Sunny weekend fun with friends!

Way back during our more nomadic lifestyle, we met an amazing couple. Anna and Jan were traveling around Indonesia and we ended up on the same boat (above) together for three days while moving from the island of Flores to the island of Lombok. We slept outside on the deck and spent our days snorkeling or wandering islands in search of Komodo dragons. It was a magical three days, and by the end of it we were great friends. It just clicked. Too bad they live in Chicago and may even go to Belgium one day (Jan's home country). But we got lucky because they decided to visit the Pacific Northwest! So we scored on a weekend of fun with two wonderful fellow travelers!

Here we are in Indonesia....warm, sunny Indonesia. Jay, Julie, Anna, and Jan

We searched and found the awesome Komodo dragon

Jay and Jan played together a lot in Indonesia - I love these photos of the two guys going off a rope swing. I went too, as did Anna. I wasn't nearly as graceful... Anna also had better style than me. So I decided to be the rope swing photographer, something I'm much better at!

Enough of flashback photos..... we are now a few years older and still little kids that want to play! So when they came, we played! We spent a day hiking near Mt. Baker and a day out on San Juan Island.
Here we all are on San Juan Island waiting for the ferry to come and take us back to Anacortes. Jan and Anna went on a kayaking tour (great sounding tour but no orca) and Jay and I biked to a beach and lazed in the sun.

A cute marmot whistled and let us know he/she was there. I don't think Anna or Jan had ever seen one before. This dude/dudette has some funny teeth and we all got a kick out of watching it whistle.

Wildflowers were still in full bloom at Mt. Baker

Here I am frying myself in the rare sun. Don't worry - I had sunblock on.

We leave tomorrow night for a fast visit back east - three days at my parents house and three days on the Cape for a reunion of sorts with Jay's family. Everyone we know back east seems to have done O.K. with the hurricane minus some flooding in basements. I am thankful for that....and thankful that our flights seem to be on time tomorrow night. Can't wait for some family time! We don't get enough of it.