Fun With the "Grands" at Sand In The City....

Our hometown of Tumwater, Washington sits next door to the city of Olympia, which is our state's capitol. There is a great spirit of community in this area and you can find all sorts of interesting festivals and events throughout the year. Each summer, Olympia hosts "Sand In The City". We decided to get our 2 granddaughters last Saturday morning and head down to the port plaza to have some fun.

The day dawned gloomy and cloudy (typical WA weather), but by the time we got down to the marina area the sun was shining. Here is a view of the marina area in Budd Inlet facing toward our capitol building. Olympia lies at the southern end of the Puget Sound and many folks have boats here.
Here are our "grands", Zoey and Mackenzie on the boardwalk at the marina and port plaza.

Sand In The City is a 3-day event which is geared mainly towards families with children, but people of all ages come to enjoy the sand sculptures. We don't have a real sandy beach right at the marina area, so tons of sand is brought in for the sculpture artists to work their craft.

I guess this guy really lost his head over the whole event!

In additional to enjoying the sculptures, the girls got to participate in the kid activities sponsored by our Hand's On Children's Museum here in town. They had a couple of giant sandboxes for the kids (we avoided those), face painting, bubble making, games, jewelry making booths and a petting zoo. The library was represented, too, and was handing each child a free book to take home.

After tiring of the sand fun, we all walked to the nearby Olympia Farmer's Market. This is one of the best farmer's markets in our state. Wonderful fruit and veggies on sale, plus craft items, a bakery, fresh flowers and live music to enjoy.

Here is one of the vegetable stands from a local grower.

The girls convinced Papa that they needed a brownie treat from the bakery.

From the Farmer's Market we walked back to the car and drove over to the mall and Chuck E. Cheese. We decided to take the girls there for lunch and let them play with the games for a while. Since the weather was so glorious outdoors, Chuck E. wasn't very crowded.

We bought the girls each a pizza. Papa and Grandma stuck with the salad bar for lunch. We are still carrying a few too many pounds after eating too much (read: pigging out) at Walt Disney World.

Zoey and Mackenzie had their picture taken with Chuck E. Cheese in his little car.

After taking all the excitement we could handle there with Chuck E., we headed back to the motorhome. The girls were having a sleep-over with Grandma and Papa. The girls and I did some crafts together at the dining table...lots of coloring and cutting and pasting. Then Grandma had to collapse for a while. While I rested, the girls opened their toy box and pulled out all of the dishes, cooking toys and food to play restaurant. They love to make a huge mess when they come over, but they always clean up when they are done.

We missed the girls so much when we were gone for so long. It is great to be back in town now for a while and spend some time with them.

Until next time.....so long for now!