The War on the Rez 2008

We decided to take a few days and escape our regularly scheduled lives.  We hopped in the car (masterfully packed using my excellent Tetras skills...) and drove up to Bellingham, Washington for a few days.  We got to spend time with my brother, Owen and his wife Melinda and also my sister Sariah, her husband Randy and their beautiful daughter Cora.  And of course, my parents, Owen and Janet.    It was wonderful and much too short!

We were privy to the most awesome fireworks display I have EVER seen.  My uncle Mike and aunt Cynthia came up for the day and evening, bringing some really cool fireworks and then my parent's neighbors (two brothers) had a dueling fireworks display that went on for hours.  I am not talking about little ground flowers or fountains, I am talking about mortars that shoot into the sky and light up the world like Baghdad.  It was seriously amazing.  

This is a picture of my dad up on the balcony of the studio shooting one of his guns (blanks, of course) to add to the festive BOOMS.

We had an impromptu spoon carving event.  It started with Melinda and Owen looking around some shops in Fairhaven (an older and kind of kitchy area of Bellingham).  They went into a shop called Artwood.  They had some hand carved spoons for sale but wanted an arm and a leg for them.  Owen suggested that they could just carve their own spoons and so they came back to the house and the spoon carving extravaganza began.  Everyone wanted in on the action.  Here is a photo of Randy and Melinda working on spoons.  I will have to take a photo of the spoon my dad for me.  It's a bowl of soup spoon.  Ben made a really cool spork.  Have spork, will travel!

We got to spend some time with our wonderful friends, David & Rachel and their little brood of rascals - Isaac, Millie and Aaron.  That was a blast and we were sorry to leave them and also not to be able to spend more time with them.  Here is a picture of Millie, Uly, Gar and Isaac in the water at Mukilteo beach.  We ate at Ivar's, right next to the ferry and then walked over to the beach and let the kids play. 

We went to Boulevard Park for a neat event called Paddle to Lummi.  American Indian tribes all over the coast paddle their canoes to the park and have a celebration.  It was really fun to hear some stories and see dancing.  Then afterwards we went to a local ice creamery called Mallards and partook of delicious ice cream.  I had a two scoop cone with lavender and lime.  It was delicious, as usual.

We took the boys down to the Lummi Island Ferry dock and went fishing for a little while.  They are still too young for that kind of thing but they had a lot of fun anyway.  Ben was sad that he didn't get to really go fishing but we just were out of time.  We need to plan a day where he can really go fishing and catch "real" fish next time we are up there.  Unfortunately crabbing was closed in Whatcom County so we couldn't throw in our pot either.

I had a great time taking a ton of photos.  I went to burn disk copies for everyone before we left, but I took way too many photos so I am going to burn copies on DVDs and mail them.

  

All in all we had a blast and are looking forward to seeing Grandmamom and Grandad Walker again in September, in Moab, at the Walker Reunion.