Whale watching in the San Juan Islands

What a trip this was. We took a ferry from Anacortes, WA to the San Juan Islands to go on a whale watching boat. It was great, and we were very lucky to see whales that afternoon, as the morning tour did not see any. I guess the pods up there travel around chasing the salmon and were up in Canadian waters. We were lucky enough to have time to go up there and meet them on their way down. It was incredible seeing so many Orcas just swimming around. We must have seen at least 12-15 different whales and were able to just watch them play around and swim for about an hour. It was truly amazing to watch these huge creatures being so very gentle.

Here are a couple of pictures that came out pretty good.

Deception Pass

Here are some pics from Deception Pass. This bridge connects Whidbey Island to the mainland, and is just about the prettiest place on earth.

Vacation to the Pacific Northwest

Wow!! What a great time we had this year. We took 2 weeks off and drove up to Washington and Oregon. It was fabulous. We rented a beach house on Whidbey Island for the first week. I took Rich and the girls all around Oak Harbor, where I lived from 6-9th grade. I was surprised at how much had stayed the same. It was amazing.

Mother's Day

Grandpa took us all out for brunch on Mother's Day. What a lovely day and such a lovely place.

Great pics of the girls and Peyton swimming today. Megan and Peyton created a swimming routine with all kinds of tricks and stunts. They must have performed it a million times. They wore themselves out.

Here are a couple pics of Peyton jumping over Megan. I couldn't believe they did this, but nobody ever got hurt. Thank goodness.

Santa Cruz

Again this year, Grandpa and Sue took the girls and Peyton to Santa Cruz for a week. Lucky kids! Rich and I joined them for the weekend and had a great time. The weather was perfect! Especially the day we left (doesn't that always happen!!) Peyton did the skim board thing again this year and had a ball. He got Megan to try it, and she did pretty good, but then fell and I laughed and then she got mad at me, so that was the end of that. :o)

The kids had a great time flying kites on the beach too. Sue had brought them a kite from the Smithsonian when her and Grandpa were in DC just for this occasion. It was perfect.

What a great start to the summer for the kids.

San Francisco

Megan's class went on a field trip to Chinatown in San Francisco this week and I had the opportunity to go along with them. What a great trip! We had a great tour of Chinatown with a tour guide that really gave us alot of information about everything. We visited a fortune cookie factory, a temple, a chinese pharmacy, and grocery stores, then we went to have an authentic chinese lunch. The food was much different than what we expected. Poor Megan wouldn't eat anything. So picky!!!

After Chinatown we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. What a spectacular day. It was clear and sunny so the views were awesome, but the wind about blew us off the bridge. I don't know if it's always that windy, but wow!! I almost lost my camera right out of my hands while taking a picture. Good thing I didn't because then I wouldn't be able to share these great photos.