Thanks Jackie...I just spoke to my Daughter and she and her hubby are going to check it out for me in another month or so...I sent her the link to the Olympic National Park website...I'm so glad you mentioned this...because they hadn't heard about the Rain Forest aspect and now they are excited about a new adventure to have to look forward to...Thanks alot...

Glad I could help. We really love the Pacific Northwest. Today my son asked me why I thought he kept going out in the cold NY winter without a hat and gloves. I told him his mind was still living in Seattle!

We spend a day in Victoria, took the high speed ferry over from Seattle. It's beautiful there!

We took the Ferry to Victoria last summer...it was just beautiful...I loved the gorgeous mountains in Washington and I thought the flowers that were blooming everywhere were unbelievably vivid in color...much moreso than in Pennsylvania where I live...but I couldn't truly enjoy it all because I knew at the end of my visit I would be leaving my little girl out there...and it was breaking my heart... ...I'm such a wimp when it comes to leaving my kids...I hope I grow out of this stage soon....

Don't hold you breath, Nancy. I've decided I'll never grow out of it. At least when Ed was going to school out there, we knew he intended to move back east when he finished. It's so much better having both our kids close enough so we can be with them in a couple of hours by plane if we need to. Poor Ed's credit card debt was so high with all the flying back and forth he did when his Dad was so sick last year!

When my kids come to visit, I always cry when they pass through the security gate at the airport. But, I feel it's easier for me to get on a plane after visiting them and I'm not sure why. Maybe because I'm the one leaving and not the one being left. Being a mom can be difficult at times, no matter what the ages of our children.

As a bonus to this thread, why don't we all tell what our favorite food was in our favorite places?

France: the bread and pastry.

Dianne, I remember seeing my son walking towards me at the airport his first visit home from college. Gosh, he looked so good, so happy. I was tickled to see him. I get teary eyed thinking about it.

My favorite vacation spots are all beaches:

Caneel Bay, St John
Little Dix, Virgin Gorda
Kapalua and Mauna Kea in Hawaii

We've been to several islands, but these were my favorites.

Favorite vacation spot with the kids:
Atlantis in the Bahamas.

Best food is always the homemade breads and pastries at the resorts. I'm a carb addict. Just ask the women in the diet forum.

Jackie, instead of paying the school directly, we charge the tuition and pay the credit card company immediately. That way we get frequent flyer miles and our son flies for free. He's flying home for spring break for FREE! Gotta love those free flights.

My kids both arrange and pay for their own travel arrangements, and they use frequent flyer miles whenever they can. Unfortunately, our financial circumastances are such that we cannot afford to pay for those ourselves, although we help as much as we are able.

My brother used his frequent flyer miles to fly us to LA to visit once, and he put us in first class. Now THAT was an experience. They tell me it's not as nice these days.

Now that's what I call a VERY nice brother Jackie...my husband used to work for a company that flew us First Class wherever we went...even to Spain..I felt so spoiled...he left that company
after a few years though...and now I hate to fly...my mother used to tell me..."You can't miss what you never had" she was so right!!!

I really loved St. John Dotsie...it's amazing to see all of the high school kids in their uniforms riding on the ferry to St Thomas every day to get to school...and the natural beauty on that little island is so breathtaking...sigh..I sure could get used to that lifestyle...island living really calls my name...

my favorite island treat is a chocolatey cocktail called a Bushwacker...and all of the fresh fish those islands seem to offer...

blondi, I loved St John, but hated flying in there. We landed on a dirt path wile the goats scattered making room for our arrival. As much as I loved that place, I'm not sure if I'd go back for that reason. But the beauty of the island is out of this world.

The only time we flew first class was coming home from London. I wom a trip the first year we were married and the people at the airport thought we were newlyweds so they bumped us to first class!