Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

Tuesday

Today my body has figured out that it's on vacation, and I am TIRED!

This is like the first few days after Becca finished finals - she was fine for a while and then she crashed, exhausted and spent.  It's been a lovely day but both girls have been mothering me this evening, so I'm assuming I look pretty bad right now and I'm tucked up in bed with laptop, book, and knitting.  The girls have gone off upstairs to play cards, listen to music, and giggle quietly! 

We took a longer walk on the beach today, after a slow morning in which I spun some yarn, and Becca made pancakes.  We took off a little before 3, thinking that we had about 90 minutes to walk, and then 90 to get back before the tide started to rise significantly and we ran the risk of being cut off from the path home.  In the end, we didn't get nearly as far as we planned, because we stopped to chat to Ladybug the sausage dog and her owners, and then we stopped so the girls could climb on a fallen tree and admire the view from 8ft up in the air. 

Then we stopped so that Becca could go exploring in a quiet little hideaway under a fallen tree that is still in full leaf.  And when our 90 minutes were up and we turned to come home, we discovered that the return journey took a mere 30 minutes!  It was still lovely, and we found some excellent sea life under the seaweedy rocks. 

Becca found mussels growing all over the place, tucked in tree trunks, against rocks, there were thousands of them. 

This made us look a little closer, and we found limpets, teeny tiny black whelks, and soft crabs lurking underneath the rocks. 

Wednesday

Today was a quiet, at-home sort of a day.  We read a lot, played cards a lot, ate a lot, and I did a fair bit of spinning.  The girls spent a couple of hours on the beach in the late afternoon sun, reading and chatting and trying to find some stone skipping skills to show off to their Dad when he arrives for the weekend!  It's a very different experience being on vacation with the girls, compared to being at home with them.  For some reason the change of venue has chilled us all down a lot and we're happy just hanging out and being together. 

Thursday. 

Today was a big trip out day, we drove up to Fairhaven and then on to Bellingham.  There was lots of fun to be had in Fairhaven, it's a beautiful little town with a pottery, a glassworks, and a woodshop to visit, where local artisans have space to display and offer for sale their work.  It's lovely to see all the different styles of work and we were lucky to have time to wander around and appreciate all of the pretty things.  We had lunch in a London Double Decker Bus, which was a rare treat - fish and chips, at that!  Bellinghan was reaching the end of its day by the time we got there, but we enjoyed the waterfront - Bellingham Bay is beautiful, especially when the sun is out...

I tried to see if Johnny Depp was in this great pirate-ish looking rigger, but he must have been sleeping off the rum below decks! 

There was some sort of race going on here but we couldn't make out who was winning! 

and the chocolate shop, and then drove the scenic route home, down Chuckanut Drive. 

Friday.

Today was a very very strange day.  I was woken at about 8 by a HUGE clap of thunder, and cleared space in my bed for the daughter I knew would be along shortly.  Both of them arrived a few minutes later, and since we were all awake we had some breakfast and pulled all the chairs up to the windows so that we could watch the show - it was quite spectacular. 

This part of the world does not often get thunderstorms, and so when they do happen, they are big news.  Today was no exception, everyone was talking about it, and everyone was watching.  We even had rain for a while - first day this vacation that it hasn't been bright and sunny all day long. 

We did a little housetidying, played a LOT of cards, and ate a yummy salad for lunch, and then we put ribs in the oven to cook long and slow, and we played more cards as we waited for Dad to arrive.  His journey was long, the weather and the Friday afternoon traffic conspired to add an hour to his journey, but he was here in time for dinner, and got a walk along the beach after dinner with the girls.  They took some video of the lightning, which is still decorating the sky to the north of us, 15 hours after it started! 

I'm heading home tomorrow, to feed the pets, do some laundry, water the plants (all the veggies and container plants are needing daily watering in the heat that home is experiencing since we left), and I'm hoping to get in some quiet spinning and knitting time, too.  I'll be back on Sunday evening/Monday morning to spend next week with the girls while Dad goes back to work.  we had initially planned to bring the pets here for Dads long weekend but the cottage is so small that we don't know where we could put them and not be tripping over them, so they've stayed home in the air conditioning, which is probably better than being here in the storms anyway!