all the tulips: a trip to roozengaarde

recently i've been hearing about the amazing tulip fields that bloom in the spring in washington, so with nothing planned this weekend, we decided to take a little impromptu road trip. it's recommended to get there early because of the crowds, so we tried to get up and get going as quickly as possible on saturday morning. we left at 8am and drove about an hour and a half to skagit valley to the roozengaarde tulip festival. there was already a line of cars and people directing traffic 30 minutes after it opened, but it wasn't too bad. 

right through the entry were some food/flower stands and beautiful gardens to walk around. then we followed the muddy pathways out to the fields and this is what we saw: 

it was absolutely breathtaking in person.

have you ever seen so many flowers?

i've never seen anything like it, i'm so glad we went. 

then it was lunch time, so we decided to drive another 30 miles north to bellingham, which is a cute college town we visited last july. we went back to the same burger place again because it was so good! finally we walked around the town and the farmer's market before heading home. it was cloudy all morning, but the sun came out in the afternoon and made for a beautiful day! 

we took chuckanut drive out of bellingham like we did last summer because the views are absolutely incredible: 

i'm also glad we went to the tulips early because by mid afternoon, the interstate was backed up for miles in that direction! we had such a good day with minimal tantrums/melt downs. i kept joking that it was too good to be true ;) the kids even slept for most of the car ride home. it felt like a mini vacation. i'm so thankful for the opportunity to explore the beautiful pacific northwest!