Thursday, July 6, 2017

The Goolds Take on Seattle

We woke up the first morning of our trip  to several missed phone calls from France.  When we called the number back, Cami answered and informed us that her wallet and ipad had been stolen.   We had to cancel her debit card and our shared credit card immediately.   The thief had attempted to use our credit card numerous times, but thankfully only one transaction went through and we were not held liable for it.   It was an inconvenient way to start our vacation, but we LOVED hearing Cami's voice for a few minutes while we worked out the details of what needed to be done.    

This is a letter to Cami sent on June 12, 2017 about the Seattle portion of our trip!   

**************************************************
Hi, Cami!!!
So, did you find out anything else was stolen?  😬 Hopefully not!!!!  What a jerk-wad-idiot-face that took it in the first place.  Have the details been taken care of?  Have you been able to replace your driver's license yet?    I'm hoping that all your pictures are out there in the cloud somewhere and not lost forever.  We still have all the ones you've shared with us at least and I'm guessing that the ones you've shared with G. are also safe, but who knows about the rest?  So, do you have a new iPad yet?  Will they send us a bill?  Or should we buy you one and get it sent to you?  Let us know!!!  We will send you  the new credit cards as soon as we get home from vacation.

Also, Adam has some advice for you.  He thinks you should never take off your bag while you're playing sports ever again.  In fact, he thinks you should sleep with it and take it into the shower with you too. 

As you know, We are officially on vacation now!
 We spent Saturday in downtown Seattle.   We loved the Pike Place Market and Gum Alley!    
  


 We even made our own contribution to the gum wall!  
 We also enjoyed walking around town and seeing some of the iconic Seattle sites!
 
We also found some great food at Pike Place Market:
 
 
 We also loved these bathroom signs.

 
Today we went on a really cool and somewhat strenuous hike up to Poo Poo Point.
 We picked it because of the name, but it actually was a very cool hike with an awesome view at the top!


Then we went to church, visited the Seattle temple, saw a temple bunny, and had fun reenacting the statues! 


After the temple, we drove and ferried over to the Olympic peninsula.  We are staying in a cute little town called Port Townsend.    Port Townsend is adorable and we found the best breakfast of our lives at this little restaurant.

Yum-o!!!!   That cinnamon swirl french toast was out-of-this-world! 
 
 

 We also found good fudge, good ice cream, and a good thai place. 
 

{The following part in italics is not a part of the original letter.  I'm adding it, just so I can have all of our time in Seattle in one post.} 

On Monday we walked from Chetzemoka Park to Fort Worden Historical State Park along the beach....

 It was an absolutely lovely walk and we saw bald eagles, found seashells....
 

saw gorgeous wildflowers...
It was a great way to finish up our time in Port Townsend...
 
 After that, we headed back up to Seattle and met my Aunt Sandy at a mall right next door to the University of Washington.  We ate dinner at Blue-C Sushi, 
 

which was a new experience for us....
 
 It was great to catch up with my Aunt Sandy, whom I had not seen in many years...
 and then we found another statue that was crying out for them to reenact....
 We were fascinated by this brick and mortar Amazon bookstore, since we had no idea they existed...
 
And thus ended our time in Seattle and we drove straight to the airport....


 {The original letter resumes here}


We head up to Alaska on Monday evening, where Spence will meet us. 

We will be sure to share lots of pictures and send you a few postcards too!    πŸ’•

Spence finally got a haircut.  It was so shaggy he had rats' nests (no joke). 

Emma officially finished seminary this week! Also, she is wearing a pink tie dye t-shirt and black shorts to bed. πŸ‘πŸ»

Adam is officially our best hiking buddy.  He seems to like hiking better than any other kid and is always the first to volunteer for a walk or a hike. 🚢🏻

Ellie is GROWING.  Besides her size 9 feet, she's outgrowing her clothes left and right.  She hasn't really hit her growth spurt yet, but she's filling out a bit and I imagine that the growth spurt is coming soon.

I'm still not eating chocolate. I've more than made up for the lack of chocolate with other junk, but, yay me.

Dad wants to know if you need him to beat anyone up  (like a thieving credit card stealer???)

Alright, I love you!  Je t'aime! 

Love you!!!!!!!!!!!!
πŸ’•πŸ’žπŸ’—πŸ’˜❣️
Mom




Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Bear vs. Bare

We went on a hike around Burke Lake on Saturday morning and came across this sign....

We didn't know if we should be more nervous about the purported bears 🐻 or the other side of the sign....πŸ™ˆ

We went 7 miles and you'll be relieved to know that we didn't see any bears or naked people, so I guess you could call our hike a success.

Saturday, June 3, 2017

Spring Break 2017: Louisiana: State #49!

We finally made it to state #49 (for Glen and Spencer)!!!  


We started off by going on the "Acadian Swamp Tour".    It was a lovely and peaceful tour, which we enjoyed very much. 
The scenery was amazing....


and we enjoyed the opportunity to just sit back and enjoy the sights!  

We also saw some real-deal alligators in the wild, which was kind of the point of the whole trip, so that was cool!  
After the swamp tour, we took a tour of nearby Nottoway Plantation--the largest antebellum mansion to survive the Civil War.   We enjoyed that, but were a little tired and hungry by then, and didn't stay as long as we planned. 
I did love this place setting though....even if it did make my stomach growl even more!  

After that, we headed into New Orleans.... 
and found plenty of food and excitement there....



We met some sister missionaries on their p-day in the WWII Museum.  I was a little sad that we couldn't take them out for lunch or something, but we still loved making the connection!

The WWII Museum is a cool museum and we enjoyed learning all about the south's role in that war. 
We found more good food (I LOVED my meal from "The Ruby Slipper").  
It was interesting to walk around town and see all of the lingering damage from Hurricane Katrina.  
 
 There seemed to be ongoing construction on every corner and you could see the lines demarcating old from new in many places. 
 
Our friends, the Harrisons, are serving their mission in the Baton Rouge mission.   They highly recommended that we visit a Louisianan graveyard while we were in town.  

It seemed like a weird recommendation, but it was actually very fascinating.    Because of the high water table there, people are encased in above ground tombs, rather than buried in the earth.    They looked like mini villages and many people do refer to them as "Cities of the Dead".  

Our last stop before heading back home was the French Market....
It was a fun final stop and we enjoyed soaking up a little more New Orleans / French culture before departing for home!    The only downfall of our stop there was that we didn't have as much time as we would have liked to stay and really explore.  
And thus ended our spring break to the deep south!     


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