Day 20 - More Beach Bumming

Plenty of kids on the beach (and boats)

More tubing fun (on one of the few overcast days)

Paul's cousin's new baby, Toby. 

Day 19 - Tube Hair

I'm just going to post a highlight picture or two from each day to catch up. As Paul said, it's all about playing on the beach, one day really runs into the next. Hooray for camera phone documentation!

When you pull the boy behind the boat for half an hour or so, the wind and salt water do interesting things to his hair:

Here he is demonstrating how sharp the spikes are.

On a related note, all three kids are doing a good job of acquiring their summer blonde hair, and have become ridiculously tanned.

I'm still learning how to take panoramic pictures with my phone. This one's blurry on the right, but you can see the sunset view.

Day 6/7 Addendum - Ambush! and sliding on snow

A snowball fight on July 6. How awesome is that? I play the traitor in this one.

Kids sliding on snow, July 7.

Day 11 Addendum - Rest area wildlife

These rodents (pika? don't know for sure) were at a rest area in Idaho. Obviously they're pretty used to being fed. In case the video doesn't work for you: there were dozens, and they made a sharp, high whistle sound.

Day 15,16,17, 18 - The Spell

There is something about beach life I just can't put my finger on.  Once you are here, you don't want to leave, not even to go on small excursions, which doesn't bode well for all the plans we had to visit places while at the beach. :)  Before you know it, you have been here a week wondering where all the time went.  It is a wonderful way to live.

The kids are totally in love with the place.  Once they eventually wake up, they are hopping to run down the hill to Great Grandma's house.  Over the last few days they made cookies with my Aunt Donna, did lots more kayaking, swimming, jumping off the dock, fishing, playing in the sand, roasting smores, and watching some TV with Great Grandma.

Katrina and I went to Port Townsend for a few hours and walked around the city, visited a nice bakery, checked out chezemoka park, and had fish tacos at a taco stand in the marina.

On Day 17, we did manage an excursion to Ft. Flagler.  We packed a lunch and headed out to do some hiking around the island and follow up on a rumor that there are ripe blackberries to be picked near the Ft.  

Thanks to the fun beach and sand cliffs we didn't make it very far on the hike.  We did have a good view of Port Townsend and Admirality Inlet where the big ships come in.  At one point I saw what looked like a drone fly overhead, possibly from the airstrip at Whidbey Island or maybe a personal aircraft.  I didn't have enough time to get a picture before it was gone.  The blackberry picking didn't go well as we weren't adequately prepared.  I forgot that to pick wild blackberries you need long sleeves, pants, gloves, and insect repellent.  While there were some ripe berries, there weren't enough to justify the suffering so we abandond that mission.

Day 18 was more beach playing.  I had a project to repair the patio umbrella - the cord for opening it had broken.  In the afternoon I used my Aunt Penny's bike to bike the Larry Scott trail into Port Townsend.  The trail is well done and very scenic.  It's about 7 miles into town but its all downhill there and back ;-).  Got a good view of the PT paper mill and read a little about its history then started the climb back to Discovery Bay.

Day 14 - More fun

Ah shucks, more of the same today.  Perfect weather.  The beach slowed down today as everyone packed up to go home and prepare for work the next day. But there was still time to form a floatilla, crack leftover crab, and play around.

The end to another perfect day

Side note:  It was dusk and I was walking down the driveway to my Aunt's house to borrow a bicycle. I was daydreaming about something when I almost ran into a doe standing in the driveway.  It was a little more than arms length away and it looked at me like I was in its way.  Eventually, the deer moved and I fetched the bicycle.  She was still in the front yard when I headed back.  The animals are getting pretty bold.

Day 13 - Fun in the Sun

The weather has been absolutely perfect.  Clear skies and 80 deg temps.  The beach comes alive on the weekends as people come in from the city to hang out at their cabins.  Woke to the view I never get tired of - Olympic mountains framed by water.  The girls started the morning by picking cherries from the trees my parents planted.  Dad created an elaborate fence around the trees to keep the deer away and put copious amounts of mardis-gras beads on the branches to keep the birds away.

My Cousin John and his wife AnnaJo and newborn Toby came down.  They brought their boat.  My Cousin Andrea and her husband Rod and their kids were here as well as my Uncle Bill and Aunt Donna and of course the reason for all of us, my 92 year old grandmother, was at the center of it all.  Rod manned the grill and whipped up excellent Salmon steaks and my Uncle provided freshly caught crab.  Donna and Andrea are masters at feeding large groups of people and had prepared dishes of food,  nobody went hungry.

We saw a bald eagle pull something out of the water and fly back to its nest.  Several Eagle families have taken up residence around the bay and I hope to see more of them while we are here.

These girls are ready for action!

The kids enjoyed the bay.  There was tubing, knee boarding, playing on the raft, jumping off the dock, and kayaking.  It was cool to watch another generation do the things I use to do when I spent
summers here.  My kids have already done things that I didn't work up the nerve to do until I was several years older than they are. Some things have changed.  We used to have jellyfish fights, they have water balloon fights (The little moon jellyfish don't come around anymore - I wonder why :).

rafts, kayaks, oh my.

Girls and a beach friend ready to tube 

Working up the nerve to jump.
 Seems higher when you are up there.