soccer begins and a night on the olympic peninsula

 we've officially crossed over into fall. we had some beautiful sunny days early last week and then the rain arrived. i'm trying to embrace the coziness as we go into this season. and the fact that we made it through another week of distance learning - that is always something to celebrate :)

last spring azalea's soccer season was cancelled due to covid, but i signed her up for the fall thinking things would be "more normal" by then (ha). the organization sent update emails all summer while they tried to figure out how to do soccer during phase 2. the team was finally able to practice together last tuesday night. there are strict rules like masks are required for everyone, no physical contact, parents should not stay, etc. but i'm so happy she is getting to play. there won't be any games until mid october and they will just be 1 kid from each team on the field at a time. it feels so nice to get back to a little bit of normalcy. 

i busted out the crockpot last week. i found a new chili recipe (that has pumpkin!) and made it wednesday night. we also made some "just because" cupcakes for dessert :)  

rainy day entertainment one afternoon...

we had hoped to do a makeup camping trip over the weekend, but there was too much rain in the forecast, so we canceled again. we decided to instead book 1 night at a hotel in sequim, wa. it's a town on the olympic peninsula. we left after lunch on saturday and took the ferry from edmonds to kingston.

 

then we drove to the town of hansville to look at the ocean. 

 

after we checked into our hotel, we headed out to the dungeness wildlife preserve. 

after a short hike in the woods, we came to the dungeness spit. isn't it awesome?!

 

we walked down to the beach and explored for a bit...

after the beach, we drove to port angeles and got pizza for dinner.

then we stopped at a waterfront park to watch the sunset. it was so pretty! 

the next morning we got up bright and early to do a hike near hurricane ridge. the hike was called hurricane hill and it was 3 miles round trip. the scenery was so beautiful! 

 

 

 

we went to DQ for a well-deserved lunch afterwards. on the drive back, we got stuck for 30 minutes at the hood canal bridge because it was raised for boat traffic. then it was back on the ferry and home to seattle. 

we had a really great time and i'm thankful we could get away for a night.