Pacific Northwest socialising
On Friday, after we left our accommodation near Seattle airport, we drove northwards in our new rental car to Vancouver, BC — via Whidbey Island to visit some of our friends who live there now. Whidbey is a large island north of Seattle, accessed by ferry at the southern end but close enough to the mainland at the northern end that it's connected by a bridge.
On Whidbey, we visited our friends' huge, incredible shop full of local/ handmade/ artisan products. Janae helped the boys screen print a t-shirt each by hand, Kelly gave us a tour, and we bought a few things too. It was fabulous to explore their shop and see Kelly and Janae again, though it was far too brief!
Afterwards, Janae's parents, Donna and Terry, who'd been at the shop too, led the way back to their place for a late lunch. It was so lovely to see them again — we often used to visit them and spent several US Thanksgivings with them before F was born — though, again, we had to continue on our way before we'd hardly had a chance to start catching up!
Soon we were crossing the border into Canada for the first time in 8.5 years. It was (and is — we're still here) fantastic to be back!
A weekend of wonderful socialising followed. Our hosts, Gerard and Janelle and their daughters, have visited us twice in Australia since we moved back, but it'd been 8.5 years since we'd seen our other Vancouver friends! We lived here for 7.5 years, which is still the longest B and I have lived anywhere together (Brisbane will overtake it in another couple of years), so, needless to say, these are very special friends!
On Monday, we headed over to Vancouver Island for a few days during our hosts' last week of work and school, with the aim of coming back for another blissful ten days together over Christmas (though this hasn't gone quite to plan!). But we'll do some separate posts about all of that!