alaska visitors and a day of ferry rides

this past saturday thatcher's aunt and uncle were in town from alaska, so we spent the entire day touring with them. they rented a mini van and picked us up at 8:30 in the morning for a day of "island hopping" (that's what i'm calling it. sounds so exotic right?). it was a beautiful sunny day with highs in the upper 60s. we first drove to edmonds and took the ferry (mini van and all, our first time doing the car thing!) over to port townsend, which is on the peninsula. it was a 30 minute ride. 

we had not been to port townsend yet and i fell in love with it! it had such a charming downtown with fun shops and restaurants. 

we had lunch at a cafe in the downtown then spent some time on the pier

after that, we found a park where the kids played on the playground and threw rocks on the beach

from port townsend, we took a ferry over to whidbey island. 

we didn't spend much time in whidbey island, unfortunately, so i'd like to go back some time because it looked really cool. the reason we didn't spend much time there is because it was already late afternoon and the kids were getting burned out and we still had another ferry ride to take, back to the main land. when we got to the ferry waiting area (a special lane on the main road) there was a sign that said "90 minute wait from this spot." yikes! it only ended up being about a 60 minute wait thankfully, but the kids were struggling big time by this point. and we had to just sit in the car and wait for our escape. the ferry ride back to mukilteo went well. we got home after 7pm. whew! 

it was a lot of fun to hang out with georgianne and randy for the day, and they were good sports when the going got rough with the kids ;) i realized there are no pictures of thatcher or azalea in this post, but i assure you they were along!