Washington

This year our end-of-summer trip was to the Pacific Northwest, and I fell in absolutely massive amounts of love, allllll of the love that one can have for a place, in fact.

Which must sound terribly dramatic and also, I'm betting no one takes me seriously when I say this because I say something like this after every single trip we take. But I assure you that I mean it!

I had never visited this side of the states before, you guys. I had never seen the beauty or felt the magic that a place like Washington has to offer. It was truly MAGIC with a capital M-A-G-I-C! (Terribly dramatic, right?)(I am nothing if not terribly dramatic.)

We stayed on the farthest South island of the Puget Sound. We had to ride a ferry to get to the island from the mainland. I wish you all could have the excitement even once in your whole lives that the boys had when they rode the ferry for the first time! Such perfect innocence and ease to be purely and simply happy, kids.

We stayed in a yurt like tent (glamping!) which was so cute and perfect, in the way that you wonder if you could actually live in the thing. (Spoiler alert: I absolutely could) The yurt-tent was set on a five acre plot of land owned by my Mother's good friend who kindly let us stay there. The driveway to the land was lined with thickets of blackberry bushes, and often on my walk to the yurt I would stop and pick some luscious berries which were perfectly sweet, not a bit of tart in them! We also stopped to pick apples and although they were green, which is not my favorite kind, they held the same promise as the berries-all sweet, no tart. What is the rain there, anyway, and how do we get all of our berries and green apples to be so sweet and tart-less, is my question.

Although we were surrounded by coast, there on the middle of the island was a freshwater lake as well, where we spent some of our time lounging on the grass or kayaking around the lake or playing badminton at the sand volleyball court, or swimming from a land dock to some floating docks where you could jump from the railing or slide down a twirly slide or, even one that held a picnic table floating around, all while surrounded by layers and layers of this thick magical forest of trees. I mean really! I'm not making this up! It felt very dreamy.

(For the sake of remaining truthful, you should know that I had to google 'badminton' because I actually thought it was 'bad mitton' and that is the only way I knew it is 'badminton' not 'bad mitton' at all.)

We went sailing one day to another island which was an all day trip, because sailing is lovely but very, very slow. We saw dolphins jumping and at least a dozen jelly fish, we walked around gig harbor to sip tea and eat some fresh fish tacos and devour blackberry ice cream, and on the trek home Beck promptly fell asleep in my lap on the deck of the boat and slept for the entire ride while I laid back against the mast.

We spent half of one day in Seattle, just Dan and I and my sister and her fiance, while my Mom watched the boys. This was my first time stepping in Seattle, too, and it did not disappoint! I've been trying to get there for so long now and it was lovely. We had never met but all the same, being there felt like getting together with an old friend somehow. Fate, I'm just sure of it.

The beauty of the island was incredible and the only thing I have done every day since we got home is wished to go back! Washington, you temptress, thank you for the short lived but incredible whirlwind of a romantic love affair. I hope we meet again soon!