Saturday in the States

This picture was taken by Dad and he would like some recognition for it :P 

For Mom's birthday Dad surprised her (and the rest of the family) and we all went on a day trip to Orcas Island in the States. This wonderful trip involved waking up at 6 to catch a ferry and be at the island by 10. 

The scenery was absolutely gorgeous and I wanted to stop a million times to take pictures....

But we couldn't stop all the time, or else we'd miss out on everything else that we had plans to do that day. 

So we were forced to keep on driving.

And then we found this place....

Dad parked the van in this ditch-like thing on the side of the road (it was on more of an angle than it seems like in the pictures) while I ran back a couple of feet to get a picture of 

this: 

We stopped at a grocery store to check out what kind of food we could get there for dinner. There were cherry blossoms at the one end of the parking lot - and they were absolutely beautiful!

For quite some time we were driving along on the Enchanted Forest Road. It was a very pretty road, and we wanted to get a picture of the street sign. So as we were driving past it, we quickly pulled over and stopped for honestly like 7 seconds while I opened the van door and snapped a picture.

On the path on the way to the look-out tower.

Ethan

All the three boys

Icicles.

Going into the look-out tower

Sucia and Patos. The islands that we sailed to two summers ago.  And Vancouver and the mainland off in the distance.

Mt. Baker

Me! 

:P

More ice

Their hair got so fluffy from the wind :)

After stopping at Moran State Park we drove over to the Rosario Resort which is also the house of the Moran family which used to live there and owned 7,800 acres of the island. There was a piano/organ concert which was planned for 4 o'clock, so we had some time to wander around the grounds. The sun was still shinning and the freezing wind had died down a bit.

The family walked along a cliff pathway where Nadia 'almost' (that's in quotations cuz that's what Mom says, but I think it's an overreaction) died. 

As they all walked, I stood/laid against the cliff to take some pictures.

The sky is so blue!!!!!

My scarf ended up getting caught up in some brambles and as I was trying to yank it free, I noticed there were garden snails tucked under a rock right next to my face. So I snapped a picture of them too. 

That's the one side (sorta) of the house. You can see there, in the centre of the picture, the bell that is in the picture above.

This there is a play house that Robert Moran built for his children to play it. It is completely separate from the house, like by 500 feet, and it is now turned into a house thingy that you can rent. 

Down by the bay

or marina. 

These are identical houses which Robert Moran built for his sisters to live in so that they couldn't argue over whose house was better.

We found some lawn games. And those kept everyone occupied for quite a while.

Mom: This is our dream house! Take a picture!!!

Note: Dad is sitting behind Madilyn holding her, don't worry!

Dad: This is the kind of clock you would have a secret passage behind....

Super creepy safe.....

An old camera

Player Organ, which was up top in the balcony so that when Moran entertained guests he could leave them downstairs in the concert hall and say he was going upstairs to play the organ but he actually just turned it on and everyone thought he was amazing.