Weekend on Whidbey

So we got lucky and have made some really good friends while here in Seattle. I don't know how it happened but we fell into great company. One such person, Pam who's here from Austin, rented a beach house out on Whidbey Island just northwest of Seattle. It's a half hour drive to the ferry to Mukilteo, a fifteen minute crossing on the ferry, and then a thirty minute drive to the house right on the beach facing Mt. Baker, still covered in snow in late August. It was pretty magnificent. The island is the largest in the contiguous (whatever that means) US. It's home of the famous Penn Cove Mussels and the town we were pretty much beside, Coupeville, is where Practical Magic (Sandra Bullock / Nicole Kidman film) was filmed. So it's a cute place right on the water. The top photo is Ash and David Wolfe on our hike across Ebey Point. From the highest spot you can see Mt. Ranier, Mt. Baker, and if it's clear enough Vancouver Island. All of it over the Puget Sound just before it becomes the Strait of Juan de Fuca (what'd you call me?). Awesome sight. Um, so we hiked and drank and relaxed and read. Great relaxing weekend in all. The next photo is Ash coming down the ridge. It's just to make some of you nervous. About a 45 degree angle and about a hundred or two feet down. She was a real trooper and never fell. An artsy composition sunset photo ala Jason and finally what the day of our hike looked like. So that's Ash's 30th week of prego-nancy as I like to call it. To me she just looks like the same wife I love and honor and cherish just with a big lump in the center. All's cool with me. Simon's a mover. Just now Ash called me to the bathtub to see him doing the shimmy-shake all over. Only nine and a half weeks to go. We have a crib and a stroller which means we can put him down to sleep and push him around. O - we're so prepared.
Adios, we'll be in Austin in a week and a half so until then...