We caught the 5am boat out of Kingston (yeah, getting up at 3:30 was FUN) and then made it up to Anacortes in time for the 7:45 boat. WHEW, no waiting in lines at the boat. All in all we were in good spirits despite the early morning. The boys slept in the car and by the time we were on the boat they were ready to roll.


We had time to spare before Jenn and Rob got to the resort and we could check in so we took the boys out to Moran State Park to hike. They loved the waterfalls, what a treat to be able to get so close. They got to touch the water, too but we made it a short hike just to be sure we didn’t push it. The view from the top of Mount Constitution was breathtaking, too!


Levi is such a sailor!

The Hukilau, from the water.

This is Rob in the “fold up boat”…it truly does fold up and it’s surprisingly sturdy, too!

Strike a pose, Dee!

Jim helping Rob get the fold up boat back onboard.

Levi and Jack trying to convince Katy (the dog) to tinkle in the “doggy potty” onboard. She preferred to piddle on the deck, though. She’s still learning how to be a boat dog.

Here are a bunch of pics for you, yes, I will bore you with our family vacation photos. Cool thing about this is that you can close them whenever you want, not have to listen to me rant about every one of them (sorry for that last night, mom and dad!) Happy to be back but we could have easily stayed. Jenn and Rob spoiled us and we couldn’t thank them more!

How cute is this little guy?

Carlos and I coming back from our fishing trip. I look shockingly big compared to my little guy, that’s not so good!

Suprisingly, Dee didn’t catch much with the Lightning McQueen rod.

Carlos caught the first fish! He really wanted to spend most his time fishing, and he and I even went out on our own to fish while the other kids played. It was really nice to have time just me and him and chat while we waited for the fish to bite.

We fished a lot off the dock, we caught a bunch of fish and the boys did great. I even caught a keeper sized cod right before we left.

Off to fish, let’s go get the big one!

This is where Carlos was on all of our boat trips…clinging to me, then crashing for hours. Talk about butt rocks, those boat chairs aren’t so comfy after 3 hours.

Dinner time!

Carlos spent most of his time on the boat sleeping, I think that was his way to cope with the sea sickness.

Even Levi caught a little shut eye on the boat while he took a break from playing with all the kids in the cabin.

Trey’s make-shift bed on the boat.

Trey crashed on the boat, the funny part about this that you can’t see is that he’s still holding his peanut butter sandwich. At one point, he woke up, stuffed the rest in his mouth, laid back down and napped some more.

Rob hanging out with the kids by the fire and Levi LOVING holding the puppy.

This log looked so much like a seal, I had to take a picture.

Yum…garlic steamed clams, my favorite!

Carlos’ silhouette

Jenn took a billion pictures, can’t wait to see hers and share them too.

Dee got some gourmet marshmallows (caramel and banana flavors) from my mom that she shared with the grown-ups. The kids got Western Family, but didn’t seem to mind.

Trey enjoys the sunset in only a coat and crocs!

Our yurt (or tent cabin as they called it) was perfect for us, with a queen bed for Dee and I and a futon for the boys. Didn’t spend much time here but it worked well.

Rob, Jenn and Judy (Jenn’s sister) hanging out at the lodge and planning the day. Jenn’s holding a lovely map of the islands and pointing out “you are here”

Here are my little future bloggers!

Ping Pong Tournament (Dee and Jenn’s mom)

Ah, how sweet are these boys?! Yes, I did plan for the red sweatshirts…we try to dress brightly when we travel (and this was the morning of our last day) so we don’t lose anyone.

We are in paradise, all but the tropical weather and clear blue water. The San Juans are gorgeous and the weather has been exceptional. We’re all a little sunburned but nobody’s complaining. We’ve decided to stay an extra day, the yurt (or tent cabin as they call it here) is available another night so we couldn’t pass up the chance. It’s a long way to come for a couple of days.
The boys are in heaven, there are 9 kids in our little group and even with ours being the youngest by a couple of years, they are holding their own and playing well with the big kids. We’ve spent a LOT of time on the boat and exploring the surrounding islands. We’ve been fishing off the pier (yes, mom, the boys have had life jackets on the WHOLE time) and Carlos caught his very first fish. It was just he and I out on the dock and he looked at me, smiled and said “I’m a REAL fisherman now!” He was very proud of his 3 inch long catch, I think it could have been half the size and he’d have been equally happy.
We also went hiking at Mt. Constitution and saw a couple of waterfalls that the boys were amazed with. Not sure the plans for today…we may be back on the boat, may do some geocaching (www.geocaching.com) or just hang out. We have no phone sevice up here (it’s Canadian, eh?) but I jumped on the community computer in the office to check in with the world.
Tuesday is back to reality….not sure we’re ready for that! We will have lots of pictures to share, though!

So I can’t believe I haven’t blogged in 3 days…and the last entry was that sappy video clip! Sorry, y’all.

I saw a posting on craigslist a couple days ago for a cheap 30gb video ipod and I jumped at the chance to get it. My old mp3 player that I slaved away to put my entire cd collection on now won’t turn on. We are still listening ONLY to ABBA in the car lately, kid’s choice, and that needs to change…fast. So I loaded the clown car (aka Volvo with TOO many kids in it!) and headed to Silverdale to meet this person, who would hopefully hold the key to my ABBA salvation. I met her, the ipod is great but I felt really bad. She was moving and had to sell it, she was young (19?) and I think she was leaving a bad situation. So, my gain and hopefully my money will help her get started in her new place. I have to be optimistic, I just have to be. Anyhow, it took me a little while to take off some of the heavy metal off of it (I’d prefer ABBA, even at this point) and now I have the daunting task of loading my cds. Dee and I have combined to have LOTS of music, most of it old school but we like it. So I haven’t been blogging, I’ve been putting cds in the computer and adding them to the ipod with every waking moment of my day that isn’t spent as the mama taxi.

I did take all the kids to their last swimming lesson yesterday morning….yippee…no more sitting in chlorine fumes for an hour then trying to dress slippery, wet, uncooperative children afterward! Since Carlos didn’t get to swim due to a technical error on the pool’s part, and Dee was home yesterday afternoon, I took him to swim after nap. He was jazzed to have some one-on-one time, even though he is not a fan of the pool. We had fun and even got a treat of Swedish Fish afterward!

Here’s a sappy but sweet story….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN9xgUovIbA