while the cat is away.....

i'm not sure who the mice are in this scenario, but all of us had fun this weekend. my mom came to visit on thursday, and with the willing sitter, shawn and i took advantage and headed out of town for the weekend! mom, gabe, and grady played, made cookies, went to mickey d's, went to gabe's baseball game, and ordered in chinese and pizza!! i think they had a great time! shawn and i headed to friday harbor. to get to friday harbor you drive north 1.5 hours and then board the ferry at anacortes, wa. for 1.5 more hours. as if the drive and ride alone weren't relaxing enough, we stayed at a beautiful bed and breakfast on 9 secluded acres! the island of friday harbor is very charming and you can cover the entire island in around 20 minutes. after we left the ferry, we headed to the northeast side of the island to the lime kiln state park. the lime kiln state park is known for their wonderful spring and summer views of the orcas and other marine life. while we didn't see any orcas, although they were in area the day before, we were lucky enough to see some dall's porpoises. that was pretty cool, they just jumped in and out of the water, and they loved playing in the wake of the huge barges that were passing by! after watching the porpoises for a while, we hiked around the park for a while. we then headed back into town and feasted on some yummy cod, oysters, clams, and scallops, along with a mexican burger. we had hiked a lot - we were famished!! we then decided to stay in town and go shopping! we had dinner at mcmillin's, a romantic restaurant nestled in the middle of a little resort area surrounded by the bay. we dined around 8:00, so we had a perfect view of the sunset! at sunset the resort retires the colors (flags) in a very dramatic display! they played taps, the canadian anthem, the british anthem, and a theme i was unfamiliar with, but sounded very patriotic! the island was the center for a dispute between the americans and the english over 150 years ago. the dispute was over an american settler who shot a british pig. thus the dispute of whose land the island should belong to - the united states or england. the dispute lasted 150 years - ending peacefully with the americans being awarded the land, but that is the reason for all of the flags being displayed-to honor the history of "the pig war". after dinner, we headed back to our b&b. the next morning we were awakened to the wonderful smell of coffee - aah! it is so nice to smell coffee in the morning from bed and not even have to leave the warmth of the covers. we combed our hair, brushed our teeth and headed downstairs for a scrumptious breakfast. we enjoyed a table by the window that had an incredible view of the wildlife that just trapsed freely on the acreage. we were hoping to see some more deer during breakfast
(we had seen 6 the night before just roaming around, eating corn), but they must of slept in! we got dressed and headed to the british camp at the north end of the island. this is the area where the brits set up camp during the 150 year dispute. we hiked around the old barracks and gardens and then headed straight up hill for a beautiful bird's eye view of the island. when i say straight up hill, i am not kidding! they said a slight incline when i was reading about the hike, but going up 650 feet in under a half a mile, i would safely consider a little more than a slight incline!! but after i belly ached up the "hill" i was glad i did it -- what a view! going down was much easier and then we headed for the american camp at the south end of the island! on the way, we passed an alpaca farm, which are plentiful up here, and a lavendar farm. we saw a couple of deer from the road way and even a fox! we hiked around the american camp for awhile, and i hate to say it, but the americans got the raw end of the deal when it came to setting up their camp. while their camp was situated right on the beach, it made for an extremely windy area -as you will notice in our pictures! the wildlife was abundant here as well, a fox crossed right in our path and even stood still for a photo opp! after being wind blown around the american camp, we headed to south beach. it was a beautiful area, but again windy, windy, windy - i felt like i was back in kansas!! we then ventured back to town to save our place in line for the ferry home. we stopped off for some lunch and got the boys some fudge and kettle korn!! we finished our trip off with homemade icecream from friday harbor and boarded the boat for home!
p.s. you will notice in one of the pics from the slideshow, shawn and i standing in front of a sign that says, "fredonia grange". we have passed by this a couple of times now and have wanted to take our picture there, but couldn't ever get back to it. well saturday we finally figured it out - like a little piece of kansas right here in washington!!!