Day 211 and 212 Camp Casey Time

Day 211 - After sitting in the tortuously slow northbound I5 traffic, and a stop at McDonalds in Arlington, we arrived at Camp Casey and set up the tent just in time for nightfall.  This has been a long time coming.  The last time we came to our church's annual family camp, it was 2002 and way before kids.  The girls have been begging us to take them "real" camping with a tent.  Apparently boat camping doesn't count!  We arrived at Casey just in time for the group capmfire and s'mores.  The girls and John settled in to our borrowed 3-man tent while I enjoyed some social time around the campfire. 

What can prevent you from a good night's rest in a tent? Let me count the ways . . .

1) forget pillows
2) caffeine in the afternoon or was it the glass of wine in the evening?
3) a 3-man tent for 4 people
4) therma-rests too big to fit side by side in the tent
5) a slight slope underneath the tent
6) moisture from the trees dropping on the tent and sounding like rain
7) having to go to the bathroom after you're all snugly warm in your tent
8) being way too warm in your tent
9) fog horns from passing ships
10) crows cawing early in the morning
11) coming down with a cold
12) a grumpy 6 yr old waking everyone up at 6am

Would I do it again? . . . Of course!

Day 212 - This was Heaven for the girls, all the kids were running around in little packs and there was always some project they were working on, always involving dirt and water.  There were group games at the field in the morning, then John took took them for beach play and swimming in the afternoon while I tried to sleep off my impending cold. 

Day 205 and 206 - Where are all the boaters?

Day 205 - We started the day at Kyle's 4th birthday party, so lots of running around and playing for the girls.  The weather was looking great, so we planned to spend saturday night on the boat.  Since we didn't get out on the boat until afternoon, we weren't sure where we were going to moor for the evening.  We figured all the popular places like Jetty Island would be full since it was such great weather.  Surprise surprise, Jetty Island was wide open.  We were ecstatic since that meant we had to use little fuel to get there and it is free to stay overnight.  Since the Jetty Island Ferry runs during July/Aug and there was a kite surfing contest, we were not alone on the island like we usually are.  Notice the kites in the background in the pic above.  There was great wind today for the kites.  Fortunately the wind was welcome as it helped to cool us off.  It was hard to find a spot on the beach where someone else wasn't right on top of us.  The tide was super high when we got there so we built a sand castle and then a wall/moat to try and block the water from getting to our castle.  We were sucessful and the whole contraption was still around the next day!  After dinner we caught the tail end of the ranger led camp fire.  It was perfect timing, the girls didn't have to sit through the previous 45 min of the murder mystery themed campfire stiry.  What is that anyway?  By the time we got there, the story was just ending and they were handing out sticks for marshmallow roasting.  What a nice surprise. Haley informed us she saw "two satellite plates" on the island.  None of us could figure out what she was talking about until we looked up on the visitor center and saw a satellite dish! I love that she is still young enough to say funny cute things like this.  We had a beautiful sunset this evening and only two other boats stayed overnight like us.

Day 206 - We hit the beach at a super low tide this morning.  There seemed to be a lot more green kelpy stuff on the beach compared to the last time we were on the island.  It's pretty gross to step on, but you get used to it.  The tide is so far out that you can't help but feel compeled to walk out to the water's edge.  It stays shallow so far even past that, so you can go out quite far and feel like you are standing in the middle of the sound.  It was hot enough this weekend that we were all in our bathing suits and took turns playing in the surf.  The last time we were on the island (Day 177), only the kids swam.  There wasn't enough wind today for the kite surfers.  We were on the beach until late afternoon, then had to go back to Dagmars to clean out and wash the boat. The cleaning is the not so fun part of taking out the boat for the weekend.

Satelite plate

Day 164 - Boy Scouts, Rough Riders and Marathon Playground Session II

We got in a little time at the beach and park in the morning. A large group of boyscouts had descended upon the island the day before and the landing craft from Fort Lewis came back to pick them up. The tide was way too low, so all the scouts headed up the beach and over to the marina. It was quite a sight.  it was a rough ride back.  It took 4 hours instead of the 2 hours it had taken the day before.  Then there was a big back up at the Marina and we had to wait quite awhile before the forklift got us out of the water.  Next is the not so fun part - cleaning the boat.  We did our usual routine of the girls helping John wash the outside of the boat while I cleaned the inside.

Later that evening, we met up with Dawn, Dane, and Brooke again at the park for another 2 hour stint at the park.

Day 163 - Blake Island

It was the first nice weekend in a long time, so we decided to take our chances and head down to Blake Island State Park.  The ride down to the island which is south of Seattle was calm and smooth as glass. The marina there is almost always full, because it is a great place and close to downtown Seattle.  but we have almost always found a way to get in.  This time, we lucked out that it was an unusually low tide.  There was a spot around a corner at the backside of the dock that bigger boats couldn't get to and smaller boats probably hadn't been able to get to the hour previous.  There was just not enough water.  With some help, we hand walked out boat around another boat and got it into place.  Hooray, an island playground is ours for the weekend!  We love Blake Island, there is so much to do for all of us.  There is a great up and down nearly 4 mile trail around the island.  John and I did our tag team and took turns going around the island (me running, John walking).  This was my first run since the half marathon and it felt great, work, but great.  The kids played at the beach and playground while we exercised.  Later we shared a snowcone from the snack bar and then the girls did some rock walking along the shore.  This was great exercise for them because they really had to concentrate so they wouldn't fall in the water.  I told them it was like a giant puzzle and they needed to find the best way to get across the rocks. They were doing this for at least 30 min.

After dinner, we took the girls a little way up the trail for a walk.  It was a gorgeous sunset that night as you can see in the pic at the top.  Also, spectacular views of the mountains on all sides (Mt Baker, Cascades, Mt Rainier and the Olympics).

Day 151 Part 2 - Hey is that sun?

John doing his best impression of a gondola guy

For a brief 15 min stint, the clouds had opened up, the sun was shining, and coats were off.  We even moved the folding chairs to the dock and brought out the snacks and magazines . . . and then it was gone. We were sure the weather was going to start improving so we got the girls dressed in their swim clothes and headed off in the dinghy to find our own private island to play on, there are a couple of state owned islands in West Sound.  We found our spot. Mom and Dad managed to get in a little relaxing and reading and Hannah and Haley did some net fishing and they actually caught some miniature fish and jelly fish.  Soon enough, the rain came in and we headed back to the marina just in time for the rain to stop.  we were rewarded with some of the most vivid rainbows I have ever seen. As the night fell, and the rain appeared to stop, we walked the kids around the docks to get out some energy.  We got to see an old sailboat that had been made in the old family ship yard in Denmark.   It was in terrible shape, so John really didn't want to see it. It was amazing to think that it had once been crafted by his relatives in Denmark.  We hadn't been out for too long before the rain began again and it was time to go to sleep.

Day 150 - Day of the Dogs

On and off rain, outside whenever possible. I got my 12 mile run in by doing 3 round trips on my now familiar 2 mile running route. I had been worried about dogs, but didn't encounter any the day before or the 5 times I had run by the houses near the end of the road on this morning. Then, on my very last pass of the houses when I was feeling much more confident, appearing out of nowhere was a big shaggy sheepdog. It was at my side and jumping up on me before I knew what happened. I think I figured out pretty quickly it was not going to bite me, but my adrenaline shot up none the less. I stopped running, not wanting it to chase me and figured it would follow me for a house or two, get out of its comfort zone and then go back home. We passed one property, then another, then another. I started running again and it just wouldn't go home. I was still thinking it had a very large area it was used to roaming and it would eventually go home. It would run up ahead, stop, jerk back and wait for me, then it would take off again. On one over zealous pass, it knocked me off my feet and I was not happy. I kept running. At one point, I made a turn onto the public path and it lost sight of me. I could see it looking back for me and I was so tempted to keep running. I figured it would eventually find it's way home. I was now less than a mile away from the marina and I felt responsible for it. I whistled to it, and it gladly spotted me and bounded over my way. I checked it for tags and there were severl phone numbers in it. The plan now was to keep it with me until we got back to the marina. When we got closer to the marina, I would periodically call to it and it was my happy little companion. It was great at staying to the side of the road and not too far away from me. I got nervous when we started to get near people and other dogs. To the outsider it looked like my dog, but I didn't know if I'd have enough control over it if another dog got too close. It followed me all the way down the dock but refused to go down the gang plank to the boats. The people up by the dock store probably thought I was weird when it had appeared to be mine as I led it down the dock, then I just left it. I got John and the girls and started explaining the story to them. We went back up to the dock store and I started explaining to everyone that it wasn't my dog. The harbor master overheard us trying to call the owner and she pretty much took over from there. John's cell had little reception, so she called on the marina phone, left a message and told us she'd leash up the dog and keep it until the owner was found. What a relief! While we were waiting for her to find a leash, we were holdnig the dog by the collar and several people came up and asked about what kind of dog it was, people were guessing a labradoodle. The girls loved their momentary dog. It turned out that the owner flagged down Tobin and Tara when they were walking along the road and asked if they had seen the dog. As a matter of fact we have, they replied.

We had to wait quite a while before we could get outside with the girls.  Their playtime on the beach was brief and ended in a down pour.  Once they were showered up and warm, we took them up to the public path to a house with an amazing number of hummingbird houses and lots of humming birds.  Look at the pic at the top of the post, does it get much better than this?  We ran into another dog up there.  It ran out from a yard and onto the path and started to follow us.  At least this time, we could hear it's owner call for it, and it was a cute little dog, the girls loved it.  They got to walk it back to its owner. John may have gotten in another walk by himself this day.