Road Trip USA, Washington State

The Oregon coast was so beautiful, but we were anxious to get to Washington and spend time with family. My sweet sister-in-law, Audrey, is battling stage 4 cancer and her husband, Mike, had major surgery during the summer and is still recovering. We were eager to get up there and love on them and serve them in whatever way possible. It’s SO HARD to live so far away from family. My family is in Ohio and James’s family is in Washington- boo hoo 🙁

We had a small family reunion with just Pake & Beppe (Friesian for grandma and grandpa) and their 5 children and families. Below: A family portrait finally! YAY. Thanks Uncle Ralph.

We visited the Lynden Fair with the entire family, went blackberry picking with Pake & Beppe, Kennedy and Beppe made jam (which we’re still enjoying, thank you Beppe!). On Saturday, Pake treated the entire family to breakfast at small airport near their home in Arlington. As an added bonus, a few of the pilots let the kids sit in their planes- so fun! We were able to spend quite a bit of time with Mike & Audrey at their home in Ferndale- the kids loved playing wiffleball with John and Beth.

We even managed to squeeze in time to visit our sweet friends, Christian and Stacey, (Stacey worked for us from the time she and Christian were married until last Chrismas). They just recently had their first baby girls though I’m so far behind, she was still pregnant in these photos.

The 2 weeks went WAY too fast!! On the way out of Washington we stopped back at Brian & Susan’s house for one more night. I was able to take Zach’s Senior pictures! He was SUPER excited about it as any boy probably is 🙂 It was a bittersweet goodbye- so sad to leave but also excited for the journey ahead of us.