Bill’s Blog

One of my favorite podcasts is This Week in Tech.  Leo Leporte has a style that resonates with me.  He assembles some of the best pontificators around to talk about technology.  One of the regulars on the show is John C. Dvorak. John always has strong opinions about things.

On the show he’s shared that he and his wife have a deli in Port Angeles.  PA is right down the road from Sequim.  I asked Karen if she thought we could find it.  She googled it on her phone and soon we had the address.  I wanted to stop by and say hello and let whoever was there know that I was a fan of John’s work.  We showed up around 3:30 on Saturday.  Turns out they close at 3:00.  I took a picture just to say I was there.

If you happen to read this John, I am not a stalker.  I just wanted to come by and say hello.

As is our habit, we went out counting deer each day in Sequim.  Today we had a bit of extraordinary luck.  Let me explain.  Sequim is a rural town.  It is full of farms and wildlife.  A drive through the country will yield views of llamas, horses, cows, deer, occasional elk, eagles, and other animals.  For years, we’ve gone out in the afternoon looking for deer.  We consistently see them lounging in people’s yards, empty fields, and munching on local shrubery.  Because I’m me, I like to count how many deer we see each time.  Our previous record was 42.

Today we saw 101 deer!

54 Elk and a bunch of swans.

and cows

Our weekend in Sequim was full of sights, food, and fun. We went looking for a good bakery.  The Bell Street Bakery is new and looked promising.

We liked their breads and bought a nice loaf of french bread.  I was disappointed that there weren’t more treats like eclairs, cookies, and other sweets.  The bakery is in a new location though and appears to be growing.  I’m hoping it will add more treats soon.

Sequim is full of old barns, farms, and such.  Here’s one that caught my eye.  It was right next to where we saw a ton of elk, swans, and deer.

Sequim is right by the water.  It’s a truly unique location.  We stopped by the marina to look at some boats.  There was a coast guard safety inspection happening as well as a fishing derby.

I did find a funny sign with a serious message.  This is a great idea.

To celebrate our weekend here, we had dinner at the local mexican restaurant.  Emily took this picture of Karen and me.  She’s getting good at taking pictures.

and finally… we saw a house that caught our eye.  Not in the way you might think though.  This thing is… unique.  I’m starting to understand the need for CC&R’s.

Finally!  We’ve been meaning to get to Sequim for ages.  We finally made it.  I’m so glad we did.  I’ve mentioned it before but Sequim is one of my favorite places to relax.  This weekend we didn’t do much of anything, except relax.  We did manage to get out of the house one afternoon.  We drove around and counted deer.  We saw 24 of them during our short drive.

Another cool thing about our trip was that we got to try some new recipes.  Helen cooked some delicious food during our visit (she always does).  We now have new recipes for French Toast and Chicken Burritos (using Soup).  We’re planning on having some friends over to try them on.

So what about you?  Where do you relax?

We had a wonderful weekend with family and friends. There were a ton of people at Helen’s. It was great to see them all and say hello. Here are a few portraits I took during the weekend.

The Olympic Game Farm is always a fun trip.   We’ve been there several times and have not been disappointed ever.  This trip was particularly interesting.  When Emily heard there would be wolves there, she thought of the Big Bad Wolf!  Trying to convince her that these wolves were in cages and couldn’t talk was not an easy task.  She was very skeptical and thought that they might start huffing and puffing any minute.

You can see the collection of pictures here.  My favorites are below.

Tomorrow we’re going to the Sequim Irrigation Festival Parade.  I’m not sure what to expect, but I’ve got my camera and my sunscreen.  That should be enough for me to enjoy the day.  Here’s the Sequim Gazette’s article on it.

The parade is one of the things I like about Sequim.  There’s a lot of small town still left here.

We’re spending a long overdue weekend in Sequim.  The last time we were up here was in August, when we went on vacation.  We enjoyed a quick drive through rain and wind on Friday evening.  Emily stayed awake the entire trip!  Since she was awake anyway, we did our Christmas gift exchange with Helen Friday evening. 

We spent most of today hanging out with Helen and doing a lot of nothing.  I brought in some wood for the fire.  Emily played on the swing set.  Though it was 40 degrees outside, she swore she wasn’t cold. 

We had dinner at Karen’s cousin’s house tonight.  We had Fajitas (which were great!), chicken, taquitos, and fruit salad.  The highlight of the evening was seeing the “Rock Room”.  I guess their grandparents spent 50+ years traveling around the world collecting rocks, fosils, ancient artifacts (e.g. arrowheads), coral, sea shells, and the like.  All of this great stuff is housed in the “Rock Room”. 

All this was awesome to see!  I wish I had brought my camera with me.  I thought about it, but since we were just going to dinner I decided to leave it behind.  Bummer.

technorati tags:Sequim, fosils, seashells, rocks, dinner, relatives

Emily has been having a blast playing with her new horses. She sleeps with them, and takes them everywhere. She’s named them Daddy, Mommy, and baby horse.

We saw an amazingly large flock of geese on our way over to Lori’s house. There must have been 200 geese sitting out in this field.

We all had a good time at Lori’s. Helen got her hair colored and cut a bit. Emily also got her bangs trimmed.

Riley sat and watched the whole thing from a safe distance. He and Emily also hung around with Karen for a while. Riley kept trying to get Emily to play with him, but she resisted (at least for a while).

By the end of the morning, Riley had won her over. He took her outside to show her the chickens. She would up running all over the yard with Riley.

Right across the street we saw a heard of cows.

And finally we went for a drive up on Bell Hill. Emily fell asleep in the car and is struggling to take a nap back in her bed.