Friday Harbor

Eric has been really busy with work and church lately. He has a couple of days he needs to take off before the middle of March or he will lose them. He will be losing some days, it's just too hard for him to take many days off :-(. We decided to have him take this past Friday off and go do something fun. We decided to go to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island for the night. To get to Friday Harbor from Renton (south Seattle) you have to drive about an hour and 45 minutes north to the ferry dock in Anacortes. Then it is a one hour ferry ride to San Juan Island. Friday Harbor is right at the ferry dock. The island gets half of the rain that Seattle does. It's located in a rain shadow. We weren't lucky enough to benefit from the rain shadow this weekend.

Kaylin was super excited to ride on the ferry. No matter how many times I tried to explain that the ferry is a boat and I kept calling it a "ferry boat" instead of just a "ferry," she still thought I was talking about a "fairy". She asked me multiple times if she could "ride on the fairy's lap". She also wanted to know where the fairy's daddy was. She didn't seem too disappointed when we got on the actual ferry, though. She thought it was pretty cool that we drove our car onto the boat.

Trying to be prepared, I charged the camera battery the day before we left. I made sure I had the camera in the diaper bag. But somehow, I failed to put the charged battery in the camera. Oops. I almost cried when I tried to turn the camera on to take pictures on the ferry and it didn't turn on. Luckily for me, Eric's phone has a decent camera. Since he was in charge of the picture taking, we don't have a lot of pictures. But for once I'm actually in some pictures. I don't think that's necessarily a good thing :-).

I think Kaylin must be looking at a bird.

Lauren wanted to be in a picture too.

Kaylin and Eric played on the deck of the ferry for nearly the entire ride both ways.

This is the Lime Kiln Lighthouse.

This park is considered one of the best places in the world to view whales from land. The last sighting was of the J-pod at the end of January. During whale season (about April-October) whales are spotted multiple times a day. One time I visited this lighthouse in the summer and I got to see some Orcas. Pretty amazing.

Kaylin had fun on the rocks near the lighthouse.

Overlooking the harbor and ferry dock from a shopping area.

We also went to the English Camp. There was joint military occupation of the San Juan Islands in the mid-1800s. It hadn't been decided who owned the islands, the British or the Americans. Eventually, the San Juans were given to the United States. For those of you unfamiliar with the NW, Vancouver Island (where Victoria, the capital of British Columbia is located) is directly west of the San Juans. The island extends far past the 49th parallel which is the border between mainland Canada and the United States on the western half of the countries. There's your history/geography lesson of the day :-). Anyway... the English camp is located on a beautiful, calm bay. There are still a couple of buildings and an ornamental garden. And for some reason, we didn't take a single picture. Bummer. It was pretty muddy and Kaylin FREAKED out. She would have thrown herself on the ground crying if she wasn't afraid of getting her pants and coat muddy. Thankfully I brought an extra pair of shoes. When we got back to the car we changed her pants, socks, and shoes and all was right in the world again.

We had a great trip! It was so nice to have time with just our family. Plus, our phones were picking up Canadian cell towers, so we couldn't call anyone or receive any calls, unless we wanted to pay 79 cent a minute. Yikes. If anyone wants recommendations on where to eat, stay, or what to do, let me know!