Looking Forward to Camano Island

Next weekend we're going to Camano Island for our friend's Peter and Nathalie's wedding. When we found out that the wedding was going to be on Camano it was a special treat for me. Some of my happiest summer memories are from Camano Island. Our family friends Don and Sherrill Bushell and their daughters Erin, Michaelyn and Kristen had a summer house on Camano that we would visit every summer for a week or so.

These summer visits have a warm glow in my memory. They were full of picking blackberries, trying to catch crabs on the beach, walking through the woods, playing long games of kick the can, and lots of ten thousand dollar pyramid in the evenings. There was lots of good food and good company. There was so much nature to explore. The Bushells had a huge relatively wild yard and we could walk to two or three different beaches. We could also walk down to the little store and get yummy candy. And for some reason the grocery store in Stanwood was the only place that we ever got what we called chocolate turds (chocolate covered donut sticks).

I remember spending hours on the barnacle covered beaches turning over rocks, looking for crabs and hunting for shells with my plastic grocery bag to put my finds into.

I'm really looking forward to going back to Camano but because it looms so large in my childhood memory I'm a little afraid to see how much it has changed. We're staying in a small cabin on the beach at Cama State Beach. I'm hoping the girls can have some of the wonderful experiences I had there as a kid: berry picking, crab hunting, and walking on the beach.

After the wedding we're going to Whidbey Island with Grandpa Tom, Grandma Sue and Uncle Jeremy. It will be great to have the family together again for a couple of days. The girls are excited to see their grandparents and their uncle.