Washington Trip Day 3

This will be a post full of pictures! My cousin, Janice, and her husband, Matt, are certified open water divers. Tera's daughter, Joey, says that she wants to be a diving girl, so Janice planned such a great day for us!

We started out driving up above Mt. Vernon to some lookouts. The views were beautiful and it was neat to look out over the fields and see the Peugeot Sound in the distance.
Then we drove to Whidbey Island and saw Washington Park where they have a beautiful scenic loop to drive around. We stopped at this lookout with a cool tree to take some pictures of the kids. Bump and I have pictures of this same area when we came out to Washington the first year we were married! That was 11 years ago!



After appreciating the beautiful scenery we headed just past Ft. Casey for our beach fun! My mom knew that there would be mostly just broken pieces of shells there for the kids to collect so while they were occupied she gave me a bag of shells that she had been buying and collecting before we came and had me scatter them all over the shore. Then she gave each of our kids a bucket and they went searching for shells and other treasures by the water.

Here's the older generations chillin' on the ridge watching the kids play by the water.
My dad, grandpa, grandma and Uncle Leo (grandma's brother)

Gabby showing her treasures to her grandpa

After a yummy lunch/dinner of KFC, came the really fun part of the day! Janice, Matt and Sherilyn's hubby, Joel, all got on their diving gear and headed out to find sea creatures for the kids to see. They brought a few large buckets and a little blow-up kiddie pool that they were going to put things in once they brought them out of the water. While they were just coming back out of the water my cousin, Randy and his family came to visit at the beach. They live in the town just by where we were and it was fun to see them and to meet their kids, that I have never met!

When Janice came out of the water after their dive she apologized to the kids that she sure wished that she could have found a star fish for them, but it was pretty tough. Then she came out with the biggest star fish I have ever seen attached to her side! The kids were amazed and thrilled when they saw it! They then proceeded to dump out their "goodie bags" into the various pools for the kids to look at.

Corb wasn't too sure about any of the things he was seeing, they made him a bit nervous. He and Bailey and TJ didn't want to touch any of them. Joey and Gabby on the other hand, were so excited about them all and it didn't take them long to work up the courage to touch and feel the various animals.


Can you tell what anything is? There were quite a few different types of crab and starfish, as well as some sea snails and slugs, a sculpin, kelp and some anemone. I couldn't believe all of the things that they brought for the kids to see and touch! What a great experience for the kids and for all of us!


After everyone had a chance to look and see all that they wanted Gabby and Joey helped throw the creatures back into the sound. It had been a long and very eventful day and the kids were definitely ready to head home to bed!

We were able to take the ferry back over to Everett and then drive back up to Arlington. The kids loved the ferry ride. It was only 20 minutes, so they had a chance to get out of the car and look around without getting bored before we put them back in the car and made our way back to Grandma and Grandpa's house.
What a beautiful day! What a fun day! I just can't tell you what a great experience the whole thing was! Thank you, Janice for all the fun you made for each one of us!