up to enjoy a beautiful seaside dinner....

 The Alford family's perfect family photo....

 Annnnnnddd....the Stickley family's attempt at a family photo

 Nova spent some time practicing her "big sister" skills with baby james...

 And daddy and nova snuggled up for a good book after some hot-tub time

 We also headed over to the The Chocolate Factory for a Chocolate tour...it was kind of awesome!

we have filled every single day from wake-up to sleepy time with fun and activities....every day i assure myself that i will get the girls to bed before 10 p.m., and i will try to at least squeeze in a nap,but i have yet to accomplish either goal for this trip :) we still have some jam-packed days in seattle left!!!! we are loving it!