Washington: Anniversary and Family Reunion

Simon and I decided to make a leisurely trip to the Merrill Family reunion. We left on Saturday afternoon, after Simon got off work and drove to Boise. The following morning we went to church with my cousin Janese and Carlos. It was fun to see them and Kaylee and Orden.

We drove from Boise, ID to Washington. We have a car power adapter that we used to put our rice cooker on 'warm'. It didn't have enough power to cook rice, but if we cooked it in our hotel, we could take it with us. It was pleasant to eat real food while on the road.

We stopped near Grandview Washington Sunday evening and visited with Simon's old mission President and his wife--the Thornocks. They live right on the Yakima river--beautiful country! They have only been home a couple weeks at most from West Virginia. They were so kind and fed us dinner--very nice after hours of driving. I even got a bread recipe from President Thornock's dad.

We drove a little past Yakima, WA (about 6 hours from Boise), and stayed at the Apple Country Inn Bed and Breakfast (http://applecountryinnbb.com/index.html). Situated among orchards, this spot was very peaceful, particularly contrasted to Provo road noise, and Boise's freeway noise. We decided to use our time off from work to celebrate our anniversary. The accommodations were quite comfortable. The owners of the Bed and Breakfast knew we were celebrating our anniversary and left us a rose in our room and a bottle of Martinellis. Very sweet-

In the morning she made us the most delicious breakfast--quiche served next to sausage,  a pitcher of orange juice and a fruit smoothie on the side. She served us outside in an arbor. There was even a dog for Simon, which he loved. It was so relaxing we didn't want to leave.

We left mid-morning for the peninsula. We drove another 5-6 hours until we reached Fort Worden, which is right next to Port Townsend.

 

Crossing the Tacoma Narrows bridge

Fort Worden

We stayed in the old officer's housing. They were spacious--which made it nice for visiting.

Tuesday was family picture day. My dad's family--parents (grandma and grandpa Merrill) siblings (my aunts and uncles), children (my siblings and cousins), and even some of my cousins children (great grandchildren) posed--they'll have to photoshop in the few missing cousins.

 After the multi-generational picture, my family took family pictures--we took a bunch of fun pictures with the camera on the tripod--Brian set it up and cousin Sarah Merrill pushed the button.

We even did jumping pictures. Those take a while to get right...it's hard to jump at exactly the same time.

 Brian took a lot of photos after the official picture taking ended.

We had fun wading along the beach almost every day...but I never went in very far because the water was bitterly cold (Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca are far from warm).

 Brian edited this photo he took. Since it's already on facebook, I may as well post it here. It is a very artistic photo--particularly with his editing.

The lighthouse

On Wednesday (t-shirt day), we wore our family reunion shirts. It is kind of fun to identify at a glance who is family by glancing around to find shirts that match.

The shirts fit our surroundings quite well--especially as we  explored the bunkers.

 Thursday morning we left at 7:30 AM. We took the ferry at Kingston over to Seattle. There was fog across Puget Sound. The ferry used a fog horn...it gives a whole new meaning to the term fog horn.

Not sure if taking the ferry saved any time or not as we ran into Seattle traffic--and a closed Interstate--I-90 was closed because the Blue Angels were practicing for a Seattle festival. On the plus side we got to see some Blue Angels' maneuvering from our vantage point on a road a little further northward. 

We once again ate rice, but this time we had left-over chicken and ribs to eat alongside. My parents gave us left-overs, which dramatically improved our eating and saved us time from food stops. We only stopped for restrooms, and filling the car with gas.

We drove and drove and drove--17 hours? to make it back to Provo Thursday for work on Friday. We ran into an incredible lightning storm which lasted for 4-5 hours of our drive (southern Idaho to northern Utah). I took some videos of the constant bolts...and deleted them when I downloaded them--I tried downloading. I took them with my smaller Panasonic camera which takes the same sized card as my Canon.  I tried downloading them from my Canon because it loads faster. But it downloaded as a picture...and then I deleted before I knew they didn't download as video. I'm rather disappointed by that mishaps.

We arrived in Provo at 2 a.m. and went straight to bed. The following morning Simon had work at 8 a.m. and I worked from 8:45-6:15. We crashed about 9 p.m. Friday night exhausted.