The sun was shining brightly for our last hoorah at the beach this morning. Tobias and Kaleb stayed back at the cabin, but the rest of us went for a long walk, collecting beach treasures as we went. I had to ask what the Norwegian word for “treasure” was and was pretty shocked to find out it’s the exact same word they use for “tax.” It’s not too hard to figure out where that association came from.




I managed to find more rocks and some cool driftwood to take home - like I need more things at home. Kory also picked up some wood and told me he had something in mind to build for me. I hope I like it. It’s a real hit and miss sometimes with his creativity landing on something I think is cute, but at least he tries. Inger and Bjørn were impressed with the amount, size and shapes of the driftwood on the beach. Huge trees that were bleached from the sun and smoothed by the sand were lying like toothpicks in a box – just stacked up one after another all along the beach. The root systems were the most impressive and they were wishing there was a way to take one home to put in Inger’s parent’s garden (which is quite impressive, by the way.) The twins found the piles of driftwood more entertaining than their Nintendo as they walked along the trunks, balancing ever so carefully; jumping off the ends, playing hide and seek in the nooks and crannies. We could have spent all day just playing in the driftwood (see photo) as it was better than any play equipment I’ve ever seen. The possibilities were endless.



After lunch, everyone helped pack up the vehicles and clean up the cabin. I stayed behind for a few hours to do the final cleaning. Kory took the whole gang back home where Inger and Bjørn got to see our place for the first time and experience life in the woods, now that they’ve had a taste of life at the beach. They were all sitting on the deck, drinking “cold beverages” and enjoying the view by the time I rolled in with sweat still dripping off my forehead from all the work I’d done back at the cabin. Hmmm. 

I appreciated that it was significantly cooler at our house than at the beach. Inside our house was even colder than outside. We ate dinner outside, overlooking our beautiful Skagit Valley and the ever changing farm lands. Watching the farmers plant the seed and harvest the crops is kind of like watching the tide go in and out, only much slower - like at about the same rate as grass grows. But our life in the country these days, is anything but boring. Hallelujah.