For our 2023 summer month abroad, we resurrected our original summer 2020 plan of Barcelona and San Sebastian, and I’m so glad that we did. Barcelona is such a fascinating, compelling, beautiful city!
First impressions:
It sure is hot and humid (compared to back home), and we learned to mentally adjust sooner rather than later. One major upside: the humidity has been great for our typically-dry-PNW skin! 😄
The food is absolutely delicious! Not a ton of fresh veggie options on restaurant menus, but that’s what grocery runs are for. The kids are eating so well, loving the bread, meat, and seafood.
Art is literally everywhere we go. Not only the most famous Gaudi works across the city, but just strolling through the Gothic Quarter and/or El Born, there’s so much gorgeous street art we simply happen upon. Stunning and unexpected juxtapositions to all the surrounding stone and medieval architecture.
We need to make siestas a thing in the U.S.! Our extended stay allows us to take things more slowly, so we’ve been leaning fully into the Spanish siesta culture after lunch. Taking naps, watching TV, reading, playing video games have been fantastic downtime compliments to our touristing activities.
Spring Break has come and gone, differentiated from any other week in quarantine by its days gloriously-free from the schedule confines of daily learning plans. The kids loved playing together, and I enjoyed the lazy, slower starts to the days.
Sometimes it’s a challenge to find something that both adults and the kids enjoy doing together. Besides bike-riding around our neighborhood, working on puzzles, and eating yummy food together, we also discovered a few super fun and interesting Disney+ nature documentaries that kept all of us entertained.
Brave, intelligent elephants on a journey
First up was the newest one, Elephant, narrated by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, OF COURSE! Guess whose suggestion that one was? 😉 Objectively, her narration did a great job bringing humor and compassion to the story, which follows a matriarchal family of African elephants as they make their way across the Kalahari Desert.
Who knew Adélie penguins could be so funny?
The second documentary we watched was about Adélie penguins because, well, they’re just so darn cute! This film spotlights a penguin named Steve, who goes on his first quest as an adult male, to build a nest, find a partner, and raise a family. Steve is voiced by Ed Helms, who infuses his character with lots of goofy relatability.
The kids enjoyed it overall, but there were a few more perilous situations than the Elephant doc had. There’s a crazy-strong wind snowstorm that buries some of the mama penguins as they’re protecting their eggs, including the mama that we’ve been following in the show. There is a real moment of anxiety as we assume that she doesn’t make it, which scared my little guy N. Thankfully, the mama ends up surviving and keeping her eggs alive too. Orca whales and leopard seals, both penguin predators, appear and create a sense of danger. We even see leopard seals hunt and catch a few young penguins, which made Syd pretty anxious and scared.
On the positive side, it’s fun and very silly at times, which made the kids LOL. They also loved learning about and watching the regurgitation feeding method between the parents and chicks. So much so that they spent the rest of the day, and some of the next, pretending to feed each other by regurgitation.
Majestic and fascinating mammals born in China
Next up is Born In China, which we’ve watched nearly half of so far. My first assumption was that it’s about pandas in China, but to my delight, the documentary also tells the story of snow leopards and golden snub-nosed monkeys, both also indigenous to China. And as you can see in the image above, the story very much focuses on the mama-child relationships of these species, which made it that much more sweet to watch on Mother’s Day. John Krasinski’s narration is also spot-on and the breathtaking scenery is a perfect escape for these times.
So we’re smack in the middle of Week 4 of self-isolation at home, and fairly adjusted to our new normal, which goes something like this:
Mon-Fri @ home: Mom-school in session, (almost) all day, every day. Thankfully, Mom-school isn’t strict about alcohol.
Sat-Sun @ home: Family time all day, every day.
Sunny days are better. This Monday was an improvement over last Monday. And every day is different.
So far, the main thing I’ve learned from this experience is to take it one day at a time (literally!), and have no expectations for what any particular day will hold. For a Type A personality like myself, who loves to plan and schedule and be doing ALL the things, this experience has been akin to slamming on the brakes in the middle of the freeway. The skid marks sure weren’t pretty, but I guess we’re achieving the objective.
What’s been helping me:
Regular exercise, with the help of YouTube (a few fave channels have been: MadFit, Tracy Anderson for Goop here and here, and Sweaty Betty.
Weekly video chats with family and friends. I’ve mostly been using Zoom, which has a Gallery view that lets you see everyone on the call, and has fun reactions like clapping and thumbs-up. Their free version gives you 40 minutes before cutting off, but I’ve discovered that you can use the same link to re-start the chat. Little wins!
Supporting our local restaurants and enjoying meals that I didn’t have to cook.
Wine, wine, and more wine!
How are you doing out there? I hope that you are staying healthy and well.
Dining at The Willows Inn on Lummi Island has been on my bucket list since the first time I heard of this quaint inn/restaurant that’s on a magical-sounding tiny island west of Bellingham. We love food and are willing to plan and spend money on epic meals – for the enjoyment in the moment but even moreso for the shared experience. They don’t even have to be fancy or at 5-star restaurants, as long as the food is objectively delicious. This weekend, we were lucky enough to enjoy a stay and dinner at The Willows Inn, and the service, food, accommodations were all more enjoyable than I even imagined. We brought the kids, and now having visited in winter, I know that summer would be the best time to come with kids. The weather was too cold and rainy to enjoy any beach time, and we didn’t have access to a pool or playground for the kids to burn off their energy from a 2+ hour car ride. BUT the house we stayed in was the perfect setting to hang out and get cozy in. I brought some books, drawing/coloring activities, and our new favorite board game, PicWits. Add snacks, tea, and plenty of indoor heating, and it was a wintering dream come true!
First Impressions
Upon arrival, we checked in at the most adorable and comforting “reception” area, which is technically on the ground floor of the Willows Inn. There was complimentary herbal tea, a sweet sitting area, and an amazing “snack bar” lined with any type of treat you’d want to munch on. The best part of this area, in my opinion, is the tiny Hobbit-like window at the back of the room that looks into the baking area. It was so fun to watch the bakers and staff working their magic in real-time!
Cozy and welcoming reception area
The Taft House
Since we needed at least two bedrooms, we weren’t able to stay at the Inn itself, which only has one-bedroom options. Optimizing for space and proximity to the Inn, we decided to book the Taft House, a stand-alone house that’s owned by Willows Inn. It’s only about ⅛ of a mile away from the Inn, and felt like we were in another, more slow-paced and Little-House-On-The-Prairie-type world. We had all the conveniences of a home – laundry machines, full kitchen, spacious living and dining area, separate bedrooms – with the added benefit of gorgeous 20th-century charm in the furnishings and decor. The vintage kitchen, especially, reinforced my love for farmhouse style. I loved feeling so cozy and warm inside, while admiring the beautiful ocean view that was outside.
Living our best Little House On The Prairie life!
The Food
Dinner was everything I had read about, and more. We arrived 45 minutes before dinner service for drinks and relaxing in a room that was clearly the Inn’s living room. Beautifully furnished and charmingly-decorated, we enjoyed craft house cocktails and tasty local-ingredient appetizers by candlelight, surrounded by our fellow diners. At the designated time, servers led us to our dining table, and we began our gustatory adventure. We decided to share one wine pairing and one house-made juice pairing, since we just couldn’t pass up the unique juices that were made completely with local ingredients. The majority of our courses were seafood-based, and all of our courses were perfectly timed and really well-balanced.
Apologies for the poor lighting in the food pics, but trust me, everything was delicious!
Based on some reviews and advice from friends, we made a breakfast reservation for the following morning with the kids. And I’m VERY happy that we did! It was one of the most fun, interesting, and delicious breakfast experiences we’ve had as a family in maybe forever. Breakfast is composed of multiple small dishes of veggies, protein, and sweet elements – all combined to create a harmony in our mouths and bellies. We were tickled by how many things there were to try, and the set-up really complemented our kids’ naturally curious and fun-loving natures. Plus, it was really fun for us to share the dining room experience (where we had just had a grown-up dinner) with our kids. Since we were the first breakfast guests to arrive, we enjoyed the dining room to ourselves for a bit, and the staff was wonderfully patient and understanding with the kids. A perfect way to end our overnight on the island!
Heads-down in our special, engaging breakfast.
In Conclusion…
This was our first trip to Lummi Island and The Willows Inn, but most definitely won’t be our last. Even before we boarded the car ferry to head back home, we started planning our next trip back in the spring or summertime. This is one of those places that you can return to again and again, in all the different seasons and times of life, and experience something magically memorable each time.
I’m definitely a late-bloomer in the make-up department, since it seems like most people experiment with make-up in their teens and twenties, and then have their “looks” locked down by the time they’re in their thirties. Me, I’m just getting comfortable experimenting with make-up, and specifically, a bolder lip. I’ve always liked highlighting my eyes with the basics – eyeliner (used a little too heavily in college, I’ll admit now), some eyeshadow, and mascara. But lips. Lips have always been more of an after-thought for me. Or they just seemed too difficult to bother with. Or something. Until one fateful day, I walked into a Sephora looking for something more dramatic than lip gloss, and the sales associate recommended a vibrant red color. It was the perfect hue of deep, rich red that worked for my Asian skin tone. And for that, Sephora will always have a special place in my heart. =)
Since then, I’ve branched out to different shades of red, experimenting with one that has a little more orange in it…one with a little more purple. Currently, my favorite lipstick line is the Kosas Weightless Lipstick, for its texture, pigmentation, and stay-ability (is that even a word?). Even closer to my heart is the brand’s clean formulations and conscientious philosophy around beauty products. Thrillest is my fun go-to color for vacations…or whenever I want to feel like I’m on vacation. 😉 And the surprisingly flattering Violet Fury is brilliant for nights out, or whenever I want something less bright. They have many other beautiful colors I’d love to try, including an awesome starter set of their three most-wanted colors. I’d love to know if you’ve tried any Kosas lipsticks!
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