Cherry Picking

We went cherry picking today!

I love visiting our local orchards for fresh produce.

I love summer!

Jack and Lucy were like monkeys up in the trees.

The orchard said, "no kids on ladders," my kids took that as, climb the trees. HA!

 I said, "strike a pose".... this is what I got!  Crazy kids!

I'm ready to go again next month for fresh peaches!

Flags, Friends and the 4th!

We had a great 4th of July weekend!

Our dear friends, the Elledges are here visiting from Denver.

The Elledges are old neighbors and they come out every year.

Joan's parents have a lake house at Loon Lake.

 A fun little patriotic photo shoot. 

 Jack and Matthew flipping off the floating dock.

 Lauren and Olivia... they have been friends since they were in diapers.

 Lauren made this yummy jello dessert. 

 These two have so much fun together!

 Gorgeous view from the deck of the cabin.

I decided to have a little fun..

I set up my tripod and took these fun shots of the kids playing with their sparklers.

Next year I'm going to work on capturing the sparkler movement and having my subject in focus. :)

San Juan con't...

I'm finally getting around to post photos (from my big camera) of our vacation to the San Juan Islands.

We had so much fun doing nothing, but enjoying the beautiful landscape, eating yummy seafood and just hanging out together. 

This is our idea of a fun, relaxing vacation.

 This is a lighthouse on Limekiln Bay.

I took this same photo last year, it's just beautiful.

 This part of the hiking trail on Limekiln Bay.

While we were hiking, Jeff struck up a conversation with a photo journalist and he told us the whales would be coming through in about 30 mins!

We were beyond excited and sat ourselves on the rocks and waited..

 It was truly an amazing sight... 

This is our 3rd trip to the San Juans and our 1st time actually seeing whales!

 These are cute little cars you can rent on the island.

Olivia was wanting to drive one of these.

 We went to our favorite little seafood place located on Friday Harbor to get oysters, lots of oysters! Yummy!

 Here's our ferry pulling in to take us to our cabin on Orcas Island.

 The kids love riding on the ferry..

They have puzzles set up to work on while you ride to your destination.

 This was taken early one morning during low-tide. 

Jack loved searching for sea life.

 The tide was so low that we were able to walk out to this little island.

This is where we saw tons of starfish. 

 Having my mom join us was such a special treat.

She loved it too!

If you look close you can see the starfish in the bottom right corner.  

 This is all normally underwater... 

while we were there we were told to hurry before the tide came back in or we would be swimming back.  :)

 We went to Bucks Bay Oyster farm not once, but twice to pick out dinner. 

We were able to pick our own crab, oysters and clams.
We brought them back to our cabin to cook them in white wine and tons of garlic butter. 

I'm not going to mention any names, but a certain someone ate their body weight in clams.  :)

 We hiked up Mt Constitution.

The views were amazing!

 I loved taking photos of the light coming through the trees.

 The roads on the island are so thick and lush.

 Our cabin was located on West Bay and every night we were able to sit out, roast s'mores and enjoy incredible sunsets. 

We can't wait to go back again!

This is truly our favorite vacation destination.