Fry Tasting

 We all really like french fries and there are a lot of options for fries here in Lynden. After church last week, we decided to test out a few places and see which ones we thought were the best.

Our plan was to test Rustlers, McDonalds, Dairy Queen, Underground Burger, Popeyes, Taco Time, Burger King, Bob's Burgers, and Grants. However, after the amount of time it took in the first place, we realized we might need to modify our plan. Underground Burger wasn't open so they were scratched off the list. Taco Time does more of a tater-tot type fry so we decided that was too different to compare. Instead of Taco Time, we added Jack-in-the-box to the list. And by the time we made it through six places, we decided we were ready to be done and crossed Bob's and Grant's off the list. (They are less 'fast food' and it was getting late!)

Rustlers was our first stop.

Rustlers

From here, we drove over to McDonalds. Since all the remaining restaurants were within 1/4 mile from each other, we walked from one to the next.

Burger King

Jack-in-the-Box

Dairy Queen

McDonalds

At each restaurant, we rated the fries based on temperature, flavor, and crispiness. We actually found some to be too hot (nobody wants to burn their tongue on a French fry!) and someone weren't quite as tasty. Based on our scoring, McDonalds won, although we all said we would pick Dairy Queen over McDonalds (mostly because of the size of each fry!)

Our score sheet

It was a fun family activity and we were all surproses by the number of french fry options on the corner of Meridian and Birch Bay Lynden Road! Also, the girls decided we need to test hamburgers next!

2024 is off to a good start

 Writing this blog has always been a great way for me to flip back through my calendar and through my pictures and remind myself of what we've been doing. It's a reminder of the day-to-day stuff, as well as the fun activities that fill our days. 

I have a reminder that pops up every two weeks to remind me to hop on here and write another post. Sometimes there are big events to update about, and other times, it's been a less eventful two weeks. But nonetheless, I like to write some sort of an update. 

So here we are, several weeks into 2024. As I sit here in front of my fire, the girls are outside playing in the snow. We're on snow day #2 for the week, and despite how incredibly windy it is outside, they are having fun building an igloo and playing in the snow! We'll see how long this snow sticks around...freezing rain is in the forecast for tonight!

Fun in the snow fort last night

Sledding! 

We've had a lot of very cold weather recently. I think the high temp one day last week was 5* which meant we've spent a lot of time indoors! 

Annaliese doesn't take too many selfies so these were fun to stumble upon!

Playing with kinetic sand

And that about wraps up the past two weeks! We were just getting back into the routine of things after Christmas break, with all the activities resuming, but this week through us off again. (There was no school Monday for MLK day, Tuesday was normal, Wednesday and Thursday were snow days so all the activities were canceled, and tomorrow there's no school because it's a teacher work day/end of the semester!)

Since this is a blog about the family, not just the kids or big activities, Kyle has been busy with BLUE Shirt Coaching. We recently switched to a different platform to host the website that integrates everything all together. It's been a bit of a challenge to get everything functioning the right way, but it will be really nice once it's up and running the right way. After his conference in Arizona back in November, he's been able to implement a lot of the techniques he learned into his coaching practice and his clients are seeing amazing results!

New Years Day

 We started off the New Year with a fun hike in a new place! We met up with Mom, Dad, Kim, Thane, and the boys at Whistle Lake Trailhead in Anacortes for a 4.5-mile loop around the lake. I'd never heard of this place before but stumbled upon it on my search for a new place to hike. We stayed on the main trail, but there were lots of other trails that we could have taken had we wanted different views of the lake, more elevation, or just a longer hike. It was a bit brisk, but the sun came out and we all decided it was a great start to the year!

Whistle Lake

Throwing rocks into the lake

Pretty fungi