It is a good day to go crabbing at Garibaldi Bay for Dungeness crabs. The water is calm and after throwing the crab pots into the bay, we have a picnic at a sandy island. This is the best way to catch crabs for people like me who gets sea sick in the ocean. We manage to get a good catch and have a delicious Dungeness crabs feast afterwards.

We are in a beautiful Nehalem Bay, Oregon that is known for its driftwoods that pile high at the mouth of the Nehalem River. This beautiful sandy beach is a spot for Shane’s treasure hunt activity using his sister’s metal detector. Find out the treasure he found when the metal detector went beep! It was fun watching him having fun and getting two kids excited too.

Shane’s track meet colleague Jim McLachlan’s sweet corn field produces one of the sweetest and most delicious sweet corns I’ve ever eaten. It is located in the Otis Orchards in Washington State. The sweet corns are so popular that they are sold out amongst friends and neighbors. Harvesting and selling them is a fun time for family and friends meetup.

Our family has a beautiful wedding at Hoh Rainforest in the Olympic Peninsula. Ryan fell in love with this place when Shane brought him and his friends over here on a college spring break. He has visited this rainforest every chance he got and brought Kasandra along. We found a beautiful spot and Kasandra’s mom officiated their nuptial.

Paddle boarding is a new water sport for me and I failed miserably on my first trip to Hauser Lake. Shane made it looked easy but it wasn’t. I spent a week at the gym to improve my balance and today I am so proud to say I did it! We invited our daughter-in-law and grandson to join us to Hauser Lake and had a fun filled day.

We headed to Wallace, Idaho after our excursion to the Northern Idaho Ghost Towns. Wallace used to be one of the largest silver producers in the world and it is also one of the richest mining towns still in existence today. One of the main highlight of this place is the Oasis Bordello. It used to be a Wild West brothel until 1988!

Idaho State is well known for its mountainous landscapes, swaths of protected wilderness, lakes, outdoor recreation areas and potatoes. It has also many mining towns that are now abandoned and became ghost towns. We visited two on the Idaho panhandle today; Frisco and Burke which were once boom towns for lead, silver and zinc.

It’s time for us to go back to the US and we spent our last days with GIFT children in Klang, Selangor. We brought along Ah Ping, the Goat mascot after their alpha goat who died last year as a gift. Hopefully it could be used to promote GIFT Foundation. Shane came with a few gifts for the children and he tried to encourage each one to learn and study hard.

A trip to Swiss Garden Resort Kuantan, Pahang gave us a once in a lifetime fishing experience with the local fishermen. They were amazing hardworking people and the community spirit in still prevalent amongst villagers. We ate giant freshly caught prawns cooked for us by one of the men. A wonderful experience we want to repeat one day.

We flew to Bali because Shane wanted to get root balls. Yep…that was the main reason we went there. Fortunately we met a new friend who gave us a tour of his traditional Balinese house. What an amazing place and history. He introduced us to his family members who are generations of wood carving artists. What a great opportunity to experience all these.