My thanks to the men and women who gave their lives to the service of our nation.

I spent part of Memorial weekend with my sister, Conny, and her family. Her birthday is this week, so it was a good reason to make the trip. She lives across Puget Sound in Indianola http://www.visitkitsap.com/cities.asp?ID=6. This requires taking a ferry. Karen drove Kaitlin and me to the ferry landing in Seattle and we walked on to the ferry to Bainbridge Island. Karen was not feeling well, so she stay home. The nice thing about walking onto the ferry on a holiday weekend is that you are guaranteed to board a given ferry, whereas the car queue can sometimes be two or more ferry trips wait time. My sister picked Kaitlin and me up at the other end.

Fortunately the weather was beautiful. My sister lives close to the beach in Indianola, which is an exceptional beach for western Washington and Puget Sound in general. The afternoon low tide meant dozens of kids and adults making enormous sandcastles, just west of the Indianola dock. We stayed long enough to watch the tide batter the sand-fortress walls down and flood the inner keep. Kaitlin had a great time and, naturally, was covered with sand. We finished the evening with games and s’mores toasted on a fire in Conny’s back yard.