This past weekend was needed for me for sure and was a great weekend of good food, laughs, rest, sunshine and beauty. We spent three lovely nights in Sequim, Washington. While Seattle and the surrounding area had a very wet weekend, we were blessed with lots of sunshine in the rain shadow of the Olympic Peninsula and in particular the small town of Sequim. You could see rain on the horizon at almost all times of the weekend but directly overhead was nearly almost always sun and few clouds. Thank goodness!
Our family left on Thursday around 4 PM. We picked up Reese, made our way to the ferry dock, got on the 4:45 PM ferry as planned, drove to Tizley’s for their massive family platter, Reese was great at dinner, promised her something from the bakery, bakery was closed, walked down to Mora Iced Creamery and shared their brownie sundae with the seasonal dark chocolate cherry ice cream while sitting on a covered park bench, hopped back in the car for the hour plus drive from Poulsbo to Sequim and pulled into our rental house in Dungeness (like the famed crab) around 8 pm. Reese had a cat nap in the car and once we had unpacked and we started the wood burning stove Reese made her way around her new surroundings scouting everything out. She didn’t end up going down until after 9 PM and we enjoyed the crackle of the fire for a little while before going to bed ourselves.
Friday we had much of the day to ourselves while we waited for Sarah and Lottie to join us. Bryan had to work most of the morning and until about 2 PM so I tried my best to entertain Reese while she was trying to entertain Bryan. We had breakfast, watched the sunrise from our living room, found all of the hidden toys in the house, and then I decided it would be best to take Reese into town to play at the playground and get the rest of the groceries for the weekend while Bryan had his important meeting. The park in town was great and Reese had a great time before coming home to take a good nap. We packed up the car to head out to the National Wildlife Refuge where we thought we would be able to run even all the way out to the lighthouse (5.5 miles each way) if we really wanted to. We didn’t want to run that far but little did we know that after 0.5 miles and a steep downhill would we enter the rocky beach with an unpaved path along the spit all of the way out to the lighthouse. Had we had the hiking pack we would have walked some distance of it but without it we decided to stop and throw rocks in the waves. It was beautiful there and Reese did enjoy “chasing” the waves.
We headed back for the house, I got a quick 3.5 mile run in and then Bryan did just as Lottie and Sarah were pulling up. We made our first attempt at paella in my new pan and surprisingly had great success with it. We know a few tweaks we want to make to perfect it but overall we were quite pleased and somehow managed to finish all of the seafood in the pan. Reese showed Lottie the beach, even each getting their boots on themselves and telling us they were going to the beach, alone, which of course we didn’t let them do. They are starting to act so old already. We had hopes of settling into a movie for the adults but Lottie was darn adament about staying up as late as she could. Reese wanted Lottie to go to bed with her on the spare mattress in the house but Lottie was not keen on Reese’s bedtime so they slept separately. After watching a lot of movies for Lottie we called it a night and headed to bed ourselves.
Reese is always the first up so we were up before everyone else each morning. Bryan made us bacon and waffles with the waffle makers supplied with the house. We then piled into the car to head to the Olympic Game Park just a short drive from our house. For about an hour we drove through the Park, feeding bread to the wildlife who were eager for it and would stick their heads through the car. Reese was not interested in feeding the animals in the least and literally tried to hide in the backseat. Needless to say, the backseat windows remained up the majority of the time while Lottie fed the animals unfazed from the front seat with her mom. Reese seemed to chill out a bit as we drove on, even surprising me by not being as scared of the massive bison towards the end of the drive. It was pretty cool and something I have never done. I have never been as close as we were to so many large animals. We still have tongue prints on the car from all of them.
After our trip to feed the animals, we showed Lottie and Sarah the beach at the Refuge before heading back to feed the girls lunch and put them down for a nap. Lottie, still resisting sleep, fought and fought the nap situation until instantly falling asleep on Bryan’s arm on the couch. Reese took a wonderful nap and the girls were ready to play at the house the rest of the night. We all walked the length of the beach (about a mile or so roundtrip) shortly after low tide and then settled inside for dinner of grilled steak fajitas and later showed the girls how to make s’mores using the wood burning stove. We managed to have some adult time on our last night and it was a nice change from the night prior.
Sunday was our departure day but we had no specified check out time. We took our time in the morning with a breakfast of eggs and toast. I went for a 4 mile run and then we drove into town to take the girls to the playground and Bryan went for a run from the park. Back at home the girls ate and then took their nap while we cleaned and packed up the house. Once up from their naps, we got the cars ready to head out. We had plans to stop in Sequim at the Salty Girls Seafood for a lunch/dinner al fresco of all of the fresh seafood. Our table got oysters, clam steamers, clam chowder, rockfish tacos, and a crab melt, plus housemade kettle chips for the girls. All of the food was fresh and delicious. We got three chocolate packed cookies before hitting the road back to the ferry on Bainbridge. We just missed the 4:40 PM ferry so we had some time to kill before the 5:35 PM ferry departed. We saw a rainbow and a nice rainstorm in downtown while we made our way back to the other side.
We got home a little after 6 PM and fortunately Reese seemed excited to be back at home. She was a dream toddler the whole trip and really has been for some time now. I had such a good time spending quality time with my family and Sarah and Lottie. Now that I’m back at work I’m already dreaming about the next adventure we can go on.
Chelsea
Evolving in the Emerald City 