Lucy & Becky

Lucy and I (Becky) drove up to Tacoma, WA, on Friday night to check into this adorable house with an incredible view of the sound:

Saturday morning we got up early and spent the morning exploring the cold, but nearly deserted and totally awesome Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium.

After lunch we visited a cool kids resale shop and Lucy got to pick out her holiday dress as well as some other fun clothing items.  (Grand total for a bag of new-to-her clothes? $20). We then spent a couple hours browsing this incredible local toy store so that Lucy could pick out Will’s Christmas gift from her.  She also spent some of her hard-earned allowance on this sparkly bracelet decorating kit.

Sunday morning we were up super early, and without even noticing Lucy spent a full hour in this position on the chair.  She only came up for air when her chapter book was finished.

After we checked out, the Tacoma Children’s Museum was still not yet open, so we parked and walked down to the Chihuly Bridge of Glass.  Lucy was sufficiently impressed.

The final stop on our retreat was to spend a couple hours at the Tacoma Children’s Museum.

We had a great time and although it seemed like an odd decision at the time, going to Tacoma proved to be a fun-filled place for a retreat!

Will & Ben

After the others left, we changed into our pajamas and ate dinner with a movie. I’ve thought long and hard about how best to introduce my kids to Star Wars, and in the spirit of the Machete Order, we started with Episode IV on an earlier retreat, so now he was ready for the Empire to Strike Back.

Becky found him some pants that fit!

He proudly wore them for his first time playing mini golf at the Family Fun Center.

We earned enough tickets to take home a couple of prizes.

The next day, we did up our hair…

…for an archery birthday party!

The whole weekend was a ton of fun, and we got to know each other just a little bit better.