Coast to Coast - Day 14

Tuesday, July 5
After our whirlwind days in Washington, DC and New York City, it was lovely to have peaceful relaxing mornings on Anderson Island.  I gave myself a break from exercise during this vacation and just enjoyed another quiet morning.  Once I get home, I'll get back in to the swing of my routine.

After breakfast, the kids took off in different directions to play.  Kristen corralled some of them to play Scattergories, followed by two scavenger hunts, one from Ashley, and one from Kristen.  Kristen had worked on her planning for days so I strongly encouraged my older girls to participate.  Once they got involved they inspired a healthy amount of rivalry.  I heard them racing to the end of the hunt with Amy and Joseph (partners) in the lead, followed by Misha and Ashley.

We had tried to coordinate a visit to see Chris' sister, Lori, who lives about an hour and a half away from Anderson Island, but Linda scouted out the ferry line and thought that with the current lines of cars, we wouldn't likely get off the island until later in the afternoon.

Chris worked on ordering the dock for our beach at home. Both he and Kevin helped with projects around the house. It was not warm, but Kristen was determined to use the swimming suit she had been packing around from coast to coast the past two weeks. She loaned her second suit to Ashley. Uncle Kevin was kind enough to hold the hose for an impromptu water slide (with the occasional bit of spraying). That water had to have been cold. But Kristen and Ashley had fun.

All but Grandpa, Amy, Misha, and Jonathan (cousin) went on a hike later in the afternoon. The younger kids were more than happy to get out and hike and burn off some energy.

We sat around the fire pit on the deck later in the evening.  It was good to spend a holiday with family.

Coast to Coast - Day 13

Monday, July 4
Happy 4th of July!

It was no surprise that I woke up early.  Chris appeased me by going on a walk.  I hadn't done any formal exercise for almost two weeks and was feeling wholly out of shape.  We walked down to the ferry which was a nice gentle slope for about a mile and a half.  That gentle slope wasn't quite so lovely on our return trip.

After breakfast, the girls made a 4th of July cake for later in the day.

We took the 12:30 pm ferry to Steilacoom across Puget Sound to participate in their 4th of July festivities.  The parade was pretty home town small.  We walked a short distance from the ferry and were just in time to see the parade pass by.  (We happened to be at the end of the parade route which helped.)  Either the parade entrants were out of candy or were looking for smaller kids than Kristen; she didn't get much tossed her way.  Sad realization for her that smaller kids usually get the candy.

Linda was festive in her red, white, and blue cowboy hat, but it sure helped us find her in the crowds.

People kind of swarmed the parade route even before the parade was finished when they had to stop the parade to let the ferry cars pass by.  The road became a crazy jumble of people as we reached the booths further up the street.

Kevin and Candace flew into Portland, rented a car, and then drove to Tacoma.  They met us after the parade in all the mass of people crowded on to two blocks of Steilacoom.  We finally made our way to a covered tent and ordered pizza from a food truck complete with a pizza oven.  Sadly, we ordered three pizzas, but they were running out of food and we only got one.  A bag of kettle corn and pizza was enough to satisfy the hunger.

We caught the 2 pm ferry back to Anderson Island.  Kevin and Candace drove their rented van on while the rest of us were walk-ons.  Grandpa chose not come over to the parade since he has a hard time walking and keeping his balance.

Linda had reserved a tiny house for Kevin and Candace to stay in for a few days until we leave on Wednesday.  They spent some time getting checked in and organizing kids clothes.  Candace had already been on vacation with three of the kids for awhile, so I could understand the need to get things in order.

The kids played outside for the afternoon.  After Kristen's accident the other day, Grandma decided that only the only three older grandkids were going to be able to ride the scooters.  They had fun driving back and forth past the house, honking the horn, going backwards, going slow, being annoying.  They were having a blast though.

We had a BBQ in the evening and just enjoyed hanging out together.  As they sun went down, we had to put on jackets and then even heavier jackets to head out to watch the fireworks.  It was a rather cool evening.  The fireworks were a crazy affair.  Totally not safe, but the volunteer firemen were in attendance and buckets of water were placed all along the road paralleling the shore.  Grandpa had some fireworks he had purchased in Montana and others all around us were setting off big and large fireworks all around us.  We could look across the Sound and see 15 to 20 other firework shows happening at the same time.  

Steilacoom, directly across the sound, did not start their show until 10:30.  I was so tired.  Amy was asleep on a blanket on the ground next to me.  Pretty unusual for her to fall asleep before the rest of her family.

Coast to Coast - Day 12

Sunday, July 3
Lucky me, I woke up at 3:15 am.  I was awake for about an hour and fortunately fell back to sleep.  We had church at 10 am which was perfect for not having to get up too early.  Grandma had time to make some pancakes and bacon which was handily eaten by my crowd.

Church on Anderson Island was held in a home that had been rented to house the branch here.  It had been recently renovated after a water leak from the fridge in the kitchen.  This was the second week that church was back to meeting in their building.  There was seating for maybe 50 people in the basement "Chapel" with overflow on the main floor.  Those in the overflow were able to watch the meeting via closed circuit tv.

During the testimony meeting, I made note of a few thoughts that I liked:  1) The road to Christ begins wherever you are; and 2) if you were sent to earth to be a tulip, life would be easy.  But you were not sent to earth to be a tulip, you were charged with a greater mission of knowing and becoming like God.  I enjoyed all of the meetings today.

We returned to Grandma's for a lunch of chili, grilled cheese, fruit, and veggies.  The weather was beautiful and allowed us  to sit out on the deck.  

Grandma introduced her scooters to the girls.  They were delighted.  Kristen finally got to have her turn riding the scooter after Amy and Misha.  As she and Grandma returned to the house, Kristen had tears running down her face.  Her hair was a mess and filled with greenery.  Apparently she had taken a tumble trying to navigate a corner and landed in...stinging nettles.  Her body was already covered in a raised rash every place she had come in contact with the nettles and she was indeed stinging.

We carefully picked all of the greenery out of her hair and clothes and began to apply some lidocaine.  Poor thing.  She was in pain from the stinging nettles as well as from scraping her arms up.  I suppose it was better that she fell on the green soft stuff rather than the recently chip-sealed road though. Maybe. She probably wouldn't agree.

After the lidocaine, we applied a paste of baking soda and water.  I gave her a substantial amount of Benadryl hoping it would just knock her out.  She looked a sight and laid out on a sheet on Grandma's chaise lounge.  After awhile, she just wanted to get in the shower and get cleaned up.  We applied more lidocaine a couple times throughout the evening, and the stinging finally went away.

Linda took Chris and I on a tour of the island, leaving the girls at the house to have some quiet time and to watch Netflix.  We were gone for a couple of hours checking out the different amenities of the island.

As we returned home, I noticed Kristen wasn't watching movies anymore.  She had crawled in to our bed and was fast asleep.  Since it was still fairly early in the evening, I got her up to eat.  She watched Grease with the family, but was happily tucked in and fast asleep as we all headed off to bed.  I suppose the fact that I gave her more Benadryl helped her conk out shortly after hitting the pillow.

Coast to Coast - Day 11

Saturday, July 2
Chris requested an Uber XL vehicle to take us to the Newark airport for our flight to Seattle Tacoma Airport--from sea to shining sea.  A taxi would have cost twice as much.  Our driver must not have spoken too much English as he was not too talkative on the way to the airport.  We had a flight at 10:40 am.  It was delayed for half an hour and then moved back to being on-time.  We were glad we chose to go to the airport instead of waiting that extra half hour at the hotel.  

Chris enjoys the perks of Global Services travel through United all of the time when he travels; the girls in his life got a little taste of it as he had used all of his upgrade coupons for our flight from Newark to San Francisco. With that upgrade, we were able to check in at Global Services.  The office was out of the main corridor and down the stairs in a secluded area.  We were quickly checked in and our luggage was tagged and retrieved.

For some reason, everyone else in my family gets TSA pre-check except for me.  The lady at the check-in counter went with me to security and walked me to the front of the line.  The TSA agents were sooooooo slow.  If they flagged a bag, they pulled it off to the side on a shorter table next to them.  Once that table was full of bags, they would just stop scanning bags and wait until the other TSA agents came and picked another bag to open and go through.  It was painfully slow to watch them sit and do nothing while you could see the security line getting longer and longer, and while we waited for our bags to come through the scanner.  So inefficient.

Finally my jacket and small purse made it through the scanner and I could move on.  Chris was waiting for me as he had sent the girls ahead to the United lounge.  Another perk we got to enjoy.  We were able to eat breakfast in the lounge and relax before working our way towards our gate.

We snuck in to the boarding line just as they were calling for Group 2 boarding. First class was delightful.  We each had a seat with plenty of leg room and seats that could recline flat.  I tried to reach my backpack down to retrieve my headphones and got smacked in the side of the head with its heaviness.  I pulled my glasses off my head and the one ear piece was bent way out of alignment.  Chris took them from me saying, "I can try to straighten them, but they might break in the process."  I didn't have too much choice since they were unwearable.  Fortunately Chris was able to straighten them out without breaking them.  We got settled and were off two minutes before schedule.

I checked my Fitbit for the past nine days of our trip.  70 miles.  We walked lots and lots.  We had sore feet.

I spent the next six hours typing and working on my blog as well as chatting with Chris about the kind of dock we were going to order for our beach.  I did take a break to watch The Martian.

As we arrived in San Francisco for an hour and half layover, we made our way to the United lounge there.  We enjoyed snacks and treats.  I helped a lady download the connect to the wifi and then download the United App to her iPad.  Chris had to step in and help her set up the delete files option for email instead of archiving it.  She was grateful and left me her name and email, inviting us to come stay with her anytime as they lived close to the Redwood Forest.

We headed toward Gate 60 for our short flight to Sea-Tac.  We had a habit of arriving just after our boarding number.  Made it though.  We were seated in business class for our short ride to Washington.  Chris sat in the row in front of us.  Misha and Amy sat together and Kristen sat beside me.  I gave her one of my headphone earphone pieces to listen to music with me.  She had this habit of looking out the window and every time she did, she would pull me headphone piece from my ear.  After so many times, I reclaimed my second earpiece from her.

We had a very courteous and attentive flight attendant on both of our flights today--Tony and then John.  It was a long day of travel with very little walking.  We arrived in Sea-Tac around 5:30 pm (though 8:30 NYC time and we were getting tired).  We did our best to stay awake until 10 pm or so to acclimate to this new time zone.

Grandma picked us up from the airport.  We totally filled her Kia minivan with people and luggage.  Since she now lives on Anderson Island, we had to take in to consideration the ferry departure schedule.  We thought at first that we would have to wait around until the last run of the day, but were able to check the ferry schedule and found that it was running about 20 minutes late.  That was perfect timing for us as we pulled up into the second lane just as the first lane of cars were being loaded.

We climbed to the upper floor of the ferry.  It was colder and windy, especially compared to the temperatures we had just experienced on the East coast, we grabbed jackets and enjoyed the view.  The ferry ride to about 20 minutes.

We stopped at the small convenience store on the island to pick up some laundry soap for Amy.  She has fairly sensitive skin, and using regular soap causes her to break out in a rash. 

I started a couple loads of laundry after we arrived at Grandma Ball's house and got settled.  It was Sunday tomorrow and some of us needed fresh clothing.  We had sandwiches and salad for a late dinner with rhubarb crisp for dessert.  We were all running on empty as it was well past our newly established bedtime.

The girls slept in the twin beds in one of Grandma's guest rooms while Chris and I slept in the other guest room.  Kristen slept in Grandma's sewing room off the master bedroom.  She put some earplugs in and was asleep in no time.  Chris was already sleeping by the time I came back to our room.

Coast to Coast - Day 10

Friday, July 1
Happy Canada Day!  It was a slow morning.  I actually slept until 7:30 am.  That is unusual for me.  Kristen had originally wanted to go to a taping of Good Morning America.  If we all went, we would have had to get up around 5 am to be ready and catch the subway.  Amy, Misha, and I weren't all that thrilled about going, Chris was willing to take Kristen though.  

Last night, she decided that she would skip going since it was a lot of extra effort. I don't think anymore minded being able to sleep a little longer and not rush so much.  We took PATH to the Empire State Building.  Up close and personal it is just another building.  You can't see much of the spire.  The girls were happy to find some mementos, and of course, we took pictures.

Yesterday as we walked through Little Italy, Kristen spied a store that sold post cards at 10 for $1.  Since we were on the tour, it wasn't easy to stop and get them.  So when we walked across the street from the Empire State Building, Kristen was thrilled to find a tourist shop that sold post cards 20 for $1.  Does one really need 20 postcards of New York?  No, but they were 20 for $1!

We weren't too far from the New York City temple, and made our way there.  The security guard there let us go upstairs to the third floor to the meeting house under the temple.  We stayed for awhile enjoying the peace that enveloped us and created a stark contrast with the noise of the city.

Chris' navigating skills must be instinctive.  It was almost the end of our stay, and I was still confused by the subway system.  We were all grateful and willing followers of his leadership skills.

We were just a couple of blocks from Central Park and spent the next couple of hours meandering through the park, discovering hidden pathways, and exploring.  There were lots of tourists on foot, some on bike, others making use of the pedicabs, and a few others relaxing in a horse-drawn buggy.

We stopped for snacks of cashews, beef jerky, and power bars.  An impromptu lunch of sorts before seeing Belvedeere Castle, the Alice in Wonderland statue, Bow Bridge, and the Old Shack.  As we came upon a small pond, the girls were quick to see the remote control boats on the water.  Chris surprised them all by renting one of the boats for a half hour.  Kristen and Misha worked together on steering and directing the boat for 20 minutes and then Amy had a turn for the remaining 10 minutes.  Kristen played at the water's edge successfully catching some of the tiny minnows.

The forecast had predicted rain later in the day, and the skies did not disappoint.  It started to rain as we left the park.  We took the B-line on the subway and then transferred to PATH to get back to Jersey City.  Amy was able to enjoy her first decent nap of the week.  That girl seems to need/crave a lot of sleep.

We walked back to the Newport Centre Mall for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory followed by a little shopping through the mall.  Not much though since we really just didn't have room for too much extra. We stopped in at a ShopRite for some snacks for the airplane ride on Saturday before heading back to the hotel to call it a night.  But first, we packed up suitcases as we had to leave around 8:00 am on Saturday morning.