Photos of happiness - mini-break weekend

Photos of happiness - mini-break weekend

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• 8.19.2014

We had a very short, but still magical, getaway this weekend to the beautiful Olympic Peninsula in Washington.

Pre-note: Also, while I know it doesn't sound like the most relaxing way to spend a Saturday, I did enjoy getting a lot of coding done for some gallery pages for the blog that I've been meaning to do for the better part of the year. Now you can click on TUTORIALS! and DRESSES! in my navigation bar and see photo galleries of (not all, but most of) the tutorials and dresses I've shared! (So since the blog name switch over, if you are looking for more sewing content, it is even easier to find than before.)

But mostly, I enjoyed a very peaceful, low-stress weekend with family in an amazing place.

Husband's grandparents live at the top of a hill overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca and looking out toward Victoria, Canada, with pretty much a 330 degree view of the beautiful ocean, so remote it feels like a different world. I'm so grateful we get to spend time with them (and his immediate family) a few times a year. We went up on Friday and came back on Sunday. I got some great relaxing time in!

The sunsets look sort of like this. (I tried to capture them. That's ocean beneath the fog out there - the Strait of Juan de Fuca.)

The sunrises look something like this. (I just couldn't capture the amazingness of the bright red sun coming up in the colorful sky!)

Our mornings look kind of like this.
I wake up with the sun coming through the big windows where we sleep, so I was up at 6:10 both mornings with some time for coffee and a book to myself. Then time to make everyone a big breakfast around 9 (I volunteered!). I love cooking delicious, nourishing food for lots of hungry people.

Kept company by everyone reading and talking at the table.

They pulled out some incredible old photo albums of my mother-in-law and family long ago. Family breakfast time with memories.

I love the assortment of coffee cups and water glasses and magazines and books that builds up and morphs throughout the day when there are so many of us there.

The rest of the time is mostly just hanging out! Like true vacation.
More reading and relaxing later in the day. Amazing views from a favorite reading/talking spot on the north side of the house.
Sometimes we go down to the rock beach at the bottom of the hill, or into Port Angeles proper to visit the bookstores, but this time I stayed at the house and practiced doing nothing. Aaaaahh....

I love the climate and ecosystem up there. It's just like my summer camp in the San Juan Islands, where I spent 5 happy summer sessions and felt so relaxed and at peace. The trails and fields and plants around the grandparents' property bring me back. It even smells the same.

It's a little surreal that it was really just hours ago that we were there. A happy, relaxed oasis, 5 hours from home but close enough that we can visit a few times a year for these incredible weekends!