Fort Casey State Park

March 2019

Waking up early is such a chore for me. Anytime before 8:00 am is too early for me so it takes me a while to finally get out of bed. Well, I finally did, got ready and started our day. We drove North to Whidbey Island. Waited in line to pay and waited in line for the ferry, good thing I brought a book to read.

January 2019 I began reading Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson and it took me just under three months to finish it. I really enjoyed the book and definitely got my interests up in reading more of our American history. There's so many things to be proud of as an American and we also have to continue to grow and learn from past mistakes.
Reading this book also increased my vocabulary. There's a lot of words in this book that I hadn't heard before. I had to look them up so I could understand the sentence I was reading. This is why it took me so long to finish this book and not really because it's 586 pages long.

The beauty of the Puget Sound never seizes to amaze me ... every single time!

We have yet to see an orca pod swim by and we're constantly out by the Puget throughout the year. Maybe one day we'll get lucky.

Still pretty chilly in March. It's always windy when you're on the ferry.

We like to visit military forts. We like reading and learning about the history of each one and exposing Riley to our country's history is very important to us and should be to every proud American.

Beautiful views.

Fort Casey, Fort Worden and Fort Flagler together were known as the "Triangle of Fire," a trio of strategically placed fortifications defending the entrance to the Puget Sound at the turn of the 20th Century. 
Constructed in the late 1800s, Fort Casey was equipped for defense and used as a training facility up to the mid-1940s. The fort houses a pair of rare 10-inch disappearing guns. While the guns were the height of technology in the early 1900s, improvements in warships and the advent of airplanes soon rendered them obsolete. Two additional 3-inch mounted guns are also on display in their original emplacements. You can explore these batteries to your heart’s content.

Riley is always asking his dad to play some kind of game. What better game to play than tag when there's large grassy areas.

As we were walking towards the lighthouse we came across three deer grazing. So cute!

Pretty

The store in the lighthouse had this kitty tapestry which I thought was precious and relatable to how I choose to tackle my household chores. I never tackle more than two chores a day. This way I have something to do each day.

                    Every good and perfect moment is a gift to you from God.

Fun Friday at Cape Disappointment

Jacob had the day after Thanksgiving off, perfect time to head out to the coast. This time we stayed in Washington though. The drive is about three hours and fifteen minutes from home. The sky in the upper left side is usually cloudy. I can count on taking beautiful moody pictures of the sky. We even saw a full rainbow. That was a pretty awesome sight!

Being observant and always admiring nature keeps me entertained on our coastal road trips. We like to be on the lookout for bald eagles. Even on a long stretch of road I look for beauty and in this case it's the trees partially submerged in water.

It would be fun to kayak Willapa Bay to that tiny islet and explore it. That's what I often think about when I stare out at a large body of water. I love to kayak. It's such a peaceful activity. You can paddle vigorously to get an upper body workout or just calmly glide by. To me, it's a very rewarding activity. It would be a dream to own my own someday. And being out in the water with a sky like this is the ideal setting for me.

View from up at the Interpretive Center at Cape Disappointment.

love!

I can't seem to get a fill of the beaches in the PNW. These views are gorgeous! Every angle (if you have the eye) can be one to frame. That's the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse. We didn't walk to it this time around. I'm sure I've mentioned this before but I think it's cool that Ghost Adventures investigated this entire area and filmed an episode. Next time we visit I'm going to try to be more keenly aware of the vibe and see if I can sense anything questionable.

Ohmygosh, I can't get over how beautiful the clouds look in this picture. The rays beneath, the shadows and sunlight, different shades of grays, the ocean ... there's just so much beauty. Not to mention a whole different world underneath. God's creation is marvelous!!!

A section of Fort Canby. Years active, 1852-1947.

None of my pictures caught any apparitions or orbs. I'm sure this place has a totally different vibe once it gets dark.

I have never seen an abundance of ferns as I have since we moved to Washington. They are everywhere. Obviously they thrive because of all the rain and cloudy skies.

Once we were done exploring part of Cape Disappointment we drove down to Long Beach. Riley had fun at the arcade then we stopped by Scoopers for ice cream. Their scoops are huge. Jacob and I couldn't finish ours. Such a shame too because there was still so much ice cream leftover.

Making our way to the beach. This road takes you all the way there.

We drove onto the beach and parked.

Time goes by so fast along the coast. There's so much to take in and explore. We visited two places and after we were done most of the day was over. Crazy right?! That's why whenever we road trip the Oregon coast we tend to skip some parts so we can explore new ones. You cannot possibly stop at more than three scenic spots and not have half of the day gone by. I think it's fun because there's so many wonderful spots to stop and visit. I just hope there was a lot more good places to eat at. A lot of the restaurants along the OR coast are mediocre unfortunately.

A day spent at the coast is a great day.

New Year Day Trip

We had been wanting to head out to a Washington beach for some time. We've now lived in Washington for four years and I thought, this is it. We're finally gonna do this ... or so I thought.

We left the house around 10:00 am. I knew of two ways of getting to the beach. One cutting through Olympia and the other is up North along the Straight of Juan de Fuca. I wasn't aware of the route Jacob took through the Olympic Mountains.

We packed a bunch of snacks and water and we began our day trip. We drove past Tacoma and Bremerton. As we continued driving I was surprise to see snow on the side of the road, obviously never been this way before.

To keep Riley entertained we played I Spy and since Jacob tries to make everything funny we were cracking up at all the silly things he was saying.

The drive was pretty though. Seeing so much snow on everything made it look so magical like something out of a Christmas movie.

We stopped in Sequim Bay to get gas and to check out what their market had to offer. We were surprised at how big and cool this market was. They had a good size deli that offered a wide variety of food. We got a couple of hot sandwiches to go. We continued on, drove past Port Angeles and then stayed on Olympic Hwy for a while.

It was such a pretty sight once Lake Crescent came into view. This was my first time seeing it. The snowed trees around the lake made it look beautiful.

Then out of nowhere we saw two emergency vehicles. We pulled over so they could pass us and about five minutes into our driving we saw a line of cars stopped on the road. One lady came up to us and said that a tree was blocking the road and that Rangers were already working on removing it.
It was about 2:00 pm by this time and we were hungry so while we waited we decided to eat our sandwiches.

What we thought was something minor quickly changed to something serious. I could see a white vehicle that was very close to the down tree. I figured it was an accident. The same lady that initially told us was just a tree blocking the road told us that the tree had actually fallen on top of a vehicle. Within minutes we began to hear more sirens.

We were just about thirty minutes from reaching the beach from this point. Although it was a big bummer that we didn't reach our destination it was sad to know that a 5 year old boy lost his life. A young girl got paralyzed from the waist down, the 2 year old child is expected to make a full recovery, the grandfather was driving and he too had a broken back, and the grandmother was unresponsive and still in a coma a few days after the accident.
This was such a freak accident and sad that so many from the same family were affected. So devastating. May God provide comfort and peace to this family.


Well, I hope one day we'll be able to visit the beaches.

Leavenworth Washington

We've now lived here in Washington for four years and we finally made a visit to Leavenworth. The town is modeled after a Bavarian Village. It also sits at the base of the eastern slope of the Cascade Mountains. It is a 2 hour 28 minute drive East from hour home. In order to get to Leavenworth we have to drive through Snoqualmie Pass which gets snow and sometimes the Pass is closed when there's too much snow and one would definitely need chains {which we don't have}.
I really really don't like driving in snow. I have in the past and it made me nervous beyond belief. The Christmas Lighting festivities in Leavenworth take place the first three weekends in December so I made sure we went on the very first weekend. I wanted to avoid the snow.

And when it comes to children and road trips you know they'll want to have to pee at some point before reaching your destination. We were cracking up at Riley because he kept laughing at the fact that his warm pee was melting the snow. He apparently found that hilarious. And no, we didn't see any rest stops or else we would have had him use the restroom.

As one can imagine especially during this time, the town was packed. Since it was our first time here we were like, "this is crazy!" So many people for it being such a small town. We found parking about four blocks away from the main strip.
It's definitely a cool looking town. I didn't know what to expect at first, I thought it would be boring. I almost didn't want to come but I'm glad I did.

We got here a little after noon. We walked around but we didn't go inside any of the stores. It was just too crowded to really look around unhurried.

There were several Christmas characters walking around ... Rudolph was the closest one to us. Riley asked if he could take a picture with him. I'm glad Riley is not shy when it comes to people in costume because Sydna and Nathan were. It was challenging to get them to open up. But, no problem with this one here.

It was going on 2:30 pm by this time. We were getting hungry and were looking for a place to eat. There were a decent restaurants to choose from but they were ALL crazy busy. We first went to a pizzeria and the wait was an hour, no thanks. So we kept walking and searching. Finally we came across a Mongolian restaurant and ate there. It was about a 45 minute wait. I loved all the veggies and spicy teriyaki sauce.

Riley behaved himself quite well. He not once complained about all the walking and waiting we did at the restaurant.

Our visit here went by so fast. Well, since we got here around noon and after a bit of sightseeing then stopping to eat we had just under an hour to spare before the caroling and tree lighting took place. So, we got closer to where the main tree was set to be lit and waited there amongst the throngs of people.

It was a cold evening but I had my thick long jacket on so I was fine. Jacob is always cold even if he's wearing a jacket. Jacob and Nathan are constantly talking silly so we are constantly laughing, then Riley tries to add his two cents in but it's really not funny then, lol. He does crack himself up though. He thinks he's just as funny as his daddy so that's what gets us laughing all over again.

The wait didn't feel long at all. Santa made an appearance then a choir got on stage, and just before the tree lighting they sang Silent Night. I'm always surprised whenever a religious Christmas song is sung at a public place. I love it but society tries so hard to stay away from Christianity that I get amazed whenever something gets done right. Everyone was singing. I think most people are just tired of all the political correct bs that has gone on for far too long and people are searching for a sense of community. Community done right that is.

Riley was in awe once all the Christmas lights were turned on. It was actually pretty cool to see.

I wanted to make sure I got a picture with my middle son.

And where ever we go Reagan is always on our minds. I'm always talking to him in my mind.

The village looked quite enchanting. Obviously it looked a lot better in person.

We were on our way back home around 8:00 pm. Once we got closer to Snoqualmie Pass it began to snow. Great! as we were getting closer to it -it was snowing quite heavily. We were going so slow. Semi's were also driving extremely safe however that didn't calm my anxious heart. I just wanted to get out of that area. We were probably on that snowy freeway for close to fifteen minutes but it felt so much longer to me.

We had a good time but we definitely want to go back during a less busy time so we can look around without the major crowds. And Jacob also wants to eat some German food {I'll pass}. I hear it's pretty there in the Spring and Fall.