Weekend getaway

After our exciting weekend seeing the tulips, Mama and Daddy and Miss Carmela went on a short weekend vacation to Lopez Island! One of Mama's law school professors retired there, and he invited the family to stay at the guest cabin. Miss Ela June was so excited about going on vacation to Lopez Island, and told her friends at preschool for that she was going!

On Friday, Daddy picked Ela up from preschool early. When Mama got home early from work, we all piled into the car and drove north. It was a really long drive, so Ela decided to go ahead and have her nap in the car. Miss Ela was awake by the time we got in the ferry line, and it was a good thing Daddy brought road trip snacks. We three had some snack and watched the ferry boats come and go until it was time to drive our car onto the ferry. After a really fun ferry ride, we drove off the boat onto the island and to the cabin. For the next two days, we ate, hiked, and visited with each other. It was cold, rainy, and windy, windy, windy, but we saw some really neat things and enjoyed our island visit. Ela was disappointed to leave, but we've started planning our trip back. After our second (or third) visit to the bakery (cinnamon rolls, Parmesan pesto croissants, almond butterhorns, coffee) and a swing through the bookstore (Dead Man's Clothes: The Bum Camp of Tolt, Washington), we headed out to one more park and then got into the ferry line for the ferry ride home. We had a road trip snack on the long road trip home and then a tuckered Miss Ela June fell fast asleep for the whole trip home. (That seems to happen a lot.)

On our first afternoon on Lopez Island, we walked down the road from the cabin to Agate Beach. It was very picturesque because of the incredible amount of wind coming off the ocean. We got to see a bald eagle soaring overhead, with a rainbow in the background. No kidding. It was pretty amazing. We also saw a few deer on our visit, and lots of sheep, cows, pigs, horses, and dogs.

Miss Ela June quietly looks at a story book at the cabin.

The lookout at Shark Reef. They're impossible to see in the picture, but there are sea lions sunning themselves on the fore-rocks. They barked and snorted at us, which Ela thought was hilarious. 

Ela and Daddy see a decommissioned cannon at Odlin State Park before getting in the ferry line home.

Playing in the sand at Odlin State Park.

Deer tracks in the sand at Odlin State Park.

Seaweed at Watmough Bight, a wonderfully secluded cove with smooth agate-y rocks and gentle lapping waves. We saw a weasel run across the beach!

More of Agate Beach. 

Tulip Festival 2013

We are very lucky to live in such a farm-y state. With strawberries in early summer (pretty soon!), all sorts of vegetables and farmers markets all summer, apples in late summer, and pumpkins in the fall, we are surrounded by good examples of where our food comes from and what farmers and farm equipment look like. For some reason, we just hadn't made it up to see the tulip festival, though. Mama's not sure why -- maybe because it can be very muddy, and fields and fields of flowers that you can't pick just seemed like a recipe for a meltdown. 

In any case, we finally went, and it was such fun! Oh sure, Carmela got muddy, muddy, muddy, but it was great fun, and she was an age that she understood not to pick the flowers in the fields. Even better, after the muddy fields, we got to go to the gardens, and they were beautiful! They were bursting with with colors and shapes, and there was even a windmill! Ela got to take a few pictures, and then we had a hot dog and some fudge. And, of course, we bought some cut tulips. It was so much fun that Miss Ela snoozed all the way home!

Beautiful gardens:

Muddy fields:

Muddy fields of tulips. Red, purple, red, and yellow.

Carmela shows how crazy the mud was!

So much mud.

Miss Carmela June. What a great kid!

Mama loves the way the light played on this row of tulips. Ela loved how there was one orange tulip in a row of purple.

Multi-colored orange and yellow.

The windmill on the garden side of the farm. Mama read somewhere that the family who owns and operates the farm is of Dutch origin, and used to grow and sell tulips in Holland in the 1700s. Today, the farm is owned and operated by the five Roozen brothers. They sell a bajillion tulips a year, and also have a bulb catalog a bajillion varieties of tulips, plus irises, daffodils, and hyacinths.

Fields of red tulips, with yellow in the background.

A beautiful mix of pinks and purple tulips and white daffodils, with some grape hyacinths in the back.

A gorgeous combination of parrot-colored apricot, lavender, and gray tulips with rock hyacinths.

Irish Festival

This was back in March -- St. Patrick's Day, of course -- so Mama has obviously fallen a bit behind on the blog. Ela and Mom had a great time visiting the Irish Festival! We saw some Irish dancing, listened to some Irish music, and colored some Irish-themed pictures. Then we went outside and saw the cool fountain. After nap, Mama made corned beef and cabbage. Ela decided she thought it was pretty delicious.

Mama and Ela watching the dancers. Ela is wearing her very cool four-leaf clover necklace (which Mama cut out of the picture). Mama is wearing her very cool blue and green plaid scarf.

The fountain!