Grandma and the Aunties

Holy Cow! It's been a long time coming...I'm sure that you've been hoping and hoping and hoping that I would blog. Checking back at least once a day. And when you saw that it was the same, nearly bursting into tears. I know. My blogs are that cool.

But, I must warn you. This blog is going to have A LOT of pictures. In fact, I'm going to tell about the L* Family Girl's Weekend in pictures.

Well, first off. What is the L* Family Girl's Weekend you ask? Well, it is a time for all the girls in Brent's family who are over the age of 18 to get together and have fun. (Only 5 more years until you can come, Em!) This year they asked me to be in charge, so I brought everyone up here and we went to San Juan Island. Well, almost everyone. Sorry you couldn't make it Jen. We missed you.

And now, to the pictures, in no real order...
Look at those lovely ladies. Well, and Jackson. Our other rule is that if the baby is still nursing, they can come along. I know, that's pretty nice of us.
And there is the rental house that we stayed in. (The one with all the windows.) The windows would have been great if it hadn't been for the fact that we were having an uncharacteristically hot weekend. When I opened the door to the home, it was liking opening an oven. 104 degrees. EEEK! But it did cool down finally. I only melted a little bit.
Just a pretty beach that Julie and I went to see. Unfortunately the tide was in so no one else ventured out. But just to prove we were there...
A scrunch picture! My favorite.

These next few pictures are from the American Camp. There was a war nearly fought between the British and the Americans over the San Juan Islands. The death of a pig almost brought the countries to blows. If you would like to learn a bit more about it, go here.
That's Mt Baker in the background, one of our many volcanoes.
Here's Jess and Jackson.
Here are most of the girls who went on this girls weekend. Not me...I don't climb. And not Mom...she was taking the picture.
Silly Marcela
The four of us - Mom is again taking the picture - hiked out to see what we could see from the top of the bluff. Surprisingly a lot...
I kept saying that we were "Grandma and the Aunties". Not all of us are moms and only one of us is a grandma, but we're all aunties. So here are the Aunties.
Another view from the top of the bluff. You really could see forever, but you couldn't get to the beach very fast if there was an invasion.
Cute Jackson was a little bit small for the umbrella stroller, but we made it work.
This is a cross section of a huge tree. The white sign points to when the Pig War was going on. It's kind of amazing how long trees live. Kind of sad that it's now cut down, but cool to look at.
Another view from the bluff. Don't the clouds look cool?

And now for British Camp...


British camp was much closer to the water, but down a HUGE hill. So we had to rest in the shade before heading back up.
The formal garden was just beautiful!
At the top of that dead tree is an osprey nest. Isn't that a crazy place to put a nest?
And how to do you get to an island? A ferry. I do believe in ferries, I do, I do. (Hee hee) It's so hard to describe to someone who has never seen a ferry how big they are. But they are big enough to drive a bunch of cars on. And it was nice hanging out in the front of the boat with Katie. She toughed it out the whole time. Others visited, but they always got cold and left. I finally cooled down a little. It was great! The ferry ride home was quite a bit different - completely foggy. It was almost scary - I'm glad I wasn't driving the ferry!




We stayed in a lavender field. Katie felt she needed to frolic...

I just want to tell you that I have found where I'm going to retire. Not to the island, but to this specific part. Lime Kiln. It is the only state park in the country dedicated to whale watching.

From where I was sitting, the deep water was only about 25 feet away. Awesome! So the orcas could come right up to the shore. Wouldn't that be cool? However, no orcas while we were there. They have hydrophones in the water and we couldn't even hear any, but I'm sure as soon as I turned my back, there they were...

We did see a harbor seal:

And a couple of deer:

At first it was kind of cool seeing deer, then we kept seeing more and more and more. Then it wasn't as cool, they were more like dogs. "Oh look, another deer. Ho hum!"



I told them they would have to tell me to leave, so they eventually did. However, if you ever lose me, you could probably find me there, watching for whales. Me and my dream camp chair. Just watching for whales. Maybe with an umbrella to keep the sun and rain off. Just watching for whales.

Wait...where was I? Oh yeah, the girl's weekend.
Notice how I'm taking the picture, and letting them put their feet in the water. It's cold water around these parts! Even in July! They thought just because the beach was called South Beach that it would be warm. Silly them...


Here's Camila and Jackson. They were born 2 weeks apart. They liked to talk to each other.
I love, love, love this picture of Camila! You can't see it in the picture, but her hair is the prettiest red!
This is how she normally sucks her thumb.
And this is how Jackson sucks his thumb, well, fingers. Funny how different, but still the same end result.

Isn't Friday Harbor pretty?

Julie took this picture for Brent. He needs a shirt that says this.

In order to cart all these lovely people around, I rented a 12 passenger van. I think I might buy one now -
NOT! It wasn't too bad to drive, but I so love my little car!

But we did have plenty of room.

And so concludes the Girl's Weekend remembered in pictures. I'm glad that everyone got to experience a little bit of my neck of the woods. It was a great time! Even if I'm never renting from Budget Rentals again. Ever. Grr...I don't even want to think about it.

:)