Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Soccer Camp

Caleb, Emma, and Colin, attended the NW Soccer Academy camp this week. Here is Emma's artwork titled, "Go Team!"

"Go Team" by Emma (9)

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Goodbeach July 2008

We spent three days and two nights up at Goodbeach; Gail’s family’s beach front house on Whidbey Island (See April 07 for more Goodbeach blogging). Gail’s Grandparents, Allan and Arlie Ostling, built the house in the early 70’s and Gail has fond memories of Summers spent on the island (don’t ask her about berry picking though).

Some of the things we did included, hiking to the point, and two extended hikes:

1. Hiked from Ebey’s Landing up along Perego’s bluff. It was pretty foggy out and we couldn’t see Port Townsend let alone any shipping traffic when we started out. Had a small lunch at a ‘Whale Bone’ looking fallen tree. Gail was able to find where the trail that they used to take across the island from Goodbeach came out – now it is fairly overgrown.

Continuing the hike we dropped down to the beach and came back that way. The sun had come out by then and was actually getting warm! The kids were excellent hikers and the two littles only needed a relatively small amount of carrying.

On the way back we stopped at Prairie Center and then in town at Kapaw’s ice cream for essentials. They do great ice cream and are definitely worth the stop! Interestingly, the building Kapaw’s is in had once been owned by Luther Weedin, Gail’s Great Uncle (Arlie’s Uncle) who was the Island County Sheriff and later U.S. Immigration Commissioner in Seattle in the Twenties. We slurped our ice cream as we walked the wharf to the red barn to look at real whale bones.

2. The second hike was the next day where we stopped off Highway 20 and hiked in Kettles Park across to Fort Ebey State Park. Kettles is named appropriately due to the many glacial indentations in the area (check out the topo). Without a map and numerous enticing trails scattered through the area we took a round about way finally ending up in the park. Jack trek’d back to fetch the van; needing Gail’s guidance over the talk-a-bout to sort out the marked and unmarked trails. Everyone was worn out and the vote was to return to Goodbeach. There folks swam, laid out on the beach, and even had s’mores after dinner!

Overall it was a jam-packed three days! Here are images for Cian, Rilla, Colin, Emma, Caleb, Gail, & Jack. See more at our Photobucket site.

Perego's Bluff 7.1.08