Friday Harbor Bed & Breakfast - Life on an Island - a Happy Ending

As we were preparing for a houseful of guests on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving weekend, we had a family emergency with our yellow lab, Mollie. Mollie got terribly sick and began failing quickly. Our local vet who has taken care of all of our animals since we moved here 3 years felt helpless with the diagnostic tools available to him. He was concerned about her well being throughout the night. Our only choices were to drive her off on the next ferry or fly her off. Dave, couldn't fathom the idea of flying a very sick dog with an IV in her arm to Bellingham on the eve of Thanksgiving. For the first time in our 3 years of living on San Juan Island, we felt isolated. We quickly packed a few things for Dave since he was probably spending the night with Mollie on the mainland. After a few days in the animal hospital - we had a diagnosis - gastritis. Mollie came home on Sunday with her perky personality. She was in the check-in office on Monday greeting guests and helping everyone feel welcome. We were really thankful for our local vet and the staff at the animal hospital for taking time away from their holiday to make our Thanksgiving holiday whole.

Bed and Breakfast Friday Harbor - Thanksgiving preparations

The Harrison House Suites is preparing for the holidays. Earlier this month, we purchased over 25 lbs of three different varieties of pumpkins from one of the local farms. We roasted them and made our own pumpkin purée. We will be featuring pumpkin throughout the holidays in Pumpkin pancakes, Pumpkin Bread, Pumpkin Cookies, Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Praline Pie, and Pumpkin Panna Cotta. Our fall soaps also have a pumpkin theme - pumpkin cinnamon.

Friday Harbor Accommodations - Fly to the Islands

Flying is quite a popular hobby on the Island - almost a necessity for Island life. Dave fulfilled his dream and got his private pilots license this past April. This winter he is going to work on his instrument rating. This past summer, Dave made good use of his new hobby. He flew off weekly and sometimes twice a week to pick up supplies and produce. The most important part of his shopping were the trips to the local farms for fresh berries and stone fruit. Now that the summer fruit season is over - his shopping is less exiting. He still goes to the Fairhaven Flour Mill to pick up our fresh ground organic flours.

Talking about flying, this morning we hosted a group of pilots who flew in from Payne Field - a local airport outside of Seattle. They flew in two Cessnas and a Moonie. We enjoyed a relaxing breakfast and talked about flying and food. Breakfast consisted of homemade granola, fresh season fruit, homemade sour dough everything bagels, lox, cream cheese and salmon and Crème brulée for dessert.

Lodging San Juan Islands - Innkeepers seek underwater retreat

Dave and I enjoy taking our annual winter retreat underwater. We spent last week in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico diving, diving, and diving. This was the first week in almost a year that we were away from the Inn not tethered to a phone or email. It was weird not making breakfast each morning for guests. The highlights of our 18 scuba dives were the ones where we interacted with whale sharks, sea lions, hammerheads. The later of the three were rather skiddish thereby limiting our views. Each night, we enjoyed great Mexican food and sampled different queso - cheeses. We were hard pressed though to find a chille rellenos as good as Elsa's, our head housekeeper.