Beachy Keen

The amazing sunshine and warm weather have stuck around here in Western Washington. That means Saturday's mowing the lawn or yanking out horsetail from our side yard feel criminally wasted. To avoid such squandering, we loaded up the baby backpack in the car and headed 15 miles north to Larabee State Park on Saturday morning.

Larabee is on Chuckanut drive, a scenic drive between Burlington and Bellingham. The park has tons of trails, climbing, a few caves, and some neat little beaches for exploring. Our favorite is Clayton Beach. Most beaches on the sound rockier than they are sandy, but Clayton has both, and some really fun boulders for scrambling on.

Evie was in heaven.

There were tiny crabs, anemones, and barnacles to marvel over in the tide pools.


And she found some holes in a boulder that apparently needed plugging.

Untitled from Jennifer Bradbury on Vimeo.

She got a little technical with some rock climbing--we think this might have been a 5.0 in difficulty. We'll make sure to bring a helmet next time.
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She wasn't crazy about the wind whipping off the water, but it did provide a good reason to snuggle with her dad.
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And she even loves the hike in and out on Dad's back in this getup.
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Her day was so full (and her belly too from our picnic) that she conked out on the way home and slept four hours that afternoon.
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So when Evie said sweetly as we were hiking out "I like the beach," she was absolutely speaking for all of us.

Safety Takes No Holiday . . .

After a stretch of yucky, wet, gray cold weather that was bad by even Western Washington standards, the sun reemerged on Saturday. Every day (even when it was raining), Evie June's first words when I go into get her from her nap are "wake up play outside!" She is most pleased with the weather, and with some of the new fun she's found to enjoy.

Fun like 'washing' daddy's truck.


And playing in the box of the new lawnmower.


And of course good weather means lots of bike rides. Sunday we rode to church and then to the grocery store. The trailer was a little heavy on the way home and Evie had to ride with a gallon of milk ("cold!"), but it was worth it. One surprise is how much Evie likes wearing her helmet, often leaving it on for an extended period after a ride. Here she shows that you can never be too careful, whether testing out the SUPERMAXIMUMBUBBLEMAKER or wrangling a delightful but sometimes difficult summer staple: corn-on-the-cob.


Helmet Head from Jennifer Bradbury on Vimeo.

Jen

Bubbly

Evie June's got a new favorite outdoor activity.



It didn't take her long to learn that the soap solution smelled better than they tasted. And once we gave in to her demands to let "Evie hold it!", she quickly turned our backyard into a much less creepy version of that Lawrence Welk show we used to watch at my grandparents house.



And yes, we'll be teaching her to play the organ next.