A while ago, we offered to take Ethan and Addison for a weekend, and bring them over to Galiano with us. Time is passing by very quickly, and the weekend was upon us! Stu and Tammy dropped the kids off on Friday night, and we were booked on the ferry on Saturday morning, with a return on Monday morning. That gave us a couple of full days to have some fun!
I’m not sure who’s more excited for the weekend?
Stu and Tammy dropped the kids off at our place in the early evening, and we did a car swap that allowed us to take the kid’s bikes over to the island with us. Having the truck was great, as we had a lot of stuff to take over with us. We hung out on the roof for a bit before Ethan “encouraged” his parents to leave. As we had an early start the next day, it wasn’t too late a night.
Saturday morning we had an early start to catch the ferry. We had a lot of packing to do, so I was up a bit earlier and got us organized. By the time we had everything loaded, everyone was pretty squished in. The trip over is always pretty easy, but for some reason we were running a little late, and didn’t have long to wait before we started loading. A quick trip across the straight and we were on Galiano!
Our tent was set-up to easily handle the four of us in comfort!
Once we got up to the property, we had all the usual set-up stuff to do. Justine, Ethan and Addison worked on getting camp set-up. They got the tent all organized, figured out our clothes and organized some of the food. I worked on unpacking the truck, and organizing most of the food.
Ethan also helped me with a walk around the property to check out all the plants we had planted, to do some watering and just generally check things out. Everything was looking pretty good, and the irrigation we had set-up was working well.
Heading off on the short hike.
It only took us a n hour or so to get organized. Part of the plan for the weekend was to take the kids on a mountain bike ride. Ethan is a great rider (much better than I am), and Addison is also getting quite good. Other than the awful hike-a-bike at the beginning (I was fully expecting to carry three bikes up the hill), I knew both of them would handle it easily, and hopefully think it was fun. That was planned for Sunday. Ethan was pretty eager to see the hill, so we did a short walk out to see the start of it. We had promised him $20 if he could ride it, as he told us he could (sight unseen…), and $10 if he pushed his bike the whole way. Addi also wanted in on that action, but we felt like our money was pretty safe.
We checked out the start of the hill, then headed back to the property. We had planned some activities to kid the kids engaged, including a bit of a woodworking project. So when we got back, and before having lunch we got into that.
And on the way back.
We planned to make a “washers” game, as it is pretty simple from a construction perspective, involved spray paint, and I hoped would hold their interest long enough. I had each of them spray paint one set of washers, which didn’t leave us with the best paint job, but oh well - it was fun. After that they were great help with holding wood as I cut it, and helping to hold the frame while I assembled. Ethan even took over putting screws into the plywood base. Addison and Justine cut up the carpet for the inside, and in no time we were done.
We left them to dry while Addison made us lunch, and then had a quick game after lunch. Ethan and I won handily, and it wa sa lot of fun. We did determine that our glue wasn’t holding well enough, as we ended up knocking both pipes loose. So we reapplied and left it while we set out on our next adventure.
In for a swim at morning beach, with a great view of Mount Baker in the background.
The tides were coming in high in the late afternoon, so we headed down to the beach to go for a swim. We decide to go to a new beach that we had never been to called Morning Beach. It was supposed to be one of the nicest beaches on the island, sandy and very kid-friendly. So we hopped in the truck and headed down to the south end of the island.
The beach lived up to its reputation! Definitely the nicest beach to date, with lots of sand, a nice protested area and the water was the warmest we’d had while on the island. We were all in the water in no time! One thing that we had discovered was that Ethan is obsessed with Gopro cameras. Justine had won one a while back that we hardly use. So Ethan was dying to use it all weekend. We had bought a waterproof housing for it, to protect it from the sea water, and Ethan spent the whole time shooting videos. It’s going to take some time, but I’ll try and put together some of the clips, and post them as well.
We spent a good few hours down at the beach - it was a great afternoon!
After spending the afternoon at the beach, we headed back home to get cleaned up and continue our fun day. We had reservations around 6:00 for dinner at Tranquilo at Bodega Ridge. With the big outdoor patio and the great food, we thought the kids would like it,
The weather was beautiful, with great views out over the channel. The food was excellent, and it amazes me that two kids that were eating all day can continue to pack food away. I think Addison ate as many tacos as I did!
As the evening went on, we had a cool bird sighting, with a whole flock of common nighthawks buzzing about us after the insects in the air. That was cool to see, and a new one for us. After dinner we sat out for a bit before calling it a night.
Our first night was a nice one! Great sunset.
A great view of Mount Baker glowing in the last light of the day.
Someone wasn’t sharing the covers…
Addison was her usual smiling self this morning - photo credit to Ethan.
Sunday morning was another beautiful day, and it was looking like it was going to be sunny and hot. Which was perfect for our planned activities. We were going to tackle our bike ride and then head down to Pebble Beach in the afternoon.
Ethan (who was obsessed!) had been playing around with the Gopro camera pretty much the whole time, but in fairness he did manage to get some good videos and some good photos over the course of a couple of days.
The morning started pretty relaxed. I did some small chores around the property while everyone else got going. We had some breakfast “best egg sandwiches ever” apparently - and then got organized for our ride.
I was very curious how both kids would do. I didn’t expect the ride itself to be too much of a challenge for Ethan, but the hike-a-bike at the beginning is a challenge for an adult, so we’d see how the kids managed.
All geared up and ready to ride!
We headed out and Ethan immediately showed off his biking skills, making it up the first steep section that the rest of us didn’t quite make. It was a good start. The first couple of kilometers to the start of the hiking section was good. Addison was handing the hills well, and Ethan seemed to be having fun.
The hike-a-bike was not as bad as expected. While Ethan was not able to ride it like he claimed he would (there was no chance), he did a great job of pushing his bike up most of it. I only needed to help him in a couple of sections. Addison did equally well. She pushed quite a few sections, and while I had to help here more than Etna, she too did really well. I was impressed!
In fact Justine had the biggest problem - a flat tire! And we had neglected to bring a pump, so she ran back to get one while I helped us all get our bikes to the top. We had a short rest until Justine returned, and we were able to pump her tire back up. We were back on track.
At the trail intersection where Addison and Justine, and Etan and I split paths.
The next stage of the trail is really nice - soft and flowy, with a bit of climbing. Ethan was ripping it up, keeping me on my toes. I spent most of the time filing him on the Gopro, except for one stretch where I filmed Addison for a while. She handled herself really well, and did great on the one stretch of downhill along this section.
Eventually we got to a trail intersection where we were splitting up. Ethan and I were continuing on a slightly longer part of the trail, while Addison and Justine were heading back in a more direct fashion. There was a pretty sizeable downhill section and a lot more climbing on the longer route, and we suspected that it might be too much for Addison. I think we made a good call and maximized the enjoyment for both of them.
Ethan and I continued on and had a good ride. I think there was a bit more climbing than he really wanted, but he seemed to enjoy the downhill and flowy parts a lot. Eventually, we got through the ride back on the road and met up with the girls.
After we got back home and unpacked, we dropped by our neighbors place. They have built a zipline, and had invited the kids over to check it out, which as you can image was a big hit. Dana and Bradley were headed back to the ferry within the hour, but Bradley was kind enough to set-up both kids for a ride down the ziplines. It looked like a blast, and it seemed like they really enjoyed it!
After zip-lining we we chilled for a bit and got organized for another hot afternoon at the beach! This time we stayed a little closer to home and went down to our local favorite, Pebble Beach. So named for the small, smooth pebbles that make up the beach. At high tide, this makes for a great swimming beach, and while it was not as warm as it was the day previous at Morning Beach, it was the warmest the water has ever been for Justine and I. It was really nice.
We spent a long time at the beach and in the water. But eventually it was getting towards dinner time, so we headed back to the property. We had a good dinner of burgers, with one of the craziest skies I’ve ever seen over the property. These pictures - no adjustments, and no, we didn’t Photoshop the sky in.
It had been a very full, bust day and I think we finally wore them out. It ended up being a pretty early evening, which was a good thing as a freak thunderstorm blew in. It started with lightning, but no thunder or rain - just flashes across the sky at the beginning. Then came some proper thunder and lightning, but still no rain. Later in the evening we had a few cells of the full on thunder, lightning and rain. Not a lot of rain - when I got up in the morning the ground was dry, but it made for an interesting night. The kids were wiped and barely noticed, but it kept Justine up.
The morning we had an early start as we had an early ferry to catch. It was a beautiful sunrise as we packed up camp, packed the truck and headed for home. We had a really fun weekend, and the kids were great. I hope they had as much fun as we did.
This one I may have manipulated a bit…