My sweet baby girl is a teenager! What on earth?! Holly is such an easy to please, easy going kiddo and I'm so glad she's in my family. She's a real sweetheart and her friends refer to her as their "friend mom," because that oldest kiddo gig plays out into her relationships with her friends. We gave Holly and cozy sweater and a couple of graphic novels she had asked for. We went for a family bike ride, ate cake and just generally enjoyed the day! Happy birthday darling girl!

My garden is disproportionately flowers over vegetables and sometimes I feel a little guilty, but then my girls make bouquets and I get to see their creativity and connection with things that grow. It was really fun to see a bouquet in a vase a made too.

After visiting the Spheres, we picked up Cuban food and ate it at the Ballard Locks. It was really interesting to see the sockeye salmon and learn how they pass from the ocean to freshwater. There's just something about large bodies of water that is so peaceful to me.

As you can see from the pictures, we kept the babies out late. By this point in our travels, they were pretty done. So we made the decision to head home one day early. Traveling with little ones is a challenge but I'm really glad we still get to do stuff even if it's at half speed.

On our way home from Victoria, we stopped in Seattle for a couple nights and stayed with friends. One evening, we toured the Amazon Spheres and walked through Downtown to a rooftop view. The Amazon Spheres were really unique and cool. We had to go in two groups which was okay because there was a bubble machine to play in while we waited! Living in a small city, it's a lot of fun to visit big cities!

Our last activity in Victoria was fish and chips and fancy ice cream. Yum!