Whidbey Island and our three day retreat

Orchard House

Saturday morning April 12th - Up early this morning to let the kids out and give them their breakfast (Note to self at 6am - must ask Wicket why so early?)

Before I get into describing our day, a little background. As most of you know we are on a trip to get our house sold. We made it up to Lakewood after a fourteen day road trip from Naples Florida, a little over 4,200 miles (see blogs posts for details) and set up camp at Shanda's house, Tina's sisters place next door to Tina's Mom's house.

We made one trip to the Island to meet with a potential buyer that we had been working with since early January. Me and Tina, our tenants and the buyer met at China City in Freeland for lunch then headed up to the house to talk. Unfortunately we learned that the buyers had to back out of the deal when their deal fell through.

So Tina and I were back to square one and went to our back up plan. We drove back to Lakewood and started making plans for getting back to the island and starting work on the house and property. We had been in touch with several friends in Freeland and one of them mentioned a beautiful little cabin that could be available where we could stay while our tenants completed their move out. We contacted the owners and negotiated a short term stay.

The Cabin on Whidbey

So that's where we headed on Saturday morning the 12th. We got to Freeland around 11am and met our friends Jim and Anita at their place for a short visit. The owner of the cabin is a client of Jim's and since Jim was our contact, he and Anita took us over to our new home where we will be for the next four days.

We're in the middle of an orchard and surrounded by horse pastures!

It's really hard to describe our setting but I'll try. The cabin is actually one of two guest houses that sit in the middle of a 200 acre property.

Inside the cabin

Originally one of the early homesteads on the Island, this was a fully self sustaining farm where the owners only went to town once every six months for flour and a few incidentals. The original chicken coups still exist (over 10,000 chickens at one time) along with the cow barns, horse barns and pig enclosures.

Looking out to the Olympic Peninsula

The orchards that surround the cabin are apple, pear and cherry with many still producing. Beyond the orchards are horse pastures and horses. Fom the front deck of the cabin we look out over Puget sound directly at the Olympic Mountains. Truly an idyllic spot!

Almost to the beach

Once we got everything out of the car we all headed back into Freeland for lunch at the Glass Alley Cafe (excellent lunch) then it was back to the cabin to set up and take a walk to the beach. We headed down through the horse pastures with the dogs and finally made it to the west shoreline of Whidbey Island for a beach walk.

All my girls posed for a portrait on the beach

We spent an hour or so on the beach looking for shells (Tina), carvable driftwood (me) and Emma basically just enjoying being out and about. Then it was back to the cabin for paw and boot washing! After dinner (lunch leftovers) we took the dogs for a long walk around the property, a little exploring, then watched the sun set and moon rise making it a pretty complete day!

Container ship at dusk with the Olympic Mountains in the background

Tomorrow we will go up to the house and meet our realtor to get started on our list of things to do to get the place ready for sale.

To see all our photos go to:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mjdolanski