Shaw Island Service Project

 

This past weekend, we traveled to the San Juan Islands with other members of our ward, or congregation, to participate in an annual service project.  The event takes place at Our Lady of the Rock Monastery on Shaw Island.

 

We had to be on the 9:25 ferry out of Anacortes on Saturday morning.  Which meant that we would have to be on the 6:25 ferry from Kingston.  Which meant we would have to get our kids (and poor tired me) up by 5:00 on a Saturday, the first Saturday after daylight saving time, I might add.

 

Not wanting to do all that, we decided to leave Friday night and stay in a hotel in Burlington, WA.  This would put us 1/2 an hour from the Anacortes ferry in the morning. 

 

Long story short, we barely made the 7:00pm ferry Friday night, because we watched a Syracuse basketball game before we left and it went into overtime, of course.  But we hustled out the door and made it just in time. 

 

 

The kids were pretty happy to be in a hotel with a pool, (and I was happy to be in a hotel with a hot tub), rather than getting up at the crack of dawn.

 

So Saturday morning, we got up around 7:30, had our breakfast at the hotel, and then headed to Walmart to make a quick stop to get food to contribute to the lunch that day.  I also had forgotten to bring any work gloves so I wanted to pick some up.  It seemed doable enough, a quick stop, then on our way to the ferry.  However, when we came out of Walmart, it suddenly became very obvious that we were VERY tight on time.  We drove as quickly as we dared for Anacortes.  The GPS couldn't seem to find our destination, the ferry terminal, so we were kind of flying blind.  As we came into Anacortes, with no time to spare, we were seeing signs for ferries everywhere.  But we weren't sure which signs were for OUR ferry.  We called a friend, got instructions, along with a warning, "You'd better hustle!"  We began prepping our kids, "OK, everyone grab what you need and get ready to run!"  We had been instructed that there would be limited room for cars on this ferry, so we should walk on.  We were really stressing about parking, paying to park, paying our fares, and making it onto the ferry.  Luckily, our friend called us back and advised us to just drive on.  Best advice of the day.  We drove on, the last car to do so, and the ferry was underway before we were even out of the car. 

 

It was pretty fun to see everyone from the ward on the ferry.  And it was so delightful to be in the beautiful San Juan Islands.  What a beautiful way to start the day!  It was also fun to discover several puzzles on the ferry at various degrees of completion.  In between standing on the deck enjoying the glorious scenery and visiting with our friends, we took some time to place a few puzzle pieces.

 

An overcast morning.

 

We made a quick stop at Lopez Island to pick up a few more passengers.

 

While waiting at the Lopez Island ferry dock, we saw a bald eagle alight in a nearby tree.  Lincoln pointed it out to the kids.  Also at this dock is a huge bulls-eye painted on the dock surface.  It was lots of fun for the kids to toss coins down and try to hit the center.

Devon, on the deck in the chilly morning air.

 

Upon our arrival at the monastery, Mother Hildegard (seen below on the very right edge of the photo), began making assignments.  Assignments were made to weed gardens, cut brush, clean the chapel, move the priest's belongings, clean the hog pens, and clean the chicken coops, among other things.

Kennedy went with a friend to help clean the chapel.  The four younger kids went to help move boxes for the priest's move from one building to another, and Lincoln and I headed for the chicken coops.  We worked with Adda, a twelve year old girl from our ward.  She and I shoveled out the two buildings and Lincoln hauled off what we shoveled. The rain really began to pick up at this point, so despite the stink in the henhouses, (we did have masks to wear), we were glad to be dry.

 

After cleaning them all out, we spread fresh bedding.

 

After the chicken coops were clean, we moved on to the task of collecting beach stones to use as gravel.

A view of the barn.

Renie, happily skipping along after her chore was complete.

 

The kids had an absolute blast in the haymow.

 

Such a beautiful location. 

As we ate our lunch, (man, did it hit the spot after all that work-lasagna, garlic bread, caeser salad, fruit salad, and tons of desserts), the sun came out and helped warm us up and dry us out. We had heard a rumor that only a certain number of cars were allowed on the return ferry and that in the past, someone from the group had been too far back in the line and had to wait 3 hours for the next ferry.  We did not want this to be our fate, so we ate quickly and skedaddled to the ferry.  We were car #3 in line.   The ferry trip back was lovely, with sunshine and better  views of the islands.

Upon reaching the mainland, we drove from sunshine toward foreboding skies, that proved to be holding nothing more than rain.

 

We are so glad that we were able to participate in this event.  The kids, some of whom had said the only reason they were going was to stay at a hotel, all had a great time and are already looking forward to next year.

Visit From the Daines Family

After a few months of trying to nail down a weekend for a visit from our friends the Daines, we finally were able to get together for a long weekend just before Christmas.  We have known the Daines family for about 10 years now, although I feel like I have known them forever.  We met when both of our families were living in Charlotte, NC.  We moved to Wisconsin in 2007, and they moved to Beaverton, OR a couple years after that.  One of the things we were most excited about when we moved to WA this fall was the fact that we would be only a few hours away from them, so we were very anxious to finally get our families together.  We were not disappointed.  We had a blast all weekend long, laughing, playing games, going on little adventures. 

It started off really fun because we had not told our kids they were coming.  They arrived around 8:30 in the evening on Thursday.  They ding-dong-ditched us, leaving a plate of goodies with a tag that said, "From the Daines" on our front porch.  As the kids looked at it, a bit confused, they came up our front sidewalk. 

On Friday, we let our kids skip school so we could take the ferry to Seattle for some fun. 

One of our service projects over the holiday season was to put together some fun care package type gifts, one per child, wrap them up, and take them to Seattle to give to homeless people.  Every time we visit Seattle our children wish they could do something for every homeless person they see.  This gave them the opportunity to pick somebody and give them a fun gift.  (The care packages contained things like basic first aid care items, socks, a gift card to Subway, gum, candy, homemade goodies, hand sanitizer, etc.  They were packed in reusable plastic covered totes.)  Our first order of business when we got off the ferry that day was to deliver our gifts.  Julia already knew who she wanted to give her gift to, so she and Lincoln found the man at his usual spot and delivered his gift.  The next guy we gave one to absolutely made my holiday season.  He was sitting on the sidewalk and Julia (the only one of our children who was so into this that she was not at all shy about handing out the gifts) handed him the gift.  His eyes lit up and got really big as he said, "For ME?"  He grinned and shook the gift and just shone with excitement and genuine gratitude.  We didn't stay to watch him open it, but just those few seconds were enough to make a lasting impression on all of us. 

We distributed all the gifts as we walked up the waterfront.  We stopped at a picnic area next to the aquarium and ate our lunch.   We had such a perfect day to walk around Seattle.  The sun was shining and warm and our spirits were high. 

This street musician was set up on a corner near Pikes playing this tiny little piano.

We made the walk up to the Seattle Sheraton and went to the annual Gingerbread Village display there. 

We are excited to make this an annual tradition for our family.  The line was long (although I'm sure it would have been much worse on Saturday or Sunday),  but it moves pretty quickly. 

It was definitely worth it.  Such a fun FREE event.  We are always happy to add a free event to our traditions.

As we walked we also made stops at Pikes Place Market, and the gum wall. 

 There are always plenty of fun things to see just walking through Seattle.  We stopped for a few photo ops on our way back to the ferry terminal.

When you arrive in Seattle at the ferry terminal, you can walk along the waterfront, literally right next to the water.  But if you want to head into the city, you have to head uphill.  The streets are very steep leading up from the water and there are a few places where there are stairs for pedestrians leading up to the market.  This picture was taken on our way back down, almost to the bottom.

The sun was getting low by the time we got back to the waterfront.  It was, after all, the shortest day of the year.

Joe and Anita- keeping it spicy after all these years...

I had originally planned to do one post about their entire visit, but obviously  I'll have to break it up because we crammed so much fun into a few short days!