Island Life - Our vacation, Part 1

Time to bore you with a ton of pictures, (mostly cheesy grins of my daughter and slightly out of focus scenics--wrong time for the auto focus to go out on our lens!). I thought I'd share some of my favorite moments from the Yost family vacation to the beautiful San Juan Islands, Summer 2011:

• Sitting alone on a dock with my beautiful daughter watching dragonflies and birds dance above the lake at Lakewood Resort (the boys were back at camp napping)

• Buying Jameson the first baseball cap he ever kept on his head. (souvenir from the Whale Museum)

• Looking at multi-million dollar yachts in Roche Harbor (This red one was my fave, and it was modestly priced at $2 mil and some change (we did see some as high as $5 mil, so this seems like a bargain, doesn't it?)

• Ferry rides! 

• Hearing the enthusiasm in Jameson's voice when he points out each and every single freakin' boat we saw all week (and it was A LOT)

• Seeing my husband in a salmon hat

• The amazing view from Mt. Constitution

• The vacation excuse to eat ice cream nearly every day

• This amazing garden we stumbled upon

• The beautiful Roche Harbor (everything, including the boats, are shiny and white!)

• Cool trees

• Exploring a sculpture garden

• Teaching the kids how to shuck corn

• Our sunset drive and hike around Lime Kiln Point

• The Funhouse (cool kids' museum) on Orcas Island

• Lavender fields in full bloom

• Enjoying live band karaoke during dinner (the food was fabulous!); sorry, was too hungry to think to take photos of this!
• Kids who sleep in the car

• Beautiful wildlife - bald eagles, deer (including two cute baby deer), sea otters, harbor seals, etc.

Things that I hope to forget about from our vacation:

• Wasting $200 and 3.5 hours on a whale-watching excursion in which we saw no whales and Natalie and I felt ill for most of the trip (Natalie finally fell asleep the last 10 minutes of the trip.) Apparently there were some cool things that we didn't see, dealing with kids - here's photos the company sent us from our trip!  http://www.watchwhales.com/Photos_from_Trips/11-8-9-oddfjkghjfjhkjgberidfd.html)

• Natalie also got carsick on the windy trip down the 2400 feet of Mt. Constitution. Glad we had the "barf bucket" in the back seat (at least we've wised up)
• Having to wear fleece and jeans way more than we wanted to (see next point)
• Doing laundry at the laundromat in Friday Harbor (the kids, however, loved it!)

• Having to manually focus a camera! It's harder than you'd think...
• The loooooong car ride through the Seattle area on Friday afternoon; the kids did their best to be patient, but we had a few serious backseat melt-downs (left on the ferry at Friday Harbor around noon; got to Portland at 10pm!)
• Thinking the brakes on the trailer were going to burn up on the previously mentioned day of travel hell.
• 5 minute/$2-dollar showers (although for campground showers, they were pretty nice!)

And just when you thought I was done, here are a few other random photos too good not to share (sorry!)...

Stay tuned for Vacation Photos-o-Plenty, Part 2 (the Portland Zoo)...

First official family vacation...

Although hasty and totally last minute, Jeramy and I decided to take the kids to the Oregon Coast for the weekend. Jeramy's medical leave will soon be coming to an end along with the opportunity for spontaneous weekend trips. So, we packed up the kids and headed for sea level. And boy did we luck out! Who knew Seaside could be 60 degrees in the middle of February? It was warm, sunny and picture perfect the entire time! Here's the proof:

Natalie digging in the sand. She had a blast playing with her new sand toys!

Visiting the Seaside Aquarium. Natalie got brave and touched star fish and other sea creatures. She and Daddy even fed the seals, but she got upset when they splashed her! 

Enjoying some "bubble gum" flavored Tillamook ice cream. 

Yes, we hit the Cheese Factory on the way home. Yummm...

Jameson enjoying the scenery with Pa (Grandma and Pa met us in Seaside and stayed with us Saturday night)

More playing in the sand (and water!)

Jeramy still recovering, but was able to get those crutches and boot sandy!

What a sunset!

We had such a fun time playing at the beach, splashing in the pool at our condo (which Natalie called "our new home"), shopping, playing at the arcade (Natalie is a cheap date; you don't even have to put tokens in the games for her to "play"), riding on the carousel, and lots of good food (including Mo's famous clam chowder in Cannon Beach). It was especially fun to experience the excitement of the coast through Natalie's eyes. Everything was new, fun and exciting. But if it had been the "typical" coast weather, it really could have been a different story! We must have been busy all weekend because both kids slept most of the way home on Sunday. Whew! 

Now, back to the laundry and attempts to "de-sandify"...