Lets start at the very beginning, a very good place to start

Was anyone singing after they read that title?? We like the Sound of Music. Anyways, lets get down to the nitty gritty (we like the movie Nacho Libre too)...

Below is a picture of Sean and I. A picture of us from college, young and in love. It cracks me up. First of all, we look like we're 10 years old. Secondly, Sean's hair. Thirdly, Sean's shirt (I won't mention my shirt, I'm pretty sure I snatched it from my roommate). If you look close at Sean's shirt you'll see it says Friday Harbor, and no, I didn't buy it for him. He had actually purchased the shirt himself when he visited Friday Harbor with his family while still in high school. Crazy huh?! I could have walked past him in town or he could have seen me while I was working at the little Mexican restaurant. It's a small world. It's just one of the many reasons why I knew we were meant for each other. Which brings me to...

...a very special day that has now come and gone.

Sean and I celebrated our 9th anniversary last month. Well, actually we didn't celebrate. I told Sean, "Lets just save the money we'd spend on going out to dinner and put it towards our trip to Hawaii for our 10th anniversary." He smiled. Okay, that's not the real reason we didn't celebrate. Although, I do feel it's a good enough reason and one I plan to follow up on. The real reason is because the Bateman family came for a visit. Sean's cousin Jeremy, his wife Kristy and their three children, Kaylee, Maya and their newly adopted son, Israel came all the way up from Hemet, California. It was such a treat to have them in our home town. We have a good time when we're together. I'm thankful they had the courage to come this far ;) (inside joke - Kaylee prayed, the night before they were going to leave, "dear Jesus, thank you for giving us the courage to come to Stella's house..." or something along those lines - so funny!).

The picture below is what our kids looked like the last time they came up to Friday Harbor.

Jonah, Stella, Kaylee and Maya

4 years and a couple more kids later...

Day 1 - A relaxing day at the pond.

They stayed in the water so long they had some major prune hands (which totally makes me think of the Saturday Night Live skit...anyone remember, anyone??)

Day 2 - A trip to Lime Kiln State Park a.k.a. the whale watching park.

We spotted some Orcas. There were probably around 40 to 50 of them. They were really far out at first.

Then this guy started coming in hot from the left.

It was pretty amazing seeing them up close in the wild.

Day 3 - A trip to Eagle Cove

After the beach we came back and had some dinner. For dessert we roasted some s'mores over our new fire pit that was literally built back on day 2.

Please excuse my daughter, she knows not what she wears.

Day 4 - Sunday

We went to church, more swimming in the pond and then ended the night with ice cream in town.

Please excuse my daughter, she knows not what she wears.

It was such a fun time. Come visit us again!