Great Northwest Trip - Beach Picnic!

Finding everything in order on our visit to our rental property, we swung back onto I-5 and drove down for an afternoon with Sue's sister, Cathy, husband Eric and Zach, Connor and Emma on the Mukilteo Beach.  While first filling everyone in on our travels to date, Sue mentioned that we were late in getting in the night before because of our jaunt over to the Tillamook Cheese Factory.  Sue explained that she had begun making her own homemade cheeses.  Emma (age 6 1/2) wryly commented; "Well as long as you don't cut the cheese."  We all got her joke and laughed heartily.

Having dispensed with the fart jokes of my 6-year old niece, it was time to head on out for a picnic lunch.  We were able to catch 'em a day before their trip to see the California Coastal Redwoods.  In the meantime, Cathy put together a great fried chicken picnic lunch that we all enjoyed beside the stony beach.  It was a good visit, catching up on the active life of Cathy's young family as we sat on longs , threw rocks into Puget Sound at floating drift wood.  Then the 3 younguns were off to clamber over the play equipment in the grassy part of the park.  A sunny and delightful afternoon next to the water.

Toward the end, I was challenged by Zach to answer the question: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

I said neither, it all begins with turtles.  In fact the world is held up by a turtle.  So what is that turtle standing on?  Not to be fooled by such a clever question, I said it was turtles all the way down.  But as for the first question regarding chickens and eggs, i told Zach and Connor that beside the turtles, the universe is really just an omelet.  This word about turtles and omelets set the two boys off on excitingly developing a whole new cosmological explanation which they felt confident was the long lost unified field theory.  The one simple idea that made sense of everything.  I assurred them they were going in the right direction, one cannot go wrong if you start with turtles.

We got some a chance to hear about Emma's dance classes and how she had performed in a circus themed recital earlier, dancing as a balloon and a zebra, with a chance to see her elaborate zebra costume.  Emma was soon dressed out in her leotards and was about to go to dance class, so we said our good-byes; leaving Zach and Connor writing a script for a film explaining the origins of the universe.  It was a brief but good and fun visit.