Too much fun in July!

Mount St. Helens

Our July has been packed with visitors and fun! The arrival of my parents started with a bit of a scare because their plane was delayed for hours due to thunderstorms at their connecting airport in Baltimore. Lucky for us, Southwest never cancelled the flight and they arrived quite late....but at least they arrived. We scooped them up and headed straight for Ashford, the gateway town to Mount Rainier National Park. We had rented a cabin on a river (with a hot tub) so we could spend the weekend taking in the surrounding parks and spending tons of quality time together. It was lovely! We had originally planned on spending all three days in Mount Rainier, but decided at the last minute to spend two days at Rainier and the third day at Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. This proved to be a wise decision since the weather was unbelievable and the volcano blew all the trees down when it exploded, conveniently providing open views of all the surrounding volcanoes and mountains. My parents loved it!

 My mother, reflecting, at Reflection Lakes with Mount Rainier in the background.

 Taking a stroll around Box Canyon with Rainier in the background.

My mom and I walked down to check out Narada Falls from a lower point of view (and get doused by mist). Jay and my father stayed up on the bridge - they are the tiny dark blue and tan dots on the bridge. On the way back up we had a nice moment with a cute little marmot that was interested in participating in staring contest with us. Back in Ashford after our park day, we gorged on huckleberry ice cream and sipped tasty beers in the hot tub. I loved our evenings at the cabin as much as our days in the parks. After we had our BBQ dinner, we all sat outside around the fire drinking hot cocoa and watching all the fireworks the locals were setting off. I would have preferred silence, but it was July 4th and there was no escape. The fireworks seemed to be entertaining everyone else though, so I was the only Scrooge in the house.

The next morning we headed south of Ashford to Mount St. Helens. I love volcanic landscapes. Back in 2011, Jay and I visited this special place for the first time on a weekend backpacking trip (you can read that blog here: http://jj-adventure.blogspot.com/2011/08/mt-st-helens-backcountry.html). To this day, this is one of the most memorable backpacking trips I've ever taken....which is amazing since it was just an overnight! My parents were as impressed as Jay and I were back in 2011. We had not been back to the park since that backpacking trip, so I was thrilled to be back in the warm sun provided by the blast zone (not too many big trees for shade) taking in all the sights.

This may be my favorite photograph of my mother ever! She has an insatiable appetite for learning and interpretative signs MUST be read at all costs. The water level in this small lake was so high that the viewpoint was slightly flooded, preventing dry access to the sign. But that didn't stop my mom! Nope. She leapt through the water and planted herself practically on the sign in order to read it. Pretty cute.

 Reflecting on the power of a volcano

I tried to get all four of us (Jay is in the blue shirt in the background) and the volcano, but missed St. Helens!

Mount St. Helens is surrounded by many other volcanoes - including this one - Mt. Adams. Other volcanoes in the area are Mt. Hood (OR) and Mount Rainier. Our lunch spot had views of three out of the four locals (we could not see Rainier).

Once we left the park we hit up the ice cream stand again and sat in the hot tub consuming more tasty beer beside the Nisqually River. Dinner consisted of pasta with homemade nettle pesto and hand-harvested morels and good wine. This was followed by another campfire and bird songs at dusk. What a lovely place.

On Sunday we headed back to Mount Rainier with plans to drive north to Seattle via another highlight, the Sunrise viewing area of the mountain. We stopped along the way to check out a grove of old-growth cedars....and here is my dad stunned at the size of the root system of a fallen giant.

 Dad at Sunrise

We made it back to Anacortes really late on Sunday evening, after a fantastic dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Seattle, Monsoon. I took one day off that week and we spent the day wandering around Anacortes in the sun. Jay met up with us for lunch at the fabulous A'Town Bistro and another night we grabbed dinner at the best restaurant in town, Adrift, which was preceded by a visit to the relatively new rooftop bar in Anacortes. We sure are spoiled rotten as foodies in this town. While we love eating out at phenomenal restaurants, we love cooking at home even more! Jay grilled some halibut that we bought (and froze in March) and made crab cakes for my parents from Dungeness crab we bought that week. I made homemade asparagus ravioli another night with a light butter, garlic, asparagus, and chive sauce. Another night I bought a sockeye salmon from the Tribe (it is handy working as a fisheries biologist) and we headed to Deception Pass State Park for our annual BBQ - grilled sockeye for the carnivores and a veggie burger for me!

Since Jay and I don't work Fridays (I work four 10-hr. days and Jay only works four days a week) we had all day Friday and Saturday with my parents. We explored the Bow/Edison area on Friday, had a massive breakfast at Tweets, and checked out Padilla Bay National Estuarine Reserve (we also realized the Reserve is a great place to take kiddos - so we know what to do one day with the Barber-Justs when they come to visit in two weeks!). On Saturday we had plans to go to the Farmer's Market in Anacortes....and we did go....but a curb reached up and attacked my mother which resulted in a sprained ankle. =(  She always wanted to see all the places in Anacortes, so now she can say she explored the hospital! She is fine, but we had some quick changes in our afternoon plans as a result. We still made it out to dinner, as planned, that evening and I think that despite the scare, she will be O.K. Heck - she got a free wheelchair ride at the airport on Sunday when they left!

The only part about visits from parents that sucks is when they leave. As usual, it was a teary goodbye and it certainly wasn't fun to send them off with my mom's injured ankle. Normally, I just want to go home and mope around the house when my parents leave, but we had other guests arriving that same evening. This was actually a good thing because I was forced to cheer up and stop moping!

Geoff and Jay go way, way, back in time to when they were little dudes listening to tons of music together in Falmouth, Cape Cod, MA. We met Stef for the first time at our wedding in 2009 and we were thrilled to go to their wedding last April! Now they have a chill little dude, Louis, in their lives and they came out west to introduce him to Geoff's mom and sister (living in Portland) as well as to visit us and other dear friends. We feel so lucky that they were willing to make the drive up to us in Anacortes so we could get together. Despite the fact that Jay and I had to work during the days they were visiting, we managed to get some good quality time in together in the evenings (they played in Anacortes and on Orcas Island while we worked). 

One evening we headed to the new craft beer dispensary in town, Swill, to sample to goods. How lucky are we to live in a town this awesome? And how lucky are we to have such great parents, friends, and lives? June and July really have been great examples of the good life. We are rich in love, laughter, and friends and we couldn't be happier.

Photos are here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/111221596171793333099/albums/6037573264071352481?authkey=CK3AyIyfh4Ct-wE