Friday Harbor

We went on a wonderful wander last Saturday (March 7).

After our last basketball game (thank god. no more saturday games), we drove up to Mt. Vernon, WA to see if the tulips were in bloom. Every year there is a tulip festival in April. Our weather is so great, I thought they would be up. The green was up, but not the color. There were fields of daffodils though. (photo credit)

So, we wanted to salvage our wandering and the sun was shining and there were blue skies everywhere...we drove a little further north to the town of Anacortes. We decided to walk on the ferry to go to Friday Harbor (on San Juan Island).
 
(photo credit) 

Friday Harbor is the only port on the ferry run that is walkable (that we know of). The other islands require a car to get anywhere and the car adds $38 to the price. For the 6 of us we paid $40.40 to walk on and take a beautiful, leisure ride through the San Juan Islands. We arrived at Friday Harbor at 2 PM. We pulled out our phones to find the nearest park. We ended up at the Middle/High School (they have no playground) and then walked back into the main town. There are a bunch of cute shops, ice cream stands, restaurants to visit.

We played along the waterfront on a seal statue and then found the local elementary school. We walked the .6  miles to the Friday Harbor Elementary school and played for about an hour. The kids had a blast. There was tetherball, playground and a sand pit. Then, we walked back into town to get some ice cream and catch the 5:20 PM ferry back to the mainland. We didn't pay attention and this ferry was the long ferry (it stops at each island). We enjoyed watching the sunset and then lounged on the benches watching cartoons (on our phones). We got back to Anacortes around 7:30 PM and promptly went to the nearest fast food to feed our hungry kids. If we did it over, we would have ate at one of the restaurants in town (Friday Harbor) and then took the 7:30 PM ferry from Friday Harbor.

Overall, it was a great little day trip that was relaxing and absolutely beautiful. If only we can figure out how to work from there so we can live in such a beautiful place.

(p.s. check out the mclinky page above to see other most wonderful bloggers)
Thank You Brenda at Mummy Time for this fun selfless promotion

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Saturday, March 6:

We took an amazing little wandering to Friday Harbor today. It will
have it's own post. But here's my photo of the day. This is what I
looked like for a few hours.

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Sunday, February 28:

It started out as a decent PNW day. The sun was shining and it wasn't freezing cold (a blessing in these parts). I called my brother and his family to see if they wanted to play at a new park with us. He said Yes and we were on our way.

We went to Saint Edward State Park. It's in the Kenmore, WA area right on Lake Washington. There is a fabulous wooden playground with loads of things for the kids to climb on and run around in. There is a paved trail that would be perfect for bike riding (we never remember to bring bikes). And there are some hiking trails to meander on that lead down to the waterfront.

After consulting the map and not thinking too much about the level, we all (11 of us - 4 adults, 7 kids (4 of which are 4 years old)) headed down the "difficult" path that is .40 miles long. It was easy enough to walk down, there was no way in hell I was walking back up that thing without having a heart attack. Anyway, it's narrow and the left side is steep and the kids did a wonderful job "trying" to stay to the right and away from the heart pounding edges. We made it down without a single fall!! Woo Hoo!! Now it was time to try and keep them out of the water while they played at the edge. For one, it's cold. For two, they would whine all the way back up the path with their wet, soggy shoes and socks. For three, they are young and we are dumb.

Actually, they managed to stay dry and loved throwing rocks into the water. We watched a float plane come across the lake and land just out of sight. We waited for the sun to break back out, but it never did. I guess this is good because the .62 mile hike up the moderate trail was very sweat inducing. The kids whined the last little bit and asked to be carried. No freaking way! I told them they could stay there and look for bears, but I was heading to the top and there was no stopping to whine. As we neared the top, my brother Scott, got the fun idea to toss rocks and sticks into the woods on either side of us. The kids were constantly in a state of "what was that?" I asked, "was it a snipe?" "No!" "It was a bear!" That was the consensus of the youngest kids (the 5 that are 4 and 5 years old). They had fun looking into the woods and trying to spot something and were very ecstatic to realize we were at the top of the hike and back on the Seminary building.

Great fun was had by all. And the kids who were "so tired" "I'm dying" where full of energy to run back out on the playground to play some more. It's a very fun place to go spend some time on an early afternoon.