Sunday, August 16, 2009

Our first summer in Sequim





Summer in Sequim has been wonderful. In June Nana and Papa Koch, (Josslyn’s folks), came up for Sawyer’s 6th birthday party. Sawyer loved having his grandparents here for his big day. We drove them all over the peninsula, took them to the beach, berry picking at one of the local U-Pick berry farms and to our favorite place to take visitors, the Dungeness Spit. We ran them ragged for the whole week. I think they had fun though.

The weather in Sequim during the summer takes some getting used to for us “desert people” from Southern California. Call us spoiled but we’ve lived with 325+ days of sun a year. In So Cal, if you wake up and it’s sunny, it almost ALWAYS stays that way for the day. Not so in the Pacific Northwest! In the PNW the weather can change in the blink of an eye. I like it but I’m still not used to it. In the morning it can be raining and in the afternoon we could have sun and clear sky. One week we’ll be cooking along at 90 degrees and the next week it’s in the 50’s and raining. I personally love the unpredictability and the breaks from the extreme heat but some of our So Cal visitors didn’t care for the cooler temps. My parents were cold almost their entire visit in June when it was in the 60’s and a bit cloudy. Southern California was too hot for us so we are happy to have the cooler summer here on the peninsula.

The first part of the summer each of the boys had a week of sports camp. Shortly after that, some friends from home visited us.

The Murrillo Family only had one day in Sequim before they caught the ferry to Vancouver but they made the time to come and see our new home and take us to lunch at the 3 Crabs for Dungeness crab. We appreciated seeing them so much.

In between visitors and swim lessons we play on the block with the neighborhood gang of kids and venture out into the wild to see what we can see. We found a beautiful part of the Dungeness River where we can inner tube and swim on hot days and a some great places to bike and roller blade. We are keeping busy as I’m sure you are too.

We were very excited when our friends from Chino Hills, Leanne and Kendra, who visited us twice on our cross-country adventure, came for a visit as well! We went all over Sequim and Port Angeles showing them around. We hiked in the Olympic National Park and took them to the beach for a little PNW style beach excitement. Unfortunately the wind kicked in that day and made for an interesting cold beach experience. The kids didn’t seem to notice much but the moms did. But, the local birds liked the wind and we did have a fabulous show from two bald eagles that flew right over us for about ten minutes gliding on the currents.

We even went to the few spots in Port Angeles that are mentioned in the Twilight book series, Bella Italia Restaurant, the book store and the Lincoln Theatre. The ladies in the group particularly liked the Twilight store with the Bella and Edward life-size cutouts.

Our summer in Sequim will continue with another blog about the Lavender Festival. Stay tuned!

1 comment:

Angela said...

Joss & boys,
It looks so beautiful there...we will have to come for a visit some day. Alex was talking about Robbie today actually. Glad you all are doing well and great to hear from you!
Angela