Our First Overnighter.....and a Rubber Duck Race!

On Friday, we took Sun Break across the Puget Sound to the Port of Edmonds for our first overnighter.  We used to go to Edmonds a lot when we lived in Mukilteo, but this was the first time arriving by boat.  The weather was perfect and we had steady winds almost the whole way.

After settling into our slip, we had a nice happy hour before heading into town to one of our favorite restaurants for a bite of dinner.

We enjoyed the marina.  The views were fantastic.

We walked to the Edmonds Farmer's Market on Saturday.  The market there is huge and we are very familiar with it from our previous time there.  It was great to be back for a visit and to get some of our old standbys.

We had lunch on Saturday on the boat.

After lunch, we headed back to Poulsbo.  With light winds we were able to try out our new gennaker.

The boat slept great.  Last summer, when we didn't have a boat, we did what a lot of people here do and went camping. 

Camping and boating have a lot of similarities and we were able to appreciate being out in the woods, but, for now, we have put the tent away.  Baylee seemed to like to camp.  She seems to like being on the boat too, as long as it doesn't leave the slip.

On Sunday, we stopped by the Whaling Days Festival in Silverdale and caught the highlight of the day--the Rubber Duck Race.  In this fundraiser, 10,000 rubber ducks are dumped into the water. Each duck has a number and $5 tickets with a matching number are sold to the public.

Once released, the ducks begin their float race to the finish line.  With the help of the leaf blowers, that is.

Not sure which duck won or how it relates to whaling, but it was something just a little different.

Have a great week!

Fun in the (Mostly) Sun

Lots of fun activities this week with the Withrows.  Here is some of what we did.

On Monday, we headed down to Illahee State Park on Sun Break.  It was a little cooler than we had hoped, but the sun came out after lunch and the wind picked up and we enjoyed a great sail.  The kids proved to be naturals on the water and helped out with the helm and with lots of tacking.

Tuesday, we headed to Port Townsend and visited Fort Worden State Park where the kids showed their talents for successfully skipping stones on the water.

Wednesday brought miniature golf.

In the afternoon, kayaking was the main activity!  Matt and Carol sat this one out, but we got some nice pictures though!

Kayaking was followed by a stop for some ice cream. 

Now that was some ice cream!

On Thursday, Scott, Joseph and Brooks headed over to Seattle.  Max, Carol and Matt headed out to a beach on Bainbridge Island.

....Followed by a trip to the water park.

We all enjoyed seeing the seals sunning themselves on the piers during the week.

All of this and more made for a great week. 

                                                                                  

It's Summertime!

True to form, immediately after July 4th the temps finally reached into the 90's here. It was quite a shock to the system but we weren't complaining. This weekend, we greeted the Withrows from Atlanta who are spending the week here on a summer vacation.  Even after a five hour flight, with a three hour time difference, they were still game for a short sail in Liberty Bay after they arrived. Afterward, we all enjoyed a nice farmer's market dinner with some fresh salmon on Saturday night. On Sunday, they were raring to go and it was off to Seattle for some sightseeing at Pike Market before we headed to Safeco Field for the Mariners-Yankees baseball game.

There were a lot of Yankees fans at the game.

 

Max and Scott enjoying themselves.  Max is a Yankees fan too.

We had great seats out in the center field.  We got to see a lot of the center fielder,

                                                                          

                  and also the right fielder, Ichiro. Ichiro is playing in the All-Star Game this week.

Max noticed that Ichiro does a lot of stretching throughout the game.

                

The Yankees won, which was no surprise. After the game we took the ferry back to Bainbridge Island and then headed out for some pizza.

Then, being summer and all, we thought we would finish the day with some ice cream sundaes.  Mmmmm, yum!

Happy Summer!