San Juan Island: John and Marian's 60th

The Bolte clan got together the week of June 22, 2008 to celebrate my folk's 60th wedding anniversary. We rented two waterfront homes on the southwest side of San Juan Island and everyone except Zach (away in Austin, Texas) was there! To cover all bases, we brought the bikes and kayaks from Santa Cruz. The two houses were great. Both were on the water with great views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Olympic Mountains and Victoria B.C. One house was architecturally interesting (called the Water House) the other had a pool table, hot tub and great beach for launching kayaks.

The weather was classic Pacific Northwest. Sometimes overcast, windy and cold, sometimes warm and sunny. We had a couple of days when the water was calm and like a mirror for as far as you could see (a pretty long way). There were deer, eagles, sea/shore birds and at the Water House a family of foxes.


There was lots to do.

Kayaked every day with flat water most of the time, biked, played chess and Scrabble, shot pool, soaked in the hot tub, went fishing, sat on the decks looking for whales and did alot of visiting and catching up.

We enjoyed a very nice anniversary dinner one night at a great place called the DuckSoup Inn and then champagne and carrot cake back at the Water House.






The whales were there 3 out of 6 days. Saw a minke briefly on Tuesday, and orcas Tuesday,

Wednesday and Thursday. They were feeding and went through pretty quickly. Had a couple of encounters from the kayaks.

All in all a wonderful week. Great weather, really great to get together and a terrific event to have the privilege to be able to celebrate.

The Boyz

One of the big pluses of moving to our current house in two years ago was that John quickly became best friends with two boys in the neighborhood. The Three Musketeers (sometimes the Three Stooges) are pretty much inseparable this summer. Video games, airsoft, football, bike riding, skateboarding and hanging.

It's great.