Tuesday - Sunday, July 23-28, 2013 (Camano Island, WA)

Tuesday

We watched Jessie and Elsie in the morning because Jeff had a meeting and Sabrina was back to work.  When Jeff got home, we said our goodbye's and took off.  I was meeting Jessica at 12:45 p.m. to go out to a flower farm to pick out flowers for her wedding.  Rich dropped me off at Jessica's and went to Cabela's while we went flower shopping - not a bad trade eh?  The flower shopping was very successful, we came away with a nice colorful mix of flowers with the help of Jessica's florist.  Rich just did some window shopping at Cabela's and didn't come back with any treasure's, this time....

Then it was time to head to Camano Island which will be our homebase for the next several weeks.  It was good to be back in our home.  Here is a picture of where it is parked, it is nice and private and once we get the sewer connection set up, will be so much better than any RV park.  Thanks Brandon & Kris! 

Wednesday

We got up and did our jogging routine and then got ready to meet up with Jessica and Garry for breakfast at the Maltby Cafe in Snohomish.  Jessica had been telling us about this wonderful cafe for years now and so for her birthday treat, we were taking them to breakfast.  The food was wonderful and well worth the drive.  The cafe was very quaint and was packed for a Wednesday.  If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend checking it out.

Malby Cafe

Entrance to Maltby Cafe

Me, Rich, Jessica & Garry

 
After we ate breakfast, we checked out Flower World which was nearby.  Yesterday when we were with Jessica's florist, she recommended we stop after breakfast.  This place was amazing, it was gigantic and everything was so beautiful and again, it was well worth the stop.  It was a good thing that Jessica and Garry had an appointment or I could have spent hours and hours wandering through and checking out each greenhouse. 

One of many greenhouses filled with flowers

Biggest fern I've ever seen in my life, it was gigantic

After we left Jessica & Garry, we spent the rest of the afternoon doing some shopping before we headed back home for a nice relaxing evening in the 5er. 

Thursday/Friday

We spent these two days working on projects around Brandon & Kris' place.  They bought their home a year ago and it is a "fixer upper".  We came up last year and spent a week helping them out when they were getting ready to move in.  It is amazing to see the progress they have made in the last year.  Their main project this summer is to get the exterior of the house painted.  So in light of that, I worked on trimming up some overgrown bushes next to the house and Rich tore off an old woodshed that was attached to the back of the house.  Boy, getting rid of that woodshed made an amazing difference in the amount of light that comes into their utility room now. 

We had one slight mishap in the 5er on Friday evening.  Because we don't have a sewer connection yet, we are having to watch our water consumption.  We had a company come out and pump out the black tank to the tune of $55 - ouch.  So because we had empty tanks, I decided to do a couple of loads of laundry, plus we each had our showers.  Well on the last laundry load, the drain from the washer started overflowing onto the tile/carpet.  Wow - what a mess that was and it took hours to get it all mopped up and dried out.  I guess we won't be doing that again.  It also put the sewer connection project high on the list to get done. 

Saturday

The main event on the agenda today for me was to attend a wedding shower for Jessica in the afternoon.  The shower was put on by her friends from her local church.  It was a nice afternoon with a nice lunch and getting to meet some of Jessica's friends and of course watching Jessica open presents.  =)

 


Jessica at her bridal shower

 Sunday

Today was a special day in that we got to attend the church that Brandon is pastoring and hear his sermon.  The church is called Tidelands and is in Stanwood, WA.  It is a small church that is just getting started and is based on missional communities.  If you click on the Tidelands link it explains the concept in more detail.  We are very impressed with what Brandon & Kris are accomplishing in their ministry.  It is a lot of hard work but also a labor of love I'm sure.  

After church Rich and I drove up to Mt. Vernon to do some sightseeing.  If you recall several months back, there was a bridge that collapsed on I-5 and the story was covered in the major news networks.    Here is a picture of the temporary bridge repair which is a military style repair interestingly called a "Bailey Bridge".

Bailey bridge repair is on the left

Close up of bridge repair

We enjoyed our afternoon of sight seeing and were surprised at the amount of farming that is done in this area. 

In the evening we went with a walk down on the beach with the kids.  It is nice to be so close to the beach and there is hardly ever anyone else on the beaches.

Brandon, Calvin & Cameron climbing a sand hill



They made it to the top



Kris & Kelly looking for pretty rocks