Whidbey Island

Grammy (aka Jon's Mom) came up for a visit for a week and Grampy (aka Jon's Dad, aka Cookie--ask us if you want the details) came out for 1/2 of the week to spend some time with us. One of the days that Grammy was here before Grampy came, we decided to give Grammy her first ever experience driving in a car onto a ferry boat. For those of us in the Seattle area, that's not uncommon at all, so it was fun for Matthew to be a pro at something that Grammy had never done before. He and Seth wanted to go out on the deck to get some pictures:



One of the destinations on Whidbey was this small lighthouse. It wasn't huge, but Matthew has been into lighthouses recently, so we stopped by.


In this one, we could actually go up to the top where the light used to be. There was a very steep spiral staircase going up half way to the top, and then a staircase so steep that it resembled a ladder more than a staircase. It was fun to go up in the top and look out over the water.


Matthew took a spiral notebook that he has been using as his field journal. He wanted to document the lighthouse by drawing it for himself. Grammy helped give him pointers on the different geometries of the lighthouse (sphere on top of the light house, long thin windows, etc).



Sethie even joined in for part of the drawing, although we're not too sure that he was very much help with the drawing.


The lighthouse was next to Fort Casey, an old fort that was meant to protect Puget Sound from foreign invasion. The had a number of guns that fired 10-inch rounds. When Sethie saw them, he said "choo, choo!" since they were long metal cylinders on a turntable.



After that, we went to Deception Pass, a state park in the sound with a lake, a lot of hiking trails, and other interesting things. One of the attractions was huge bridge that connects Whidbey Island with the mainland. Under the bridge, Matthew got his first look at civil engineering.


We thought it would be a good place to take a family pictures, but it looks like the shadows weren't cooperating with us that day.


Even though the lighting for the picture wasn't the greatest, it was hard to argue with such a beautiful day on the coast. It was raining in Seattle for most of the day, and one of the tour guides at the lighthouse told us that they only have 4 days of good weather a year. Even though he was probably exaggerating, we were glad to spend such a beautiful day on the island.