As a few of you know and most of you do not my wife has been battling a serious form of cancer for roughly the last 1 ½ years. Right when our child turned 6 months old my wife was diagnosed with a walnut sized tumor above her eye. Since that time she has had three full craniotomy surgeries on her head, 3 bouts of radiation therapy with the last one being performed over 2 months in Seattle. Upon returning home we found out that the cancer has spread to her lungs at a pretty fast rate and we have now begun Chemotherapy upon returning home. My purpose for this post is to say thank you to the FFA members that have donated money to Wildman & Stanberry’s fund. We have fortunately been able to be on the receiving end of your great generosity and are looking forward to being able to enjoy a nice dinner for our 6 year anniversary this coming Saturday. Needless to say, moving away for 2 months and continuous medical bills has left us pretty thin in the wallet area. With this contribution from you we will be able to spend some quality time together that we at first thought would not be possible. It warms our hearts and gives us hope knowing that people we have never even met are so willing to help us out in a time of need. We would at least like to share with you our trip to Seattle. I have tried to get this up for over a month now but with a 2 year old and a wife recovering from radiation while starting chemo, and returning to my business that I have been absent from for 2 months my time has been extremely limited at best…. I wish I could write up more for you all but if this report is going to ever get posted it will need to mostly be pictures…
We spent roughly 2 months in Seattle and its surrounding areas. Along with about a week and a half in Bend, Or.. We absolutely loved everything about Seattle, really not a single complaint but we also do realize we were not there in the winter…. Here are some pics from the trip.
We first stayed with a friend in the Freemont/ Ballard part of the city.
Here is his backyard view of the sound with the Olympics in the background.
Ballard:
After all of our initial appointments we had a few weeks off before treatment began. We were fortunate to have a friend of a friend gift us the use of their house on the Hood Canal. This really became the highlight of a great trip. We ended up staying about a week and a half and had full run of the place….Our friends even surprised us with a visit for about 4 of those days. The property sits on a point so I had great 24hrs a day fishing 100’ out the door. To make things better out of the 4 houses on the road only one other on the opposite side was occupied, and it was the home of an incredible family that ran a world famous oyster company right there. So in quick time I was taught the ways of the land first hand and was let loose on the bounty we ate fresh shellfish every day and I think I personally consumed about 4lbs of butter and 6 bulbs of garlic in a week and a halfs time. Amazin seeing tides change over 16 feet in 6 hours! The Sea Run Cut fishing was insane … kinda…. Over the 10 or so days I hooked easily 150 fish………. I touched 5. Really a different kind of fishing and I loved it! Very visual and fast paced. Lots to learn and I really want to try it again. I was able to fish all the time but with the long days I would often fish grey light from about 930pm to close to 11:00 – 11:30… totally surreal and peaceful.
Here’s a few shots:
We knew we were welcome upon arrival:
Views:
The Canal gets almost 700’ deep in the middle right here. The whole canal is around 1/4mi across.:
The house from low tide:
Couple of trout lakes in the area:
Food/ Harvesting:
After Dinner:
This is what the Sea Run Cuts eat:
We also spent some time in the Snohomish area with some of Colleen’s family
After this point Colleens treatment got more than intense and we were unable to take as many pictures because our time out was very limited. Most of the time it was my daughter and I conquering Seattle by bike which was a lot of fun but we sure did miss Mama a lot. On the few days Colleen felt well we sure made the most of it. Here are some random pictures from the rest of the trip.
The Locks, just incredible loved this place…. I was amazed at how quickly they raised and lowered boats as well as the huge schools of salmon swimming around:
Ok we have gone once to this place and don’t really need to go again:
Taking advantage of the abundance of things to do in the city:
Family is feeling better at our stop in Bend!
Thank you FFA for all of your help… we wouldn’t be where we are without great people like all of you. From the bottom of our hearts THANK YOU!!
The McB’s
