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Quite the delay in posting, I know….I guess life just happens.

We arrived home from our travels and settled into our work routines.

A lot of local exploring here in the Olympia area; Falls Park, Ocean Shores, the revamped Olympia downtown area.  Lots of exiting places to go to.  For extensive historical value, Falls Park in Tumwater is the place for me.  This is the site of all the original industry in the area, pre-dating the olympia area.

Jump forward to November.  We bought plane tickets for Tyna, my oldest daughter, to come up to visit from Albuquerque.   Her husband Everest was gracious enough to to take over kid duties for a week so she could come (there were reasons not to have the girls come up at this time as well) and visit with her grandparents and see the area she hasn’t been to since she was 18.  She is now 31 and it seems like yesterday when she was born.

RP and I had some adventures laid on and also gave her plenty of time to drive herself around and visit with family.  No pressure on her and I think it was probably a well deserved vacation from her day to day life.  I know she missed everyone there since she FaceTimed with Everest and the girls a lot.

Her grandparents enjoyed getting to see her and grandma gave her a couple of her dolls from her collection for the girls.

One of our adventures was to go to Falls Park in Tumwater.  We then headed out past Shelton to Hood Canal.  We drove the winding road along the canal with a stop at one of our favorite roadside places, the Geoduck, in Brinnon.   This place is famous for its seafood and a specialty is their oyster sandwich, a hoagie piled with oysters that are perfectly breaded and fried.  A few pictures and with our tummies full we headed north again.  Our Destination?  Hamma Hamma for the family owned oyster/seafood market there.  Of course, it’s winter and the outside dining is closed so we strolled around the grounds taking pictures and then headed inside.  Tyna made a friend with one of the shuck bosses and he took her into the shocking area and gave her a tour, explaining about the different types of oysters and their aquaculture.   He then let her try her hand ato shocking oysters and letting her eat what she shucked.  What fun to see her face as she described this new skill and the flavors of the oysters.

As we were pulling out of the lot, I looked up and there was a huge flock of birds dancing high above.  I pulled over and grabbed my binoculars and discovered that we got to see a real treat!  There were about 30 pairs of bald eagles mating in the sky above…what a sight, they would wheel and gain altitude, then grapple together and fall till it seemed they must not be able to recover, and at the right time come apart and fly high again.  This was a marching ball of birds that gave us a show for about 15 minutes before they continued upriver out of view.

We then headed back out north to a spot we had been told about that has a great waterfall after a short hike.  We walked up the trail along a bounding stream under the typical tree canopy and came out into a beautiful break at a rock face.  The mist playing in the sun from this creek roaring down over the shear rock face was a wonder to behold.  November weather with sun and 70 degrees, definitely a good day to get out and explore!

All too soon, Tyna’s week with us was up and she had to fly back home to her family.  RP and I definitely could have kept her around much longer.

Our Love.

BFD