Melissa and I have become accustomed to our lives moving along in a fast, efficient and logical manner. However, our life here at Friday Harbor seems to have none of these characteristics. Island life does not have the same buzz as mainland life and that is actually one of the reasons we came here. With regard to logic, we yearn for it but this seems incompatible with raising a toddler whose main priority is control. So our days are filled with work/school/adventures that are interspersed with temper tantrums. Interestingly, despite the fact that Everett seems completely overwhelmed during a tantrum he remembers everything we say and usually acts it out a day or two later in a scenario where he is the parent and something else is the child. A few nights ago he wouldn’t stay in bed after bedtime and instead kept coming out of his room and asking for different things like another hat or keychain that was necessary for him to fall asleep. The evening did not go well and as a result he lost iPad privileges for a day (he gets to watch 30 minutes each day). Tonight he put the iPad in a timeout in his room at bedtime, then informed us that it still was not behaving and finally that it had thrown up. He has also started mimicking Chris from time to time, saying things like “Son, I’m not kidding” in a deep voice, which is what I say to him when he is about to get in trouble. It’s hard not to laugh when he does this.

Saturday morning we went to the Friday Harbor Farmer’s Market, then a bookstore, then the Happy Clam for lunch and finally a used bookstore called “Serendipity, The Used Book Place”. This place is, in a word, fantastic! Imagine a small victorian house where every square foot of wall space is covered with rickety bookshelves, including above the doors. The drawers in the built in cabinets are filled with books as well. Everett settled into the reading nook in the Children’s area:

This is a dangerous place for people like us – Melissa and I reminded ourselves repeatedly that we did not have extra space or weight to take things home, especially heavy items like books, so we only bought a few for Everett.

Everett’s nap ran long so we hung out at the house in the afternoon and then went to the 17th annual Oktoberfest celebration at the County Fairgrounds. Chris wore his Rohloff t-shirt that Bryon sent him from New Zealand, which was the most German piece of clothing we brought on the trip. It was fun and we’re glad we went. It was also an instance where the expectations I mentioned at the beginning of this blog entry don’t apply. The event ran from 5:30 to 9:30. We bought our dinner at about 6:30 (kielbasa for Everett and Melissa, spaetzle for Chris), which was fortunate for us because by 7pm they were out of kielbasa and forks (?).

Today (Sunday) was an exceptional day. Everett woke up at 7:40 and got in bed with us. We let him watch Wallace and Gromit on the iPad, which provided us with about another 50 minutes of sleep (yahoo!). Over the last year he has started to quote movies, and at random times he has started whipping out quotes from Wallace and Gromit such as: “I’d like something a bit more cheesy,” or “rabbit rehabilitation”. This behavior of fearlessly adopting new words into his vocabulary is not new. In the summer of 2010 a neighbor was looking at Melissa’s spice garden when Everett informed her that “The cilantro is bolting”. We are used to it but it causes some confusion among people who feel certain they misunderstood him.

We had breakfast burritos along with quiche made by my frontier wife and were out the door by 10am. It is astonishing how long it takes to get ready with small children. In a 90 minute period all we did was eat breakfast and get dressed, and even that felt rushed. We drove to False Bay at low tide to walk around in the muck with the birds and other creatures. It was fantastic! It is amazing to see the biodiversity in tidal regions and watch how quickly the tide comes in here.

After lunch and nap we went for a hike north from FHL labs (only one tantrum on the hike!) and saw several ground slugs. Everett picked one up and said “That slug sucked onto me!” Pad thai for dinner and then an early bedtime for Everett. Oh, we also visited Chris’ former hut from his days here back in 2004, and we explained to Everett that he might not be here if it weren’t for that hut.

What made the day exceptional was the warm, sunny weather and the outdoor time we were able to spend together as a result.