Adventures

March 20th we went to Port Townsend, WA and headed to the Fort Worden and checked out the area. There was a beach - so beautiful, full of sand (some of the "beaches" down here are full of rocks) and so Andrew had a blast playing with the sand toys we brought with. Eventually we started walking and looking at more of the area - the beautiful water, the light house, and went on a little hike up to bunkers that were built roughly in the early 1900's. It was amazing to look around, walk in these bunkers and take shots of them. Kind of eerie but also neat. Aldon wound up seeing a deer close-by so I tried to take a few pictures - found out pictures don't turn out well when auto-focus keeps aiming for the branches in front of the deer. I stalked that deer quite a while and got a good 15-20 feet away from him before he'd start moving. I only like 2-3 of all the deer pictures in the end. Majority were blurred. Overall a spectacular day, aside from me falling twice during the whole time.

March 27th we headed to Bainbridge Island, WA. We spent about 2 hours in the aquatic center they have. It's a pretty good sized aquatic center - has a pool that's warmed up to about 86 degrees for children, and attached to it is what it called the lazy man's river where you go in it and pretty much the current moves you. It's kind of fun! Andrew loved going on the water slide they had there - you would think he'd be scared of the tubing being completely dark in there, but he enjoyed himself a ton!! After we were done we went and checked out a playground for a little bit then walked on a beach and saw Seattle very close in the distance. Even closer then it was in Hansville! Unfortunately my camera had a fit and the pictures of Seattle in the distance look more water color then anything (someone explained it to me as when it's hot that the steam/humidity rise of some structures and that's what caused the Seattle needle to look that way.) Bummer. But an awesome day, as always!

We had fun on Easter weekend. On April 3rd we went to Bainbridge Island with the Staleys (who have two twin girls that are my son's age) and went to the aquatic center for a couple hours. They had this egg hunt there, but it was lame since only those who got eggs were in the front. Personally it was unfair since three children had 5+ eggs and the rest had none. Their "consolation" bag consisted of a few candies for the children who didn't get any eggs. But we had fun in the water when the egg hunt was done, then we went home and had an egg hunt at our house, colored some cookies (that were cut with Easter molds), and ate Papa Murphys. It was a great day!! The day after, on Easter, we went to the Staleys house for a couple hours and painted/colored our hard-boiled eggs. The children had a blast!! And as you can see from the picture - we got Andrew a snazzy new suit and he's so handsome!

More memories

March 6th and 7th some of our family came to visit!! Misty and Arnn brought their two children Jaimee and Connor down to visit since they had cheer-leading competition (for Jaimee) in Tacoma. So both days, after competition was over, they came over to our house and had some fun!! LOL the picture looks funny because most of the night Jaimee, Connor, and Andrew had licking fights. Unfortunately it ended when Andrew fell and bashed the corner of his head into my oak chest and started bleeding. I think the parents were more freaked out then he was. He was a champ though and now has the scar to prove it (picture on the right shows the scar a couple weeks after). It was a great weekend - some games, food, and a lot of talking.

March 13th was Seabeck, WA again. This time I actually did take my son and husband with. Andrew was wanting to play on the playground so Aldon took him and watched him while I took some beautiful pictures of the water and beach area. I was still testing out settings on my camera - some worked, some didn't. As always a ton of reject photos. This is one of my favorites - the water crashing in the front and in the background the clouds lightly covering the mountains. So beautiful. After I was done walking a while and taking a lot of pictures I went to the playground and had fun taking pictures of my son (and in the end realizing what settings you don't use with a super quick child). It was a great day, and very beautiful.

Originally I posted my two favorite pictures, but wanted to show more of them! March 18th Andrew and I went to Poulsbo, WA and walked along the boardwalk they have there. I noticed that the seagulls were eating their lunch - they would pick up a clam and drop it on the rocks below. The clam would break open enough so the seagulls could open it and get their meal out. It was somewhat gross, but pretty cool to hear the loud thunks of clams hitting the ground. Let me tell you - probably best to never stand under them when they're doing things like that or have a car near the water because I'm betting it'd do some serious damage. After watching this my son and I trailed the beach a little and found a playground for him to play on before we headed back, since it was a little chilly and we'd been out for a while.

Some more adventures

February 6th we took a walk back in a hiking trail that we have in Silverdale, WA. Every so often through the trees you could see a beautiful site of the mountains, fully covered with white snow and clouds grazing them. It was a beautiful site and definitely was interesting to take a hike. Not sure how long the trail was, but it took us probably an hour, hour and a half to finish and get back to the car. Granted I was taking a lot of pictures so we did stop rather often. I was amazed at how many people were in the trails too - we ran into a lot of people considering. It's definitely a nice place to get a little work out in and see some beauty on and off.

My mother came to visit for a week for my son's birthday, which is February 14th. Yes, he's my Valentine's babe and I'm so grateful for the gift. So we wanted to celebrate and have some fun so all of us went and spent about 1 1/2 hours having fun and bowling. Obviously Andrew needed some help so my husband was there helping him. Sadly Andrew bowled as good, if not better, then I did. He had a blast!! Afterward we went to have Dairy Queen - didn't actually get a birthday cake or candle but it didn't matter, he had a good time and that was all that mattered. As for his birthday present? He got a "bunk bed", and we said goodbye to his crib that turned into a toddler bed. It's not 100% a bunk bed, it's got a three step ladder and is meant for one child but has a dresser, storage spots, and a desk that slides out! It's spiffy and will last him a long time.

February 21st was a visit to Hansville, WA at Point No Point. We looked at the lighthouse, watched boats sail, saw dogs having a blast in the water and fetching sticks and took a long walk along the beach. We saw Seattle very close in the distance, but not close enough to get a perfect picture of it. It was so neat to see it that close, though! My husband over heard a couple looking at something and they had found a star fish on the beach!! We allowed Andrew to feel it nicely and I took about 30 pictures before we set it back into the water (it's bottom side had it's little "feet" still moving). We actually found out later they can survive a little while out side of the water but we preferred to be considerate enough to make sure it survived or had a better chance of it. Someone saw me and my camera and told me there had been Eagle's in the trees and pointed to one. Unfortunately by the time I switched to my longer lens the Eagle flew away. We didn't have any success seeing any more after that, but it was a great day otherwise. Andrew has his fun playing with sticks, making "designs" in the sand and got really dirty. Even the picture shows that.

February 28th we ventured off to Poulsbo, WA. We checked out the Poulsbo Marine Center and it's very interesting! They have this place where you can feel some of the marine life (kiddo was more interesting in playing with the water, of course). They also have an octopus named Bob who usually isn't that active and hangs out in the corner most of the day. Not sure what prompted him to but he put on a good show for me for about 20 minutes. Maybe he hated my flash but I sure did get some awesome pictures of him. Afterward we went to a state park nearby and Aldon watched our son while I went and took some pictures of the water/Hood Canal area. Before we headed home we visited one of the communities and I took some pictures of the beautiful houses - they're close together but all of them are so colorful!! Beautiful houses, but personally I wouldn't want to buy one because they'd be too close to the next house! I'd like space to roam.

Been busy...

Lately I've been trying often to go out with my son and my husband and take some pictures with my "new" camera and capture some memories as well. Every weekend if it's been great weather we've done something, which is wonderful. There's been a few weekends where we stayed at home, but for the most part we've gotten to see a few different places in Washington.

January 23rd we went to Sequim, WA. There's a game farm there which has a lot of different animals - peacocks, bears, bison, buffalo, elk, deer and a few other types of animals. It was fun slowly driving through and feeding the animals. Andrew didn't throw out really any bread - we wanted to be safe and have him just enjoying the animals. That way we could stick our windows up quickly when we needed to (like with the bigger animals). He had a blast looking at all the animals. We also looked around part of the hood canal, saw some animals and looked at the water.

January 24th we took a ferry ride to Seattle, WA. We took a walk along the harbor and made our way to the Seattle Aquarium. It was nice! It was definitely a little busy and hard to get many pictures, but Andrew had a good time checking out the sea creatures - fish, anemone, star fishes, and a huge octopus. There was also a second area that had puffins, sea otters, and a few other neat animals as well. He also got his face painted while we were there which he loved, although it got quickly smeared around. It was definitely a good experience, although if we ever do it again I think we'll buy the family pass and make it more worthwhile. It was roughly $35 to get two adults and one child in and the family pass is roughly $85 for the whole year. Go three times in the year and you make up the value and then some.

January 27th was a decent day - I went to the Seabeck, WA beach alone while Andrew was at school just to explore a new area. I didn't get many good pictures, I was still trying to discover how to get my camera to work. In fact I've had this camera three months and I *still* don't know every thing about it. Didn't take as many pictures as I now do - took some shots of the playground, a cabin nearby, and the beach. This is my favorite shot from that day. Kind of feels like the view from a child's eyes. Thankfully I did go there another time with Andrew - I'll talk about that in another blog, of course. Make sure this one doesn't drag on too long!

January 30th a submarine came back and so my husband, son and I got to witness that. It was kind of neat since I never actually watched when the submarine came in with my husband. I tried to stalk the submarine and shoot a ton of pictures (and betting the coast guard had their eyes on me), but alas this is the only picture that turned out that day. It was a dark and gloomy day and since I didn't know my camera well enough all the pictures closeup have a ton of noise in it. Not cool. I was glad we made it to our destination since the draw bridge had every one backed up for about 40 minutes!

I'll add more another time - leave it at two or three pictures and comments until I'm completely caught up.