Monday, July 21, 2014

Another day, another boat trip

Two years ago, the kids and I joined my dad at the Albin weekend (it's for people who own Albin boats, like ours) in Anacortes. This year it was planned for Roche Harbor on San Juan Island. Since we love Roche Harbor, we figured it was a good time to hit the Albin weekend again. 

So, more packing, more laundry and more bins full of stuff to go in or out of the house. While I maniacally crammed things together to go, the rest of the family looked like this:


Meanwhile, outside there was major action: replacing the electrical pole that more or less fell on the house in the Spring. It involved removing a fence panel so the bobcat could come in and destroy our lawn and rip out our trees and bushes...oh, and replace the electrical pole.


We waited for Eric to get home from work, pushed the limits of how late we could reasonable leave, and finally we were off to Roche. We pretty much pulled into our slip just as the last of the sunlight left the sky. Either we were brilliant and timed it perfectly or else were really stupid and we got lucky.

Roche Harbor is pretty much paradise for boaters. There's tons to get out and see, lovely restaurants, great pool, quaint little stores and even two big bocce pitches.


Never let it be said that my family isn't competitive. Or at least, some of them are. Here is Finny making the case for HER ball being closest...looks pretty even to me.


Molly and I walked away. The rest kept playing.


We took a spooky walk to the McMillan family mausoleum. And along the way, we stopped to scope out the awesome little scooters they have for rent...they were crazy expensive and no doubt dangerous, but wouldn't that be a fun couple of hours tearing around on those things?


Molly got this great shot of a bee...


And then we finally reached the mausoleum. Molly was not a fan. She was freaked right out, actually. You can tell by her face in the picture below:


On the way back to the boat, we stopped at the sculpture garden, which was much more her cop of tea.


The garden was full of little details, including this sweet little hummingbird on the garden gate:


I snapped this picture of our little boat en route to the dock. It looks pretty good from this distance...


The heat was incredible. The last Albin weekend we had, we were ensconced in unbelievable rain. This time couldn't have been more beautiful. We spent lots of time reading and relaxing while the kids (especially Lukey) tried their luck at catching little fish. We also discovered a great evening pastime: shrimping on the pilings with a flashlight. When you shine a flashlight down into the ocean beside the dock pilings, you can spot dozens of little pink/yellow eyes staring up at you. Shrimp! A quick hand nets them. Then you spend a couple of minutes marvelling at their crazy, see-through little bodies and then back they go. It was fun.



The World Cup was on, so the kids were in soccer mode. We had a few games on the little nets set up in the field next to the pool.


Just like the real World Cup, our games seemed to always come down to shoot outs.



There was some controversy about where the kicks should start and how many legs the goalie could stand on (apparently only one...?!?!).



We watched the final game in the pub just before we left. Each of us picked a team at the start of the round robin (Eric had the Netherlands, Finny was Brazil, Molly was Germany, Lukey took Spain...then Mexico, then Costa Rica, then Belgium, then France and I had Argentina). So...the finals came down to me versus Molly and she came out on top. The prize is a big dinner from the winning country. I still haven't made Molly's victory dinner, but there will be schnitzel in our future...

We also logged some time by the pool, even though one half of the pool was closed due to a vomiting issue...






While they played, I read.


Roche Harbor doesn't disappoint.


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