Kindred Car Sitter

I had a few wishes for Spring Break:

I wanted to stay up late, sleep in, work on some projects, read, and go on one little adventure.

That's all.

Check, check, check and check.

It's been a successful Spring Break.

Yesterday Jill and I took our kids on a little adventure.  We drove a loop past not quite blooming tulip fields, over some bridges and across two small islands then took the ferry home.  It was lovely.  And freezing cold.  Spring with its longer days, stocked garden centers and patio furniture in the store gives me a false sense of hope.  It's still cold.  (Though it didn't rain and I'm grateful.)

We live in a really beautiful corner of the world.

We got out and crossed a bridge on foot:

It was a big bridge:

It made a few in our party (who are nervous about heights) skittish but since I'm afraid of balloons, I was in no position to judge.

When we got to Whidbey Island, Mark said, "Where are all the statues?"

"What statues?"

"There are supposed to be statues all over Whidbey Island."

We all looked at him with confusion and he said, "Maybe I'm thinking of Easter Island."

That kid is weird.  I love him.  But he's weird.

We drove to Fort Casey, an old fortress that used to protect the Puget Sound from invaders.  Since I was cold/lazy I didn't take any pictures at Fort Casey but I nabbed these from this site.

the bunkers

one of the cannons

When I travel with my own little family, I am always the first one to get cold, the last one that wants to get out of the car and the first one to climb back into the car.

In other words, the killjoy, wet blanket, party-pooper.

At Fort Casey, when the doors were opened in the van and the cold air gusted in, I said, "I don't want to get out of the van."

Jill didn't either.

We sat in the warm van, keeping an eagle eye on our children ("I think that's them...").  It was nice to have a fellow warmth seeker.

Do we look cold?  We were.

Watching our children (from the van), I noticed something about them:

Braeden and Chase:  the oldest in each family.  They like to be in charge.  They are confident and get things started.

Emma and Hannah:  they are mostly absorbed in their girl-friend-ness but occasionally venture into the boy world.  But only if they want to.  No amount of brother cajoling can make them do what they don't want to do.

Mark and Calvin:  the babies.  They are amiable and independent and happy and on the periphery but on their mothers' radars.  (Although Mark more often than not slipped from view.)

So look at that, some birth order analysis and that wasn't even on my Spring Break list!

An overachiever.  That's what I am.