We went camping at Fort Worden State Park for 3 days during Spring Break. This is the Lighthouse at the point it is very scenic here in Port Townsend, WA.
Port Townsend is a Victorian Seaport and has many Victorian houses and buildings-we went driving around the town and fort to look at the houses. Mason told me to drive very slowly so he could "get all the details". The boys were very amazed at the houses and said numerous times "why can't we live here?"
One of the funny signs we kept driving past was a yellow warning sign with children on teeter totters-we were wondering what kind of danger children on teeter totters posed??
The
madronna trees were a wonder in themselves in the amount of them and there weird contorted trunks and branches. They looked liked trees that you could have forts in.
Artillery Hill was AMAZING- we spent the majority of the three days climbing, running, crawling, and playing in the bunkers. And among the noises I hear the boys pretending to shoot each other with their finger guns, "pew pew", "bang, bang", "rat a tat" and even some grenades. I think boys will be boys at any age.
It was really amazing that these structures have remained pretty much intact after all these years.
There were several layers to the bunkers, underground, then up stairs or ladders and then on the tops. We spent a lot of time in there and probably didn't even explore half of the tunnels and passages.
There were even signs at each of the sites with blueprints and pictures of what they looked like and what types of guns or cannon's they used to hold.
Our campsite was nice, and it was dry while we were there. The boys cooked most of their meals over the fire and I fixed some with the propane stove. One incident I had was with my missing keys. I had gotten up in the middle of the night and when I returned to the tent Issac was sleeping in my spot and his spot, nevertheless I went to sleep in the van. I used the keys to open the van and get in, but when I got up in the morning my keys were missing. Apparently I had dropped them outside the van. And apparently some crow had carried them off. I found them about 50 feet from our campsite, where I had seen a bunch of crows gathered around some bread they had stolen, and among the stolen bread were my keys. Talk about lucky, I would have been in a really bad mood if the keys were missing.
The boys played tennis every evening. This was the reason I had first picked this park was for the tennis courts, as the boys are always playing tennis in the yard I thought they would enjoy a real tennis court.
The only thing they didn't want to do was play when other people were in the court, because they were so good that they were afraid to hit others or embarrassed at how many times the ball went over the fence.
All in all it was a fun Spring Break and we will want to go here again.
This weekend we went to Grandpa Vance's memorial service. His death was quick and unexpected-a heart attack. The memorial service was at Paul's home and he performed a Native American Memorial Service.
Each of the directions were represented by the wearing of a sacred pouch/bundle, Milton-North, Paul-East, Kim-South, Leland-West and Maria wore the pouch representing Mother Earth. Paul is blowing smoke from the sacred pipe on the pouch of Mother Earth.
A sacred bundle/package representing Halver(containing his ashes) was placed in the bottom of the hole for the tree and herbs were placed on top of it.
Then the four directions and mother earth placed dirt around the package, according to their represented directions, with mother earth(Maria) putting in the last dirt. The tree was placed in the hole and everyone then placed a handful of dirt around the tree. Issac placed a granite angel sculpture(which he had chiseled) underneath the tree as a marker.
It was a nice service and the boys were okay with it. Halver would have appreciated the service and the thoughts that were expressed. Halver was a down to earth gentleman and a good example for his grandson's. HALVER-we love you and miss you-but you are now with others who have passed on-keep your eyes on my boys!!!
