What can you Squeeze into 7 days?

We took a week off and squeezed, pinched, crammed enough activities into those days that it felt like 3 weeks off.

We had the first 2 days with Oli so took him to The Great Wolf Lodge. If you live in the Seattle area and have turned on a TV or radio in the last 6 months, you are familiar with the obnoxious ads. It was heaven for Oli...an indoor water park resort including big kid water slides (if you're luckily now over 48" tall), little boy water toys (if you're under 6 years old), story time at night, and nothing to eat but pizza. Little boy heaven!.

After those water logged days, we headed up to the San Juan islands with Natalie, Chris, and Nate. Those days were full of boating adventures, crabbing, laughs and most of all creating memories and a desire to make this an annual trip.

The Walsh's not only lent us their boat for the trip, but also their crab pots and crab cooker. Little did we know that this was THE thing to do in the San Juans this time of year. EVERYONE was crabbing so we joined in! This group activity yielded dinner one night and an appetizer the next. Not bad...

Fishie Kissie?

Nate practicing his rowing skills before us girls jumped in for our ride to shore to Stuart Island. Stuart Island is a smal island with 25 year round inhabitants. No water, no electricity and they say that the one thing they have in common is the desire for solitude. There is one school house on the island and this year it is open for 2 students, siblings and their mom is the teacher.

Nate - your forgot your legs!

We hiked from one end of Stuart Island to the other where you are a stone's throw away from the Canadian border. Here you can also catch a glimpse of orcas if you are lucky. We weren't that lucky but did have a fantastic viewing of a bald eagle.

Girls will be Girls...gabbing the entire hike on Stuart Island.

Boys will be boys...they started just skipping rocks but then they had the idea of doing it left handed and that made them giggle.

This is going through the BIG locks in Ballard. Please notice the calm crew on our vessel (and a good shot at the "bump"). I encourage you to ask Captain B to tell you the story about that itty bitty blue sail boat up front to the right. There was nothign calm, cool nor collected about their (sideways) entry into the locks.