Friday Harbor

***  I just have to say that it has literally taken my 3 weeks to get this post finished.  I will be so happy once September is over!!!  Hopefully I’ll get back to my “regular” postings soon.***

So, for some reason I thought it would be fun to cram a whole summers worth of activities into two weeks. :)  One of the days Nana was here we took the girls up to Friday Harbor to visit with her sister.  It was a long way to go for a day trip but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.  So beautiful!

We got up and out of the house by 7am to catch the 9:30 ferry.  I was pleasantly surprised that we actually made it out of the house on time. Heck we even had time to stop for coffee and still made it with time to sing songs in line. :)I don’t think Brittney enjoyed the singing too much.It was a little chilly and pretty windy when we left but we were confident that it would burn off.  I’ve got a wind pouf…I packed a bag of things to do while on the boat, but the girls seemed to want to fight over the spinning  seats…you know, because there weren’t many available.  It was a crowded room as you can see…After the seat fights, we made our way to a booth where we colored and read a few books.  I’ll have to record Emmie reading a story.  She tells the funniest stories.  What an imagination!Look at that…the sun is making it’s way out just in time for us to get off the boat!We made our way to Charlene’s house which was just a few blocks from the ferry dock, said our hello’s and then headed out for our island tour.  Charlene’s boyfriend works at the University of Washington Marine Research Preserve and we got our own personal tour.  Pretty cool.We learned about tide pools and got to get an up close look at some of their inhabitants.Sand dollars.  When they’re alive they’re black.  We didn’t know that. :) I tried to get pictures of the starfish tanks but they just didn’t turn out.  It was all just so interesting.After the Preserve tour we headed out to one of the many beaches.  Charlene thought we might find lots of driftwood, but instead we found lots of jelly fish…giant jelly fish.  I’m going to start calling Hannah the dog whisperer…we laugh because babies cry when she’s around but dogs run to her.  :)  They love her and she loves them!Next up, South Beach.  This is where, if we had been looking, we could have found lots of cool pieces of drift wood, but instead we found lots and lots of cool rocks.  As we headed back to the car, I told the girls to pick their favorite rock(s) and bring it back to show Nana.  We all picked a few small rocks, while Emmie loaded up her dress with the biggest rocks.  Seriously, this girl makes me laugh.  How she managed to carry them all back without dropping any on her toes is beyond me.Our next spot was more of a scenic stop…False Bay.  We didn’t do any beach exploring because the tide was out and we didn’t want to get all muddy.  According to Charlene, you can actually walk out to that little island of trees out there…maybe next time…or not. :)From there we went to Deadman Bay and Lime Kiln state park.  Apparently this is one of the best places to see whales…we didn’t see any but it was beautiful none the less!  As we walked down the trail we got to learn about the different types of trees.  This is a Madrone tree…and if you’re like me you didn’t know that it sheds it’s bark every year. :)Deadmans bay…I know exactly why they call it that, because if you’re not careful, you’ll fall off the cliff and die.  :) I was a bit nervous walking my two girls along the trail, I don’t do cliffs very well, especially with no-fear Emerson in tow. Yikes!  Next up on the whirlwind trip…the Alpaca farm.  I’m not sure what to think of them…I “think” they’re cute.  :)Ok, Ok…they were pretty cute.From there we had just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat and get one game of 3-13 in before catching our 6:30 ferry.

We sure crammed a lot into one day but we had so much fun doing it!  I’ve told Tom that we’ll be making another trip to Friday Harbor as a family, but next time I insist on staying for longer than 7 hours.