Northwest anyone?

We returned last Sunday after two wonderful weeks in the beautiful Northwest. Camden and I spent the first week in the Seattle area with my good friend, Jani and her family. She used to live in Tucson but moved back to her old stomping grounds when our boys were almost 2 1/2. Our boys are 13 days apart and were such good buddies before they moved. It's been fun to see them pick up where they left off last time we all got together. Jani has visited us twice since they moved so it was such a treat to (finally) visit her and her family and get a small taste of the Northwest or at least of the Northwest in August. :) First of all it was just so green and beautiful. It was a treat in and of itself to see so many amazing trees! We are from Tucson after all! It really takes very little to make us happy! :) In addition, we enjoyed Pike Place Market, the beach and hunting for sand dollars, picking blueberries (and then of course eating lots of blueberry pancakes and cobblers), Pacific Science Center, Seattle Children's Museum and the Space Needle. One of the many highlights was being buzzed by the Blue Angels while on the observation deck of the Space Needle. In addition, Jani's amazing husband, Ken offered to watch the kids while Jani and I spent the day kayaking around Blake Island. You rock Ken! We enjoyed amazing views of the Seattle skyline and the beautiful snow covered mountains surrounding the area. In addition, we visited Tillicum village which is the birthplace of Chief Seattle. Chief Seattle was the Native American that Seattle was named after. It was an amazing week with a very dear friend and her family!

Here's the two peas in a pod, Camden & Gabe at the beach.

Camden, Gabe and Jani & Ken's sweet daughter, Isabel enjoying the amazing fountain outside of the Pacific Science Center. The kids had great fun but for the boys the day in ended in blood and tears. Ah boys!

Jani & I kayaking around Blake Island.

Jani, Ken & the family outside their home.

At the beginning of the second week, Doug flew in and joined us for one night. We then headed north to join his side on Sinclair Island which is in the San Juan's. Doug's sister, Val and her husband Brian have a summer place there. It is a very small island with only a handful of year around residents. Their is no ferry service so to get to the island you either go by boat or plane. We arrived via Val & Brian's boat which took about 20 minutes from the Fairhaven dock. The island was incredible. Val & Brian have done so much work putting together an amazing slice of island life. They own 40 acres there and have cleared a few small areas for some small kit cabins and paths around the property. They also cleared another area that made a place to play soccer and volleyball which we greatly enjoyed. The main cabin is solar powered and and as of the last couple of years has running water. We still got to enjoy an outhouse though which I must add was by far the nicest outhouse I have had the pleasure of using. :) Their property has it's own beach and amazing views of surrounding islands as well as Seal rock which is where the seals like to hang. They have also added many wonderful activities. They have a telescope set up for viewing, a ball swing, tether ball, zip line and archery. They also had numerous bikes and kayaks to enjoy the island and ocean. We picked blackberries and had blackberry pancakes and way too much blackberry cobbler. We also went clamming and had homemade clam chowder. Yum! All that was missing was the bread bowl! :)

Here are my boys on Sinclair.

The boys doing one of the many enjoyable activities on Sinclair.

While we were there they had the lowest tides of the month so one of the high points for me was going out in the kayaks and boats. This is one of many amazing creatures we saw. We couldn't help but get a closer look at this one. We believe that it is a Sunflower Sea Star. Don't worry though no sea creatures were harmed during our explorations.

Grandma Alice, Doug & Camden enjoying low tide.

Camden enjoying the ball swing along with our niece, Marley and Doug.
Here's the whole gang. By the end of the week I think there were 19 of us.

It was a wonderful two weeks! Val & Brian thank you for sharing your island with us this summer. It was amazing!

On the way home I asked Doug, "So what do you think about the Northwest?" What do you think his response was? Yep, he rolled his eyes! :)