House of Hays: July 2011

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Some panoramic views

Click on the links below to see some fun panoramic views from our trip. After clicking on the link, click on the picture and while holding down your left mouse key, drag left or right to get a full 360 view.

View of the beach and bluff at Ebey's Landing *

View of the Jenne Farm house front yard *

View of the back of the Jenne Farm House and the barns

View from the blockhouse in the yard of the Jacob and Sarah Ebey home

View of the salt water and lagoon from the bluff trail

Another view of the salt water from the bluff trail *

View of the Prairie from the Prairie Overlook near Sunnyside Cemetery

Helping out at the Ferry House

Click here to learn more about Ebey's Landing

Ebey's Landing is a National Historic Reserve. Much of the land is privately owned but has the development rights stripped to preserve the area. Much of it is farmed organically. There are several efforts underway to preserve the period buildings in the area. Rich and Ethan were lucky enough to be able to participate in the first day of work on the Ferry House. They even gave them hats for helping out with the project. Rich's family stayed at the Ferry House when they were kids (sort of like camping under a roof - no electricity or plumbing). They vacationed there regularly and made repairs to keep it from falling into disrepair. It has a special place in their hearts. The workers there welcomed Ethan and he had a great time helping to set up the scaffolding for the upcoming project of rebuilding the deck. Below are some pictures I found on another site with links to the original page.

http://ebeyslanding.areaparks.com/parkinfo.html?pid=9259

Just kickin' back

Wesley, Sasha, and Ethan playing Monopoly, Seattle version

Margaret and Dick, reading

Since there is no television at the Jenne Farm, you have to figure out how to entertain yourself. The adults do a lot of reading and talking. The kids do a lot of playing. From pretend, to tag, to "Old Witch" there is always a lot of activity. Wesley says that the days at the Jenne Farm are longer than the days anywhere else.

The weight of the world on your shoulders (or at least a really big rock)

This is a huge rock behind the coffee shop in Coupeville. To get an idea of size, check out the gray house directly to the right of the rock. The rock is nearly twice the size of the house. Ethan is actually standing on a hill in front of the rock so he is not quite to scale here.

Fun with Dorothy and kids

Wes loves to cram into tight places

All tuckered out after ice cream

bein' silly

Dorothy, Maggie, and Sasha

Driving lessons

Farmer Fran of the Jenne Farm once again graciously (taking his life into his own hands) took us all on a hayride out in the fields. The highlight of the trip is that each kid gets to drive the tractor. Woo hoo!!! At the end Fran gives us the low down on who he predicts will need the maximum insurance once they get of driving age. Everyone did pretty well this time. Sasha revisited driving with her feet again (especially popular with Wesley, who just thinks that is the height of craziness), and no one crashed or had to be bailed out of a tough spot. It's nice to see these once-annual lessons are paying off.

A love affair... with ice cream

Wesley absolutely loves ice cream. His favorite flavor is vanilla. When we go to Kapaws in Coupeville (lovingly known to the Hays family as "The Wet Whisker" because that was the name of the shop when Rich was a kid) you get to choose 3 dips on a single cone. Wesley often chooses 3 scoops of vanilla. Sometimes if he gets a wild hair he will get 2 vanilla and one cookie dough. We trek into town for ice cream almost every day when we are at the Jenne Farm. One of the those fun daily treats we all look forward to. What else is vacation for???

Mmmmm.....

Our little hula girls (and guys!)

Monday, July 18, 2011

View of the bluff and salt water

View one - click here for panoramic view

View two - click for panoramic view
Scroll left and right within webpage to fully view.

Building driftwood forts

Building driftwood forts on the beach is one of the major forms of entertainment when we go to the Jenne Farm. The kids spend lots of time carefully gathering just the right pieces of wood to build their structure.

The whale wheel in Coupeville

More critters

Ethan loves to gather banana slugs when we come to the west coast. We don't have slugs so plentiful or so large at home so Ethan loves to gather them up! Although we have fireflies in the midwest and they don't have them here. We miss them in the evenings when we are out west.

Chiton

Nana's happy 80th birthday

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Most of the Hays family

Prairie panorama

Panoramic view of the prairie at Ebey's Landing.

Click here to view 360 panorama

Scroll left and right on webpage to fully view.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Fishing at the wharf on Coupeville

The boys caught a few small fish down at the wharf using crabs and clams as bait. No keepers but Ethan got a little relief from his fishing withdrawal. Ethan prepared a few handlines before we left home, just in case he got the opportunity to fish. Upon checking the tide tables, we discovered there would be a minus 2.5 feet tide Thursday so we spent the morning at the beach to take full advantage of the chance to discover sea life. Much fun was has by both boys gathering baby crabs, clams, and other specimens.