Lucas Camilo

If Lucas was able to write this blog himself, this is what he would tell you about our past ten days: Lots Of Animals.  Creatures.  Mountain creatures. Sea creatures.  House pets, farm animals, petting zoos.  Animals you see from the ferry, little ones you hold in your hand.  He can list every dog we’ve met by name.  Needless to say, it’s been a full ten days.

Last weekend we took an extended weekend to go back to the Leavenworth mountains with our friends Eli, Lili, Estevan, Elisha, and kids.  We had been talking up the adventure with Lucas for a week, listing each of the people we would see.  And then the day before we left Lucas realized he remembered the place we were going, and he lit up.  He suddenly added Shirley, Kaya, and Brooksy (the resident dogs) to the list, and he was thrilled.

It turned out to be the most beautiful spring weekend in the mountains, and we even got to lie outside on the deck and soak in the sun.  While the other families were off hiking, we called Shirley over and she and Lucas had an hour-long love fest.  Shirley is a very, very sweet golden retriever, who wants endless attention.  Whenever Lucas (or Krista) stopped petting her, she would gently put her paw on Lucas’s chest to ask for more.  Lucas would light up and say “Shirley gave you paw!”

Lucas also carried his “container” around all weekend looking for bugs — ants, beetles, anything that he could watch crawl around a very small space with a magnifying glass on top.  And then there were three miniature donkeys that Lucas got to feed.  Another thrill.

We went on to the town of Leavenworth and stayed two more nights on our own, soaking in the sun and mountains and rivers.  The highlight for the two of us was finding accessible hiking walking trails along the Wenatchee River.  Lucas’s highlight was definitely the petting zoo.  He got to feed a llama, a goat, and a pig named Penelope Pickles.  And he loved the turkey’s sound.  We also got to lie out in the grass at the foot of the mountains and watch the birds feel spring.  Lucas is good at bird identification, and in an hour or so we saw flickers, hawks, finches, sparrows, and robins.

We came home for a couple days of school, then headed back out to Whidbey Island with Burke’s family for another weekend adventure.  Lucas was lucky to have his cousins there to help catch and motivate him to play with the tiny crabs in the tidal pools.  We also lay on the beach and watched bald eagles, great blue herons, and sea gulls.  (Have we mentioned the sun has been out?)

And then, almost to test whether or not seeing animals could ever get old for Lucas, we we visited Elisha’s family’s small farm on Whidbey.  Here we weren’t even constrained by fences.  Elisha’s mom led Lucas and his cousins in to the pasture, where they were promptly rushed by a dozen or more friendly farm animals.  The pictures speak for themselves.

And then, as if the animal kingdom was rewarding us for our love, the captain of our home-bound ferry announced an orca sighting to the south.  We rushed over and got to see a small pod of orca fins gliding up and back down into the water.  It is possible that Krista was even more excited than Lucas.

This is of course an incomplete picture of the vacation – the two of us enjoyed the people we were with even more than the animals.  We felt lucky in so many ways.  And we also came home worn out from some sleep deprived nights and from all the work it takes to get Lucas out.  But we’ll write more about that later.  For now, we thought we’d stick with Lucas’s highlights.  Which in list form makes for a pretty impressive vacation:

Shirley, Brooksy, Kaya;

miniature donkeys;

llama, goats, miniature cows, pig, peacock, duck, turkey, chicken rooster, and donkeys;

gold finches, house finches, hawks, robins, sparrows;

crabs, eels, starfish;

bald eagles, great blue herons, red winged blackbirds, Canadian geese;

Bruno (Nonna’s dog) and Zoe (Nonna’s cat);

more miniature donkeys!;

goats, sheep, miniature horses, bunnies, chickens, geese; sea gulls;

and orca whales.