Vacationing as a Couple

Sunset view from the hotel terrace.

J and I had a milestone event this past week. We took a short vacation without the boys. They weren't interested in going on a vacation this summer. That made me sad initially but I decided this was an opportunity for them to learn and for J and I to enjoy time alone. We realized they were responsible enough to be alone for two nights.  I REALLY wanted a vacation this summer, even a short one! I love nice hotels and I love not cooking for a few days. The boys had leftovers the first night and A cooked the second night. I typically only cook the evening meals. 

Before we left I asked for some recommendations from friends for places to see and places to eat. Three of the four were hits. One was a miss. We left on Wednesday morning. We drove along Chuckanut Drive, which is the slower, more scenic road from Burlington (just north of Mt. Vernon) to Bellingham.

We hoped to have lunch in the town of Bow, but the café that looked very inviting was closed on Wednesdays.

We stopped at Samish Bay Cheese where J bought some specialty cheese. I said hello to the cows.

We also stopped at Bow Hill blueberries. We bought some blueberry juice which is very yummy but also expensive. Not for drinking quickly.

We had lunch at Skylarks Hidden Café in Fairhaven (the old town part of Bellingham). This is a very popular spot. We put our names down and had to wait about 20 minutes. We wandered around Fairhaven for a while and found this store named after me!

actually it is called Sweet Bellingham

The food at Skylarks was delicious. I had a chicken salad and J had fish and chips. We ate outside on the sidewalk.

On a friend's recommendation we went to Henderson Books. A huge used bookstore. I wish I had taken a photo of books of the super high shelves. It is the largest used bookstore I have seen, except Powell's in Portland. 

We had supper at Bellingham Cider. We ate inside because the sun was really beating down outside. Unfortunately, there was no A/C inside so we weren't very comfortable. I had kale caesar salad.

In the evening we read books on terrace and took the sunset photos.

We stayed at the Hotel Bellwether. We stumbled upon it last summer (see photos here) and J really wanted to come back and stay there. It is a boutique hotel, which means that it isn't a chain, such as a Marriott or Holiday Inn.

The view from the path by the hotel is amazing.

Our room was quite large and included a large soaking tub (similar to the ones at Oak Bay Hotel). It had a small balcony with a view of Mt. Baker. You pay more to have a view of the water but I was quite content with our room.

On Thursday we had breakfast at Old Town Café. Very yummy. I had a breakfast sandwich. J had an omelet.

The main activity for the morning was hiking to the Sehome Observation Tower on the campus of Western Washington University. It was a 25 minute hike uphill. We didn't see many people on the trail.

There is a tunnel on one of the main trails but it was closed.

The Sehome Tower (pronounced sea home) is quite the impressive structure.

View of Mt. Baker

Me at the top of the tower

We could see our hotel in the distance.

a very zoomed in photo

Next we went to Boulevard Park on the water 

and grabbed coffee from Woods Coffee. Our lunch was simple take out from Trader Joe's which we ate back at our hotel. In the afternoon, J waited while I explored a quilt store - Two Thimbles. A well supplied store. Next I explored Penny Lane antique store.

We had dinner at Colophone Cafe. The food was disappointing. Rather dull. My Caesar salad's dressing was not creamy but was mainly vinegar. We did enjoy eating outside and watching some swing dance couples practicing in the outdoor square nearby, called Fairhaven Village Green. 

There was a BBQ and concert on the hotel's terrace that night. We thought it might be fun to go to it but there was a 15 dollar entry fee and the food wasn't included in that fee. We decided to skip it. 

On Friday morning we grabbed a quick breakfast from Starbucks/McDonalds.

The hotel had bikes (labelled with the hotel name) near the front door and we asked about them. There are free for guests to use so we decided to try them out. I haven't been on a bike for probably 20 years. I felt pretty shaky and didn't want to do any sharp turns. Pedaling was no problem, just feeling stable. We biked on the path that went near the hotel. Thankfully there weren't many people on the path to have to navigate around. 

We checked out of our hotel and drove south on Highway 11/Chuckanut Drive towards Larrabee State park.

It was so quiet here. We only saw about 6 other people. 

We had lunch in the town of Bow at Farm to Market Bakery. J tried posole stew (Mexican pork stew) and liked it. I had a turkey sandwich. There is a garden surrounding the building and we ate outside. We brought some baked goods home for the boys to enjoy.

The last "vacationy" thing we did was stop for Dutch Brothers coffee (iced) in Marysville. 

Random observations about our getaway.

The Bellingham restaurants don't put ice in the water they give you. We had to ask for it every time. We'll have to ask our friend who grew up there to help us understand that one. 

J and I had a good time focusing on each other. We tried to NOT talk about the two Vs: virus and vaccine.

The only place in Bellingham that made me wear a mask was the quilt store. 

Everything within Bellingham is a 10 minute drive away. Quite nice. 

Lots of places were closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This was surprising to me. I thought Monday and Tuesday would be closed days. Wednesday seemed to be safer but maybe places can't find enough staff?

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Heather Lake Hike

I convinced the family to go on a weekday hike on Thursday July 15th. Hikes around here are pretty popular and Saturday is terrible for getting parking, as well as Sunday afternoons. I convinced J to take a day off to do a weekday hike. None of us had ever been to Heather Lake before. The drive is about an hour from our house. It is close to Granite Falls. We got a much later start than I was hoping. We left home at about 10:30 am.

The road off the main highway to the parking lot at the trailhead was quite an adventure. We'd been warned that the gravel road was full of huge holes. They weren't kidding! We took the Jeep and I was happy we did. The drive along that road was amazing. C's smart watch detects when he is moving and it thought he was walking or jumping when we were driving along that road. That's how much we were bounced about!

When we reached the trailhead, a woman asked us "are you with the wedding?' That gave us something interesting to look for along the way.

The hike was very challenging. The terrain was almost exclusively rocks or tree roots. The elevation gain was 1000 feet. I was pretty tired even before we reached the top. Here is an example of the tree roots along the trail.

This is the path!

Very few sections had easy terrain like this:

The weather was cool and overcast. We didn't see many fellow hikers on the way up. It is about 2 1/2 miles from the trailhead to the lake. The lake area was really interesting. Here is A when we first arrived at the lake area.

We walked all the way around the lake. The boys climbed up this huge boulder.

I loved all the wildflowers.

This is wild astilbe. 

I have pink astilbe in my yard. There were some green plants that interested me.

This is a mystery berry. Of course, I wouldn't eat it!

We took some family photos and started on the descent. 

I put a special filter on this photo. Click on it to see it more clearly.

We saw the bride and groom on our way down. The bride was wearing a simple white satin dress. the groom was wearing a bow tie and a suite jacket. The couple was young. A very unique place for a wedding! It does eliminate any older relatives from attending.

Hiking is one of the few family activities that the boys will still agree to participate in. 

I'm pretty sore in my hips after the hike. A lot of the trail was large steps up or down. I am proud of myself for finished the hike.

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Drama One Acts

Yes, the girl in the top photo has black around her lips. She played a very strange customer.

C was a cast member of the Mark Experience (the gospel of Mark, abridged) play which was presented on Tuesday June 8th. Run time was over one hour. C had a major role and displayed talents of which we weren't aware! His roles were the voice of God, a storyteller (narrator), an unclean spirit, a Pharisee, and Pilot.

This is C playing Pilot.

This is C with the young man who played Jesus. David was the goalie for A's soccer team and graduated with A.

A was a cast member of the play called Paper or Plastic, a comedy about working in a grocery store, presented on June 9th. A played the assistant manager Carl.

Here he is in action.

Yesterday the "Besties" were given out which are awards given for the directors and actors. These last few days A has been spending a lot of time editing the video footage of the six different plays and clips of the nominees for the many awards. He caught a cold last weekend so he's been doing this work while feeling pretty terrible.

My boys have loved their time in Drama class. This past year they were in  Bible and Drama together which was the first time they had ever been in the same classes.

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Star Rank

Monday night was the first in person Court of Honor for Scouts since the start of the pandemic. C achieved the Star rank.

These are the Boy Scout ranks:

1. Scout
2. Tenderfoot
3. Second Class
4. First Class
5. Star
6. Life
7. Eagle

If C is to achieve Eagle, we figured out that he would need to get to Star by age 16 and Life rank by age 17. You need to finish requirements for Eagle before your 18th birthday.

This felt like a graduation for C and unlike A's graduation which was never in doubt, C's advancement was an uphill climb. 

He also completed two merit badges which are required for Eagle: Citizenship in the Nation and Citizenship in the World. 

Since C is the Senior Patrol Leader he led the flag presentation. It was the first time that I had seen him do the up front duties. He is no longer a "little scout" but is one of the older boys.  I'm very proud.

Instead of the usual potluck at a Court of Honor, each family brought their own picnic food and we ate outside sitting in folding chairs. I made sausage rolls and fruit salad which were both gobbled up quickly by my boys. 

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High School Graduation

 

Well, the big day has come and gone. I have a high school graduate! The ceremony was on Saturday June 5th at 1 pm. We were seated alphabetically so we had great seats (third row).

Here is the order of ceremony:

Processional (Pomp and Circumstance)

Prayer and Pledge

Faculty Speaker

Revelation Choir

Timothy Awards (for those who were in Christian education from K-12)

Caleb Award (most encouraging student)

Faculty Award (with scholarship)

Salutatory Address

Senior Ensemble (Choir)

Valedictory Address

Presentation of Diplomas

Blessing and Presentation

I love hearing Revelation Choir so here is a photo of them.

I caught this photo of A walking by us.

The graduates were listed on the program under various headings. There were 62 on campus students and 13 home school students called Independent Studies. A appeared under the heading: College Preparatory Honors Graduates. He also had STEM next to his name since he did the Science Technology, Engineering and Math program. He also had an asterisk next to his name for having a grade point average of 3.5 or above as of his last semester. For Honors and STEM he wore 2 medallions but he couldn't wait to take those off!!! I did get a photo of him wearing them. This is him with the superintendent, Mr. Bryant.

The blue cord signifies membership in the National Honor Society. The yellow cord is for an on-campus student with a G.P.A of 3.5 or higher as of semester 7.

They announced each graduate's full name. It was interesting learning kids' middle names. A's history teacher was one of those announcing and after rehearsal (on Friday) he said he was impressed with Winston being A's middle name. 

I wish that all the graduates stood up on the platform for a formal group photo. That didn't happen. They threw their caps into the air at the end. There were official photos taken but we haven't seen them yet. I was disappointed (along with many other moms) that there wasn't an opportunity to display photo boards. Typically there is a reception in the gym after the ceremony. Not so this year.

Photos of the board that I made.

panel one (far left side);

panel two (centre)

panel three (right side)

Click on image to enlarge

I loved making the board. It was like scrapbooking which I used to do quite a bit of. Maybe we'll have a birthday party and I can display it then.

A with his English teacher

After the ceremony we took some photos and went home to rest and change. 

click on the photo to enlarge

The kids could decorate the top of their cap if they desired and if it was approved by the principal. A's friend's cap is decorated with the colours of the Nigerian flag.

A doesn't like white dress shirts but he agreed to wear one for graduation. I bought a new dress, shrug, and shoes. I had my hair curled by my hairdresser. Here I am by the climbing rose which is going wild!

I (along with 6 other moms) helped plan the after graduation party. This was a paid event. It started at 5 pm, meeting up at the school, with boxed Chick Fil A and drinks for the kids. Then they boarded charter buses and went to a golf course to do mini putt.  I helped check the kids onto the bus. All the events were kept a surprise for the kids but they were told to bring swimsuits. I was thankful to have a clubhouse to hang out in while the mini golf went on. The weather wasn't great that day. 

Next, the buses took the kids to a home of one of the graduates. They have a large house which includes an outdoor heated pool. I was surprised how many kids got into the pool. The diving board was popular with the boys.

We hired a D.J. who played dance music and one area (inside) was a designated dance floor. I was skeptical about the boys being interested in that but it we actually had more boys dancing than girls! I did a bit of dancing with another mom. 

The house has a ping pong table, foos ball and an air hockey table.

We gave the kids a "swag bag" when they arrived at the house. It contained a nerf gun (donated by a mortgage company), a cup with 2021 on it, water bottle, sunglasses, and a coupon for chick fil a. 

It rained for quite a while during the party. Here's a photo of some of the snacks available.

One of the moms created a slide show of photos submitted of the kids and that was shown on the big TV. At the end of the party there was a devotional by the teacher who serves as chaplain for high school. She is a Biola graduate. The party went until about 12:30 am. The kids were bussed back to the school were they had parked their cars. 

 

 P.S. This is the yard sign given to us. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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