Ebey’s Landing

Such an exciting 4th of July we had! My brother & nephew had come from CA (so my brother could attend a CSI Conference at Cedar Springs and so my nephew could have some cousin/grandma/grandpa time) and they allowed me to choose the activity of the day, which was hiking Ebey’s Landing! I have always wanted to hike there and I love the water, so I was totally in my happy place. Thanks, everyone, for letting me have this beautiful & special day!

First though, we stopped at Deception Pass on our way – because, why not?

I hate Deception Pass. Actually, I just hate walking across the bridge with small children. Deception Pass is beautiful…it’s just high, and narrow, and makes my stomach feel like it might lurch out my throat, therefore causing me to stumble and fall over the railing. But I walked across (twice, of course, because once you go across, you have to go back, unless you make everyone drive across and pick you up…) and I didn’t die and neither did anyone else.

See?! High!

Happy cousins made it worth it, though!

It is so pretty, too.

But see?! Narrow!

^^THEN we found Ebey’s Landing. (FYI: This is approximately 2 hours from our house). Oh my. One of my new favorite places on this planet!

I mean, COME ON!?! Incredible. What a beautiful corner of God’s creation!

We had a picnic lunch on the beach before we headed up on our hike.

You can just see the trail heading up to those trees along the bluff.

Once you’re up on the bluff, you have this great view of the Whidbey Island farmland.

I took this panoramic view on my iPhone, which of course looks odd all flat, but you get the idea…we are on the bluff with beautiful farmland on one side and the ocean on the other. When looking out at the ocean you can see islands and the Olympic Peninsula. When you look southward, if it’s an awesome day, which it was, you can see Mt. Rainier. I don’t think you can see it in the picture – the iPhone camera isn’t THAT good…but it’s there!

5 of my favorite people in one of my favorite places. Happy heart.

As you progress on the sandy trail (yes, that’s what you hike on most of the time) you come up to this little lake…which apparently used to look like you’d dare touch it…but now it mostly looks like the bacteria-laden pools at Yellowstone that you’d burn your finger off in. It’s not…it just looks like that.

July 4, 2015 = 24th anniversary of our first date!

Eventually there’s a trail of switchbacks that leads you down to the beach. You doubt it as you walk, but it does. We saw an eagle flying below us as we walked…no good picture, but it was COOL!

Sarah went immediately to the water. This is going to be her Senior picture, I think. So her.

Again with 5 of my favorite people in one of my favorite places! I am so blessed.

If Sarah’s gonna do it, so are we!

Oh. My.

That girl is just about grown-up,

but she’s still my exploring toddler at heart.

Those momma tears are welling up in my eyes as I look at this and realize just how quickly she grew up. “They” told me this would happen and I think I believed “them”, but there’s no way to actually comprehend what “they” mean, and there’s no way to explain it to someone else.

Trekking back along the beach. Lovely. Cool. Part of the reason we went on this particular hike was because it was a HOT day (over 90 at home) and it’s always at least 10 degrees cooler on the island, and even cooler right on the water. It was perfect. Any other day we would have needed sweatshirts.

So at the end of the hike, this crazy thing happened. We were watching this little family searching the edge of the water for something and we wondered, “what are they looking for?” As in, what are we missing? So we kept kind of watching them discreetly as we started to walk by. The mother looked up and looked directly at me and as I smiled to acknowledge her I realized, THAT’S MY COUSIN!

Seriously. My cousin Kim who grew up 2 miles from where we were standing, but has been living in Portland and Phoenix for the past 17 years, and who I have hardly seen in the past 17 years, is standing in front of me on the beach!

Picture that. Here’s what’s going through my mind:

1. Oh my word! That’s my cousin!

2. Crud – we should have probably told the relatives we were coming to the island!

3. Oh my word! That’s my cousin! AND HER FAMILY!

After some chatting and catching up on their lives, and why they were on the island at all (turns out they are moving back!), we actually remembered to take a selfie!

And then they took a picture of all of us!

I should have thought to take a picture of their entire family…but clearly my brain was still in shock mode. Besides, all the children (mine and hers) were going, “What? Who are these people? We’re RELATED?”

In another crazy coincidence, their family had professional pictures taken on that exact beach just a few days later, which I have stolen from FB to have here just for posterity’s sake.

Following our jaunt at the beach, we went to downtown Coupeville for awesome ice cream at Kapaw’s Iskreme:

And then we headed to Ft. Casey where the kids (& my mom) chased a deer…

I love how they think they’re being all sneaky. As if the deer doesn’t see them. They actually ended up getting really close and chasing the deer across the field to the right, but my battery died on my phone and Sarah didn’t have the camera out. The kids explored and I had another anxiety attack or three watching them climb up vertical ladders made of pipe with nothing below them but solid concrete. Since no one died, we headed home and had Round Table Pizza for dinner! Such a beautiful and amazing gift of a day!