Fort Ebey

This week we went to see Fort Ebey State park. I've been wanting to go see it for a while, since last summer as a matter of fact when we went to Fort Casey...in the pouring rain. That trip wasn't bad, but it wasn't great, I had a walking boot on and was about 3 months pregnant at the time...did I mention it was raining? 

Anyway, it WAS NOT raining this weekend. In fact, it was perfect for a sea side stroll/hike, just enough heat to make the wind coming off the water nice and refreshing. It was a great day for picture taking, and again I have to say, I actually haven't included ALL of the best shots...I just couldn't overload you with anymore...There were soo many good shots, but while *I* love to look at all these pictures of my kids, I understand that they tend to blur to others...so I tried to edit down the numbers...and I still have far too many...Oh well... you can scroll past them ;)

Anyway, it's a great "park". I put that in quotes because it's quite large and spread out. There are a bunch of different little dookits. There's the beach and gun battery, where there is camping allowed, there's the Prairie part as well as a bluff....there are crops actually being grown and harvested on the land as well. 

Fort Ebey, is also on Whidbey Island, which is but a 30 minute ferry ride from the Mukilteo ferry dock. In fact, we spent more time in line (45 minutes) waiting to get to the toll booth than we did on the ferry. This was our very 1st ferry ride as a family. So it was quite exciting.  

 We took the beach route, the buggy was pretty much not even an option so Allan put her in the pack and I carried the bag. We started out toward a small lake near the beach, then up through the land and down this perilous switchback hill down to the beach. Once we got to the beach it was pretty easy going for us since there was a loop back to the car w/o having to follow the switchback hill back up THANK God because that thing was crazy...had I realized we weren't having to go back up it, I'd have taken a picture at the bottom of it. Suffice it to say, I was THRILLED to realize we didn't have to retrace our steps.  

Kayleigh loved it, she spent most of the time either chattering into Allan's ear smiling away; or sleeping...Liam loved it, but then he loves to walk, and any time he's allowed to climb something, run or throw something he's a happy camper..You can only imagine how excited he was here where he could do it all! 

After we were thoroughly tuckered out from the hills and the beach we decided to try our luck at the Bluff, where there was more ability to use the buggy. Which was a twofold plus. One, while a 15lb baby isn't TERRIBLY heavy, she seems to gain weight exponentially by the minute. Two, she is a red head...and it was sunny, and we had no hat. No matter how much sunscreen I slather on her I worry about her fair skin. 

The cool thing was this was also where crops were being grown. I have in all my *cough...cough* years, have NEVER actually SEEN wheat. So that was very cool. I'd also never seen a cabbage's plant they are large bushy odd things I'd never had guessed a cabbage was under all the "fluff".

Liam had fun running along the very dusty, rutted farm road...playing scarecrow in the "wheat" which was really just tall grass since he couldn't actually go into the wheat. I think his favorite part though was near the end he'd found that he could hang on Allan's arm and drag and it didn't hurt, but it sure did LOOK funny, and kicked up quite a bit of dirt. Add his now FILTHY clothes to his "dirt shiner" and  he was quite the epitome of a the old saying that a boy is nothing more than "Noise with dirt on it."