Whirlwind Named Iris

Sorry for the belated post. Several reasons contributed to the long absence. First, there is a bug in the WP 2.6 where it ignored my defined image directory location. I only just figured out what the problem was, and found and installed the fix. Second, I now have a deep appreciation for single parents everywhere. There simply has been no alone time to do anything, including peeing, never ming blogging.

Okay, picture laden post below, none of them fiber related. If you are here for fiber, skip right on by. If you are here about my vacation with Iris, click on through.

It’s been a week with Iris; I thought I’d share some of the pictures from this past week.

The very happy little savvy traveler, getting off of the plane from her very first unaccompanied minor flight. She was so giddy with pride, photos do not do justice to her glow.

Here she is, showing off the loganberries that she has picked at the Greenbank Farm. These were for the dessert at the Moulton Musher family reunion dinner that night at my cottage.

Here’s Captain Iris, at the helm of a 32′ motor boat that was our home for 3 nights, 4 days, while we cruised the San Juan Islands. She had very set ideas of how to steer a very straight line.

As you can see from this picture, by holding the steering wheel absolutely straight doesn’t mean that you are going straight. We slithered through the water. Don’t worry, Michael was at hand to make sure that we didn’t run into anything.

She was a good sport and hiked to the top of Turtleback Mountain with us on Orcas Island (with limited whining about how long and hot it was). With Uncles Michael and Mark.

The entire cruise was rather bittersweet, since the last time I was up here, I was with Martin on a sailboat. Orcas was particularly so since this is where we spent our belated honeymoon, and our 5th anniversary. I got weepy a few times during the day. Good thing I was distracted by Iris when we drove by the B&B or I would have been bawling.

Here she is, hangin’ out at Cousin Kinnan’s place on Orcas. Yes, Cousin Kinnan is a state park ranger. Iris will have bragging rights when she goes back to school. She saw him put on his bullet proof vest, and full park regalia, including the gun and bobby stick, when we went to the top of Mount Constitution for the sunset.

Get a load of our berthing spot at Victoria, BC! Front row seat to The Empress Hotel as well as the Parliament buildings. The night lights were simply stunning. As Iris said, it’s like being in Disneyland at night! (Iris with Uncle Stu, Aunt Joelle, Uncle Michael, and Uncle Mark. What you don’t see is that everyone is holding a drink, including Iris — Canada Dry, of course!)

Dinghy ride with Uncle Mark in Friday Harbor. Iris has become quite the expert getting in and out of the dinghy, as well as ducking when Mark is trying to (re)start the cranky outboard engine.

Back on Whidbey Island, here’s Iris, pounding found bark on the beach at Fort Casey to make paper, like they used to do in the old days. (Warning for Grace — she’s still got these and she plans on taking them all the way home to LA.) I don’t think this is violating the “do not remove driftwood from the beach” rule.

That’s the end of week 1. I’ll post more later.