Free Fishing Day!

Finally we get to use our Christmas presents from Dawna (fishing poles) to try and drown some worms, or maybe even catch some fish.

Start at the bottom to see our adventure...

No fish for dinner tonight, better luck next time.

"Maybe if I just put the pole in the water I will catch something..."

Baiting Ethan's hook...

How long is this going to take?

At the lake, removing the dead weight and adding real hooks...watch out!

Dallin's turn to learn....(he's a natural...he can cast it all the way across the street!)

Daddy and Ethan

Free fishing day at the lake...the boys first fishing trip. But first, a little practice.

Our Bus, Boat, Train Vacation!

Check out our pictures from our vacation...Start down at the first entry for June 12th to see the beginning...

Here we are in the dining car having lunch. The food was OK...nothing compared to the cruise ship...but it was included with the cost of the accommodations (if you get a sleeping room you are considered "first class", thus all your meals are free.) From when we woke up till about 4 pm the view was not that great...mostly small towns our grafitti of large towns. Towards the evening the train hit the coast and it was pretty. We arrived at LA Union Station at 10:30 and found our car waiting for us. We drove back to San Diego and collapsed. We knew that this would be a tiring vacation since we were bringing along the boys, but we also knew it would be really fun to go on a bus, boat and train (plus I found a really good deal on the cruise since it was "Transitioning" to the Alaska market for the summer). Kudos goes to Dawna for putting up with such a "boys" vacation!

Here is a picture from the hall where I (Eldon) slept (top bunk). Make no mistake, the room was small. When the beds were down you hardly had any area to walk.

Dawna doesn't want her picture taken in the morning...

The boys got to have "Frosted Flakes" in the morning. They are eating on the area where Ethan slept. Dallin got to sleep right above him...it was a real treat for him to sleep on the top (they had straps so he couldn't roll out).

In the morning I got an outside picture of the train.

Larger shot of the Parlor Car. There was really beautiful country that the train went through until it got dark. We went up over the mountains and saw some snow and deer. After it got dark we put on our pajamas and went back to the theater and watched "National Treasure". Dallin really enjoyed the show (with a lot of explaining from dad) while Ethan fell asleep. We went back to our beds for an very bumpy night sleep.

Here we are in the "Parlor Car". Although this looks like the dining car, it is actually a car where you can sit and look out the windows at what is passing by. They had wine tasting events...we just ate all the cheese and crackers :)

The reason we went to Partland was to board the Amtrak Coast Starlight train. Here we are waiting in the lounge for the train to arrive. The boys got engineer hats from the workers.

Here we are in Portland. We enjoyed it a little better than Seattle (the drive was very pretty from Seattle to Portland). After we arrived to our hotel in downtown Portland, Dallin and I drove the rental car to the airport and took their light rail (MAX) back to the hotel. We sleep that night and then the next day walked around. Portland is very friendly to homeless so there was quite a few scary people out and about...but they never bothered us.

This was our hotel in Seattle. We got one right next to SeaTac airport, (it was the cheapest area and once again I used Priceline and only paid $39 for a DoubleTree. I love Priceline for hotels!). The kids are looking out the window at the airplanes. We did not enjoy Seattle very much. We didn't have a lot of time to spend and it was Sunday so we wanted to keep it low key, but it seems like it is more of an adult town and not very kid friendly.

I think this is a great shot in terms of layout (not that I planned it that way). With Ethan at the bottom moving up to Dallin (and then some other strange family), I think the shot looks good.

and even the ocean. This is Puget Sound (although it looks like a lake). The beach is more pebbles than sand, but the boys had plenty of fun throwing rocks.

big beautiful trees...

Larrabee State Park was very nice, perfect place for a reunion. They have large grassy areas, a stage, green mossy paths like this...

Once we landed and deboarded we got in a rental car and headed down for Seattle. We wish we would have spent more time in Vancouver. It was a very pretty city. Between Vancouver and Seattle there is a drive called the "Chuckanut" drive. It is a VERY beautiful drive and part of it goes through Larabee State Park. This is a playground at the park.

This is the formal dining room called "Windows". It has three huge windows that look out over the back part of the ship, right beneath the wake. We ate here as we pulled out of Astoria.

Ethan's got the real helmet on!

Dallin is driving the firetruck. (You will notice his hat is backwards, for those of you unaware, that is the same thing as a fire helmet.)

Ethan is in the midst of saying "No"...his favorite word.

We went to a children's firefighter museum where they could try on clothes and ride some equipment. They both enjoyed this very much.

Here are the boys on land with the cruise ship behind them. They were surprised to see how big it was. When we boarded, it was difficult to get a perspective of the ship...this was different, they could see how big the ship was when the tenders took us to shore.

The boys are in the Grand Centrum. I tried to get a shot so you could see how high it goes up. Dallin is holding the schedule for the day that he created, and the two dollars that Grandma and Grandpa Hastings sent them for a special treat (Ethan's two dollars are in his pocket...).

Here we are on deck looking out at the town of Astoria in Oregon. This is the second to last day of our three day cruise...I should have got the camera out earlier!

This is a picture of our cabin with the four beds laid out for sleeping. When we weren't sleeping, the bed that the boys are sitting on would roll under the other bed. This was a larger than normal stateroom (I specifically did some searching for a larger one like this, know ing we would have four in our room).

We drove our car to LA and parked at the Union Station. We then boarded a bus for San Pedro and got on the Norwegian Spirit cruise ship headed for Vancouver Canada (with a stop in Astoria Oregon). We are all smiles here because we don't know yet that we forgot our passports at home. Luckily Dawna's good friend Tina was able to break in our house and fax them up to us...

This is the start of our litle family vacation. Here is Dawna and Dallin on the LA city bus.

Here is our cute Ethan!!

Our future missionaires

Dallin feel off his bike and has a new cast to show. He has had it about 2 weeks and gets it off this Thursday.

Finally up!

We lost the invite from Matt (Clayton) so we haven't been abole to get up and posting yet. Thanks to Matt for sending it again and we should be good to go now!

New Web site for the Skousens

This is a new family Web site for the Skousen Family in California. Now they will be able to update friends and families with pictures and messages on the latest happenings in California.