4th Festivities

When we lived in Ohio, I felt like we got to see so many cook places....Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinatti, Palmyra, Kirtland, Baltimore, DC, Carolinas, Florida, Kentucky, etc.  Now that we live here I have felt like we've seen all the BIG places around here...Seattle and Portland.  I had no idea there were so many other wonderful places in this state we live in!!  I do get a monthly itch to get out of the country and go somewhere where there is "stuff" to do!

Luckily for us, we have some good friends that are from Washington and let us tag along sometimes when they do cool things.  We headed back up to Camano Island to visit my friend Rachel's parents and check out some cool things while we were there.  

On 3rd we headed to Auburn to watch fireworks with an anesthesiologist that Nate works with at his beautiful home.  We sat in the comforts of his backyard, watched awesome fireworks, and had an unbelievable view of Mt. Rainier in the background the whole evening.

On the 4th, the Quigleys showed us the San Juan Islands in the Puget Sound.  We had our first big ferry experience, and it was so fun!!  It took about an hour to get there, and we saw lots of beautiful little islands along the way.  It's hard to believe we live in the same state as these places, where we live it is so dry over on our half of the state!

 I had some deja vu from our cruise last year...all the sailboats along the lush green hills, so pretty!

 The boys got a little bored of the boat ride after a while, but overall had lots of fun.

 When we got to Friday Harbor, we caught a shuttle to the whale watching site on the island.  We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one orca, hopefully next time we'll see a whole pod!

 Tuck loved climbing on the rocks more than anything...he is such a boy!

 And Gray just likes throwing rocks wherever we go, so we obliged!

 Before we headed out, we grabbed a San Juan Islands ornament and grabbed some yummy ice cream.

 We can't wait to go back and explore more of this awesome island!

 In the evening, we went back out to Camano Island and had a little cookout with Rachel's family, threw more rocks in the water, lit sparklers, and watched fireworks right over our heads as well as from all around the Sound.

 And ate s'mores of course!

Gray watching fireworks.

 Poor T-man had an unfortunate accident on the beach.  He somehow got a firework close to his eye and burned his skin, singed his eyelashes and eye brow, and was fairly miserable for a while.  At least he perked up and was able to watch the fireworks while cuddling with his dad!  Now his poor eye looks awful, scabbed over and red...but at least no damage was done.

 The next day we played more on Camano Island.  We hung out on the beach while the fellas went crabbing for our dinner.  Grayson literally threw rocks in the water for over 2 hours...little boy's dream!

Well hello dinner!