Brrrrr... Honolulu to Bellingham!

Mac took charge of the kids for a balmy week in Honolulu while I flew to the chilly wilds of Bellingham to visit Katie, the college kid.  I flew into Bellingham, which is a small airport.  They do love the outdoors in Bellingham, so much so that when we deplaned (love that verb) we were hit by a blast of fresh mountain air.  None of those stifling (but WARM) tunnel things to connect airplane to airport...  I admit that I was tempted to go back inside the airplane, but I soldiered on...

Eventually I made my way to Katie's house, which looked like a tornado had struck.  Five young college kids living there...  So basically, tornado-like.

Thus started the weekend with Katie.  I was exhausted (the red-eye sounded like an OK idea at the time of booking), but it was worth it!  Kate kept me awake by taking me on a little hike in the Chuckanuts.  It was only about 15 miles from her house, so how bad could it be!!


Well, it was a STEEP climb, and took about 4 hours or so to do the entire hike.  It was about 8 miles or so round trip, but it was a lovely day and the fog eventually lifted so that we could see some great views of Samish Bay and the many tiny islands.  The mountain air definitely kept me awake!

Beautiful moss! 

At the lookout...  We climbed 4.5 arduous miles for what??? 

It was chilly up on top, like we were inside a cloud.  (Because we basically were inside a cloud).  At first I thought I'd just get to watch the fog shifting around for a while.  But then...

The Fog Started To Lift...  Can you tell?

That's better- we could even sort of make out patches of Samish Bay.

40 year olds shouldn't take red-eyes.  College kids can stay up all night, no problem. 

And anyway the fog is lovely in and of itself...

Since it was getting later in the day, and I could check into my hotel at any point, we started back down the mountain.  Going down was easier, but still tricky!  The fog continued to lift, though, which meant that we could see the beautiful Samish Bay on the way down.

Samish Bay and numerous little islands.

The Beach, Bellingham Style...

Sun Setting...  And I was going on nearly 40 hours without sleep at this point...

The next day of the visit, we met up with a close childhood friend of mine who lives in Bellingham. She's a walker, so Kate and I were out at it again-- walking along the Bellingham Bay shoreline for a six mile stroll...

Rocky shoreline, and cold Pacific water. 

After a weekend of hiking, many meals out with Katie (Breakfast, Thai, Chipotle, Fancy Soup, Asian Fusion...), and the much anticipated Costco Run, it was time for me to head on to Phase 2 of my West Coast Adventure.  I flew to Yakima to meet up with the rest of the family, and to (FINALLY) meet my little niece.

Meeting Alura for the first time!!!  What a doll!

Mom and I got to babysit Alura one day, too.  She was exhausted from performing all week at daycare, so she slept quite a bit, but I did get some photos!

Alura is a much-adored little girl!  She loves bouncing, blowing bubbles, laughing, talking, and being the center of attention.  She's a perfectly fabulous 5-month old princess!

I had a great time meeting Alura, and a great time visiting Kate.  It was a lot of fun just to hang out in my old room, in my childhood house, and ignore responsibilities for a while.  I spent lots of time hanging out with Great-Grandma.  We watched the entire second season of When Calls the Heart (I just can't wait to find out if Jack and the girl end up getting married, or if she marries the wealthy Charles...  Choices!).

Grandma had some tomato soup from the Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant...

I also got to do something unusual for me:  get my hair done!  And I went shopping for just stuff I needed, I read some books, etc., etc.

The wallpaper is original, and it was my choice as a girl.  It's so great!

One other fun thing about the visit home was getting to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with Pablo (St. Patrick's Day is close to the day that USED to be Pablo's birthday, back when he celebrated...  All March celebrations to honor Pablo will henceforth be St. Patrick's Day celebrations.  Thus saith the queen.)  And of course, it's always a ton of fun to hang out with the Palmandez family in general.  And when Guy and Grace are around, chances are you may find a little dog of some sort.  I enjoyed scaring Ted by letting Alura touch (YIKES) the dogs...  Which Alura LOVED.

Alura LOVES poor Chiquita.  Chiquita was absolutely terrified though.  Too funny!

All in all, it was a very fun visit, and I really enjoyed it.  I returned to an exhausted husband and an empty fridge.  The kids told me they ate enough chicken wings to last a while (Steven said, "We had chicken wings for dinner every night except for one, and that's the night we went out to eat.").  Well, it's better than cereal!

Soon it will be Mac's turn to go galavanting around as he has plans to attend a few medical type things.  That's exciting for him, anyway!