Wednesday, April 13, 2011

beach getaway

 

Last week was spring break, so a BFF, Kristel,  and I headed up north on a road trip to Lummi Island.  We have friends there that are like family and it had been wayyy too long since we had seen them last.  Chris was my youth pastor in junior high and high school, and when my parents moved east right before my senior year, I lived with Chris and Tammy and their kids Eric and Emily so I could finish out my senior year at my school.  When I met the Logger, he began coming to my church and later Chris is the one who married us and we still attend the same church, though Chris and Tammy left about 3 years ago for Chris to become Senior pastor of a Village Missions church in need of pastoral leadership.  We miss them tons.  They are my ‘second family’.

Since we have crying babies, they made the wise decision to accommodate us in our own beach house for our overnight stay.  Some of their friends let us use it for free!  Thank you Jones family!  It was nice to have a place to put the kiddos down at night without putting one of our friends’ kids out of their room.  The little place was just adorable…

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Nice great room, huh? 

The place had a nice mix of beachy accents and timeless pieces…

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The two kiddos and I got to hog the master suite, which was serene…

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There was also a nice little kitchen which we did have to use to make our movie popcorn…

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Then there was the loft with beds and toys for the kids…

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Toys which they hardly used because the view was so amazing…

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Yes, right after I shot the picture, Susanna fell off the stool.   I get the bad Mom award.  Again.  I thought I was curbing my paranoia and letting them have some fun.  Wrong.

She recovered though…

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But do you notice her eyes?  Ready for a tangent?  She started going cross-eyed a day or two before our trip, all of a sudden.  The day after we got back and I realized it was quickly becoming more and more frequent, I frantically made a pediatric eye care appointment for the next day.  Turns out, she has very extreme farsightedness which strains her eyes and causes her to cope by going cross-eyed, so she has to wear glasses now until at least puberty, when her eye muscles will strengthen and she will stop going cross-eyed.  My little baby!  The doc was shocked that Susie has reached her milestones early, despite her extreme vision challenge, and that once she learns to keep her glasses on she is likely to have a “developmental explosion” which I am not sure I am ready for!  Praise God that we caught it in time and that we can prevent permanent damage.  And for those of you expecting, or who have babies up to 1 year old, the clinic offers completely free checkups so that this kind of problem can be caught earlier on.  If this was ignored, she would have encountered permanent damage, so I recommend the checkup!  The clinic is Northwest Pediatric Eye Care in Bellevue.  Okay, done with my tangent.

Tammy and Mark and I braved the rain and took a walk on the beach…

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I am always so fascinated with barnacles.  They are such stubborn little creatures, feasting while the tide is in and then closing up so snug and tight while the tide is out.  I kept wanting to keep one of these rocks but didn’t want to kill all the little guys.

I acquired quite the rock and shell collection…

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And I did sacrifice one little barnacle that I couldn’t resist…

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I was a bad blogger that didn’t take pics of us with our dear friends!  Photographing details is much less intrusive than always sticking a camera in someone’s face, but I do need to do it more often!  But at least I focused on enjoying time with them right?  That is what I am telling myself.  We got to gab, beach comb, have deep theological discussions, watch a movie and cook and eat together.  I used to babysit Emily- like, when she was a baby- and last week I taught her how to make Fettuccini Alfredo!  And Eric is like seven feet tall and sounds like a man.  I feel so old!

And one last thing - am I the only one who is a little nervous on ferry rides?  Maybe it is just the tiny ferry we have to take to this particular island..

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It only fits two rows of cars on either side of the … whatever it is called where the captain drives.

It is not a long ferry ride…

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But I still find myself planning ahead for how to get the kids out if we sink.  And I have seen that Mythbusters episode so I know to open the window to release the pressure (I usually do it as soon as we drive on).  It doesn’t help that I always seem to end up right in front.

Anyway, I am sure you have reached your fill for random vacation photos, so that’s the end of my story.  I spent 2 hours today disassembling one Ikea bed and assembling another.  Big changes coming in Susie’s room which is Susie & Mark’s room at the moment!  It won’t be ideal, but it will be functional and I will do my best to make it a pleasing space to be!

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