Birch Bay Vacation

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My parents have had time share vacation memberships for years. Last year we shared a week at Lake Chelan with them, where we go with the girls for the first half of the week, then they come and take the girls for the rest of the week and Carol and I can have a little break. This year they reserved a unit in a brand new facility at Birch Bay on the Washington coast very close to the Canadian border.

Carol and I and the girls drove up Thursday morning. The weather was great on Thursday and Friday. We had fun walking on the beach. Audrey kept asking to go to a playground, so we asked around and were referred to the Million Smiles Playground in nearby Lynden. We headed over there and were well rewarded. The playground was built in 2007 and is the best playground I have ever seen. The girls thought so, too.

Charlotte loves any playground that has "baby swings". She'll swing on a regular swing, but she prefers the security of the "bucket" seat.

The playground had a lot more for Audrey. It had monkey bars and rings that were the perfect height for her - when she was hanging her feet were only a few inches off the ground. That made all the difference and Audrey mastered several new skills at the park. She went hand over hand on both the monkey bars and the rings for the first time. She was very proud and would ask anyone she encountered to watch her perform her new tricks. She also went down a fireman's pole for the first time and loved it.

Her favorite part was a high tower with a sort of clubhouse on the top (with crooked windows). Inside the tower was a long spiral tube slide. And to get to the slide there are winding narrow steps inside the tower that are maze-like. The slide is pitch black most of the way. Audrey loved it. She must have gone up that tower and down that slide at least a hundred times in our three visits to the playground.

We also had a good time at Birch Bay State Park about a mile from our condo. There were a couple of large driftwood trees with root systems that the girls had a blast climbing on.

On Sunday afternoon my parents arrived and we were all there that night. Carol and I had an adventurous night with Charlotte being a little sick and both girls being disoriented when they woke up in the night and came across musical beds (my parents were in what had been Carol and my room, we were on the sofa bed). We didn't get much sleep but we had to laugh about the ridiculousness of it all.

Monday Carol and I packed up and left the girls with their grandparents. Aunt Betsy (my sister Elizabeth) was also going to join them Monday night. Carol and I headed for Vancouver, BC for the day. We hadn't been there in years, and we are friends with a couple who moved there from Seattle a few years ago so we wanted to visit them. We had a nice day sightseeing and then met Matt at his coffee shop for a couple of hours. The border crossing was uncomplicated and quick both directions which was a bonus. Before border security was increased one used to be able to drive into Canada and back with no hassle at all, but these days there is almost always a long wait at least coming back. We were lucky. And we had very little traffic all the way back to Seattle, where we stayed up until 2:00 AM watching the Olympics.

I had one more day of vacation scheduled today. I worked in the back yard preparing for the alley fence. Carol got a bunch of work done for the pre-school. It was so easy getting projects done when it was just us! Then at 4:00 we went to see Iron Man at the local cheap second-run movie house we can walk to from home. And now more Olympics. A very nice last day of a very enjoyable vacation. Back to work tomorrow, so I'd better not stay up until 2:00 AM tonight.