My parent’s visit

I’ve been meaning to write a post about my parent’s visit a month and a half ago. They were here for a good week when the weather was amazing and fabulous. There’s so much we did but I wanted to highlight two things: our Labor Day and a day trip we took to Whidbey Island.

On Labor Day, we headed out early over to Golden Gardens Beach Park. I had read that they just opened up a brand new playground so I was eager to see it. Our timing was perfect as there was plenty of parking–within 2 hours of our arrival, there was no parking anywhere close so that was a good call! The playground was nice but really full of other families with the same idea as us. I personally found it to be geared more towards older kids but fun nonetheless. Here’s a video of Natalie on the swings:

After hanging out in the playground, we headed over to the beach, lay down some towels and just soaked in the sun and view. Surprisingly, Natalie was enjoying just sitting in the sand, snacking, playing, etc..

But of course, we eventually changed her into the proper baby-UV-fighting outfit and let her walk around.

I was surprised to learn that after living in Seattle for 12 years, I had never taken my parents to Golden Gardens! It was nice to show them the “beach” side of Seattle. We got a nice lunch at Anthony’s afterwards, headed home briefly then Chinese food in the ID.

Over the course of the week, I also realized that I’d never taken them on any ferry in Seattle. I didn’t want to do any overnight trips, so I planned a day trip to Whidbey Island with them. It was a VERY short ferry ride — 15 minutes I think? We still got some fun pictures out on the deck during that short ride:

After arriving, we immediately went into the town of Langley for some lunch. I wanted to check out the Prima Bistro from the reviews I had read–all in all, charming, nice deck, food was decent but maybe a little bit pricey. We walked around the town for a little bit afterwards–Natalie loved having her grandparents walk her around!

We then drove over for some more beach time — this time to Double Bluff Beach. It is of course famous for its Double Bluff but also for having a great high and low tide. When at low tide, the water is of course quite shallow for quite awhile. It’s a really popular beach for locals, children, pets. Again, we lay down some towels and just soaked in the gorgeous view and the smell of the salty sea air. It was low tide…and it was moving so fast that we found ourselves having to relocate our towels within 45 minutes of arriving.

Natalie changed into her swimsuit and we started to explore around.

By the time we were done, it was high tide again and much of the beach was no longer visible. We had to walk through the water just to even get to the stair entrance. We cleaned up (thank goodness for remembering a tip to bring a baggie of cornstarch — it does wonders for removing sand off of the body!) and headed out for a leisurely drive through the rest of Whidbey Island so Natalie could take a nap.

In the northern part of the island, we took an obligatory stop at Deception Pass to walk along the narrow bridge and take in the views. The sun was setting so it was beautiful.

We crossed the bridge and were back “on the mainland”. It was close to dinnertime and we were hungry–so we decided to swing down to the historic waterfront town of La Conner to eat dinner on our way home. I’d never been but had always been curious. It’s such a cute little quaint town and there are a number of waterfront restaurants. We just randomly picked one and were lucky enough to score a nice table right on their deck so that we could watch the sun set. We had some delicious seafood too!

We still had an hour drive after dinner and it was well past Natalie’s normal bedtime, but she fell asleep in the car and miraculous remained asleep after we got home…even after bringing her in, taking off her clothes, changing her diaper and putting on her pjs. We just easily picked her up and put her down in the crib! What a great ending to a nice day!

So anyway, the rest of my parent’s visit was just full of good food and lots of taking Natalie out to parks and such. Good times.