skagit valley tulip festival

i grew up in washington state and had never been to the tulip festival until this year. we even had a lakehouse up near mt. vernon for a while. i remember driving past the fields one year and seeing the tulips from a distance, but that's about it.

i wasn't planning on going this year either, in fact, it hadn't even made it on my radar until my friend, ruth, told me that she was heading up there and that it was only five bucks for adults and free for kids ten and under. the weather was supposed to be great, so i piled the kids into the car and we made the hour drive up to mt. vernon and met up with the sines. we went to roozengarde.

it was a beautiful morning. nice and sunny (the only drawback to it being so sunny was that we were squinting a lot in the pictures) and we were shedding layers pretty quickly after arriving. we hit some of the big fields first and took a bunch of pictures with the kids and then headed across the road to the actual gardens.

i fully intended to do my girls' hair this morning, knowing that i would be taking lots of pictures of them. then i promptly forgot. i also debated picking their outfits for them so they would be fairly neutral against the flowers but it violated my rule of allowing independence in clothing choice. i may regret the hair and the outfits a little, but they're still cute regardless, right?

jonathan had napped on the way up and was still waking up for the first half hour after we arrived. i pulled him out of the stroller for this one and he wasn't too sure about it. 
 

 

here are some pictures of tulips that violate my general rule that unless you are planning on selling the landscape photo, you should throw a person in the picture. everyone would rather see a picture with someone in it, right? nevertheless, i've included a few just to bore you and test how loyal you are to the blog.

the girls had fun finding buds that had fallen between the rows that they could reach from the paths.

these ones are from the actual gardens. the gardens were beautifully landscaped and had so many varieties of tulips. we got over there around lunch time though and the kids were getting pretty hungry, so we didn't look around a ton before sitting down to eat. by the time we finished eating, it was starting to get pretty crowded (i can't imagine going on a weekend!) and i needed to head back for an appointment. we still got to see a bunch of beautiful tulips though.

on the way home we stopped at an ice cream place that a friend recommended to ruth. i bought a "single" scoop that fed our whole family. the ice cream was good, but the best part was that i bought some great looking tomato starts while we were there. nothing makes me happier than healthy tomato starts. well, not much. 

the rest of the day was filled with whiny, sunburned children that didn't get naps, including some epic emotional breakdowns from diane. looking back through these pictures has been a good reminder that it was worth it.

once a year.