andy & shaya

I don’t think it’s possible to be any more excited about our honeymoon… 16 days in lovely Greece and Spain.

And the best part- we’re flying in BA Club World (business) thanks to 240,000 Alaska Air miles. We have to take a stopover in Vancouver at the start of our outbound because we couldn’t get on BA out of Seattle but otherwise we got pretty much exactly what we wanted. So awesome..

We’re just now biting into the planning… so many decisions… At this point our itinerary looks like:

[updated]
Athens (2 nights)
Santorini (4 nights)
Madrid (3 nights)
Toledo (1 night)
Seville (2 nights)
Barcelona (4 nights)

If anyone has recommendations for great places to stay let us know!

Saturday morning Shaya and I took a short drive down past Tacoma to visit the historic Thornewood Castle Inn. It was beautiful and we loved it. The contract is in the mail for Saturday June 5, 2010.

(click the above image for more pictures)

I’m still not quite sure how but I managed to convince Shaya to accompany me to the 2009 Deming Logging Show on Saturday. The Deming Logging Show is an annual weekend festival to celebrate the history of Whatcom County’s logging industry and raise money to help families of injured (and sometimes killed) loggers. It was most definitely not our scene but we had fun and the experience was interesting!

My favorite part was probably the saw competition. And as Shaya can attest, I actually picked the winner before they even started! (That guy was built like an ox.) Shaya seemed to enjoy the kids log rolling tournament, it was cute. The 70-foot log climb was wildly impressive. Apparently one of the competitors was last year’s world champion. Watching him, I’m convinced he was a squirrel in a former life.

The other big highlight was the food. Though it was pricey at $12 per person I’m pleased to report that it was well worth it. We each got a huge pile of bbq’d beef, potato salad, cole slaw, baked beans and garlic bread. And it was delicious!

Shaya’s comments: “It was really hot and crowded. Not much else to say.” LOL! “Oh and I hated the guy sitting in front of us.” Regrettably :D I never saw it myself but according to Shaya the guy sitting in front of us with his wife and small children was wearing a t-shirt of very questionable taste…on the front was a photo of the ahem backsides of several thong bikini clad women!

(click the above image for more pictures)

On Memorial Day Shaya and I rode the Washington State Ferry out to the island of San Juan so I could check two more lighthouses off my list!

First we drove out to the west side of the island to visit the Lime Kiln Lighthouse, named for the nearby kiln built in the 1860′s. Unfortunately we didn’t spot any whales while we were there but I’m told they are quite a common sight in the Haro Straight.

After checking out the lighthouse we trekked down to the kiln where I enjoyed the amazing views and Shaya poked around in the tide pools. On the way back to the car we spotted this sign that had been nearly consumed by a tree!

After a nice outdoor lunch in Friday Harbor we set off for the southern tip of the island, Cattle Point. As described on Lighthousefriends.com, “cattle appeared at the point in 1853 when the Hudson’s Bay Company established a ranch on the southern end of the island, populating it with sheep and cattle” and thus was born the name. Access to the lighthouse was via a quarter mile beach walk. We happened to be there during a lower tide so Shaya delighted in scouring the tide pools for small creatures.

The lighthouse itself wasn’t much to look at but the panoramic views were spectacular. While we were there we saw two whale-watching tours heading out to sea. We’ll be sure to try that next time!

Putting the finishing touch on an already great day, we saw a small red fox wandering along the road on our way back from Cattle Point and going above and beyond her duties as co-driver, Shaya got a 30-second video of it.