Ryan hated last summer in Chandler. He hated sweating, he hated getting into a super hot car. He hated being outside. When I first told him we were thinking about moving, he wasn’t that happy about it. He didn’t want to be away from his grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and friends. He didn’t like the thought of leaving our house. I finally told him that we were moving somewhere colder. He immediately LOVED the idea of moving.
When I told him it would be colder in Seattle for some reason he automatically assumed there would be snow. We pulled up to our new house and he was a bit disappointed that there was no snow. “Where’s the snow Mom?” was his first question. We told him that it didn’t snow at our house much, but we lived close to snow. He was SO excited to go to the snow.
We checked out the weather and last Saturday (February 19) was supposed to be a sunny day so we decided that was going to be our snow day. Chris and I did a little research on where the best place to go were and we were surprised with how many options we had. The closest place being about an hour away. It seemed like there was snow in all directions of us! There are a lot of ski resorts near by, as well as tubing hills, snow shoe paths, and cross country skiing. We wanted something a little more laid back where we could build a snowman if we wanted and make snow angels.
We decided on going to the closest place since we weren’t sure how the kids would like it. We loaded up and had to make some stops on the way. We got snow chains for our tires. Most mountain passes encourage all vehicles to carry them, just in case. We didn’t end up using them, but it was nice to know we had them just in case. We also stopped for donuts on our way. (Back in Chandler it was a Saturday tradition to get donuts, I like it as much as the kids, so I’m sure we’ll keep it up.)
We got to the ski resort and it looked busy. I’m not surprised because the weather was perfect. It was sunny and almost 40 degrees. We went to another place where you can park just off the road. It looked like a good spot for what we wanted so we suited up (in our snow gear) and let the kids play. It was a lot of fun! We built a snow man, and made snow angles. We had a snow ball fight, and Chris made a snow fort for the kids. We even found a little hill and went sledding.
After about two hours Lilly was getting cold and wanted to get back in the car so we unsuited up. Chris and Ryan weren’t quite ready to call it quits. We drove a little ways down the road to a tubing hill and Ryan and Chris went tubing for about an hour more while me and Lilly just hung out in the car. (I was more than happy to do this, I’m not crazy about the snow.)
After that I had heard about a waterfall called Snoqualmie Falls. Since we were at Snoqualmie Summit I figured they may be close. They were about 40 minutes apart and Snoqualmie Falls was in the direction of home. We decided to go check it out!
Its a really pretty fall! Its just under 300 feet tall.
Its Pretty close to the road so just about everyone can make the short walk to it! It was crowded there as well. Since we had just spent several hours in the snow the kids were cranky and hungry so we didn’t last long at the falls. I think you can walk down to the bottom, but we didn’t get to do that. We just saw it from the top.
After that we decided to eat in Bellevue. Its a town pretty close to Seattle. Chris took us to a hamburger place (Lunchbox Laboratories) that he ate at when he was interviewing. It was really good!
It was a great day and the kids LOVED it! I’m glad that we were able to go and I think Ryan was pleased with the snow in his new home!
Seattle is sea level, We live on a hill so we are around 300 feet in elevation. Snoqualmie Summit is 3,015 feet, and Thatcher AZ is 2,910 feet elevation so we weren’t much higher than Thatcher.
