Thursday, August 15, 2013

San Juan Island

 We got up very early to drive to Anacortes, Wa to catch a ferry to the San Juan Island.  It was a bit socked in weather wise but the sun came out about 11am and was perfect!  It was a bit chilly when we first got there as you can see Bryant refused to get dressed in his shorts and chose to stay in his pajamas!  Above, we had hiked to a lighthouse, which was small and disappointing.  Down from the edge they are walking to is this down in the next photo.
 The kids spent forever climbing all over the rocks searching for sea life and seaweed!  Bryant also found a yellow balloon, go figure?
 We stopped by the American camp and the English camp, how fitting as our guests are from England.  The English camp was so cool, it was situated on a nice little bay and neatly laid out unlike the American's camp that wasn't around anymore.  We just went into a small interpretive center to learn about how the two countries were arguing over who owned the islands.
 Bryant, Stayson and Adam are watching a man clean a salmon in Roche Harbor, where we stopped to eat lunch.  Below is called Lime Kiln Beach or "whale watching beach".  The kids again just had fun playing on the rocks and looking for sea life.  No whales, darn!

 and climbing trees...

 This is Friday Harbor and it is such a quaint little port.  The guys are talking sail boats as Stayson has purchased a fixer upper one and has yet to do anything to it.  Below is a photo of the babies fast asleep after a long day.  It is an hour and twenty minutes to drive to the ferry in Anacortes... late night.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Taylor's visit

 Mt. St. Helens was pretty amazing.  We tried to go to the Ape Caves too, but they were on the other side of the Mountain, darn!
 We took the Taylor family who was visiting from England to go clamming.  Here they are shucking and eating oysters!  Even little Bry ate one and said it wasn't bad at all.  Sarah in the end didn't do it, she tasted the salt water and gave up.  James put a huge one in his mouth and it wouldn't go down and he ended up spitting it out, gross!  Stayson said he ate four or five!  Those were the brave ones!  Sydney found some baby star fish, they were so cute!


 After a quick lunch we headed to the other side of the spit to dig up clams.  All you do is rake the top layer of sand off and dig around with your hands and they are everywhere!  We collected 140 clams and then the next day we had my friend Stephanie come teach us how to steam them, actually not bad at all!  Everyone loved them! 

 On the way over to the spot to clam we took two trips shuttling everyone, but on the way back we decided to make one trip.  Our poor little fishing boat couldn't plane and was slow...running at full board.  That's a lot of weight!  We had a beautiful day at the beach and so much fun too!