Giant

After months of thinking it was too big for him, Odin finally decided to ride his new bike. Today we rode a stretch of trail and he did a great job.

Visitors!

On Saturday Grandma and Grandpa arrived for a one week visit.

paper airplanes

On the ferry

it was pretty windy

Flight museum- so much fun.

more flying toys

Details

I was reading the box for the Slip and Slide today as it was going into the recycling bin and noticed that persons over 12 years old and 110 pounds were prohibited from using it. Maybe that is why I launched completely off of it.. Too much mass.

Ah Summer!

As if on cue the sun was out yesterday and shone on the forst day of summer. When Odin and I headed to the Y for his swim lesson it was cool and foggy. But when we came out . . . SHADOWS!

We played,

 played more and then celebrated the longest day of the year with great people and a great meal - making sure to keep the kiddos up way too late to see the stars (and a satellite!).

Fathers day in the woods

Happy Campers

Top half of the put in

bottom half

getting organized

See I was there too!

Another fun weekend in the woods. Somehow we were lucky enough to get on the good side of John's coworkers.. They are our new social network. I am so pleased and contented that we made this move. It was just what we needed. We have fallen in with a group of people with kiddos that like to go out and do cool stuff... Like run freezing cold rivers - and take us along!

Backyard visitor

A while ago I overheard John and Odin talking about raccoon poop. (Yes scat is the theme for this post, if you care not to read on I will understand.) I had no idea why they were discussing the topic until two days ago. It seems a raccoon has chosen the base of the pine tree in our backyard to set up its latrine. Raccoons, I have learned will use one specific area over and over and said area is referred to as a 'latrine'.  How did I figure all this out you may wonder. Two days ago I picked up what I thought was a pile of raccoon scat only to find it was six or seven piles all stacked on top of each other - tasty, no?  Odin and I covered the area with leaves and sticks so we would konw to avoid it.  But then yesterday I noticed there was a pile on top of the leaves. 
So naturally last night I googled raccoon poop and learned me a thing or two.But what I really want to know is why does a raccoon climb a tree to get over our roughly 5.5 foot fence just to leave his mark? Does he (or she) enjoy the privacy? Maybe he/she enjoys the nice soft carpet of moss.
I think I don't really care why, I JUST WANT IT TO STOP PLEASE!

X marks the spot

another view of the back yard

Thanks for reading!

Last Day

Today was Odin's alst day of preschool. He was very aware that the last day was coming and kept on telling me how happy and sad he was about the last day of school. The happy part was because they had an ice cream party today.. The sad part is pretty easy to figure out.

Lazy weekend

We took it easy this weekend and spent the whole weekend in town.We played in the yard, Odin ran through the hose, then nude in the yard (it's a good thing we have a tall fence). It was only in the 60's but he did not seem to notice at all.

Yesterday we met up with some friends at a local park and had a picnic.  We also played Frisbee watched the kiddos play and went down to the beach.  Living close to the sound and not the open ocean we have discovered that beaches are a bit rocky (or just tidal mud flats) and tend to disappear when the tide comes in. We didn't think to put Odin in his swim suit because the air temp was in the 60's and the water much cooler, but in he went and played until he was blue.

Flowering everything

The past two weeks everything has started to bloom. When I say everything I mean EVERYTHING. It is both beautiful and slightly gaudy.  Just as Minnesota was all about the lilac, Washington is all about the rhododendron. In our yard we do have two lilacs but we have FIVE rhododendrons. I much prefer the scent of lilacs, but that alone is not a reason to move back!

 

And this is just the front yard!

Camping

We spent the long weekend camping in the mountains with some of John's co-workers and had a marvelous time.
Many of the people we were out with were rafters (they camp with the kitchen sink)... Unlike us lowly canoe campers where space is an issue. . . We brought our single burner MSR whisperlite stove, they had freestanding dual burner propane stoves hooked up to 5gal propane tanks.  Mind you we were car camping so space was only as limiting as our car. But still.

So, the other morning I cooked breakfast (cinnamon rolls) on our campstove because I was beginning to feel very self conscious of my camp cooking skills.  It turned out great. I would like to practice more before I hit the trail with it, but I think after a few more trips I may be able to run with the big boys. On Friday night I cooked my pizza on the campstove... Great results!


Anyway back to the weekend. The campground was at around 2300 feet and the snow had just melted last week. There were two rivers surrounding the campground and they were both flowing high and fast. John and I did a short run on Sunday - it was the rowdiest continuous section of river we have done in our canoe. We had the spray cover on and we still had to pull out twice to bail. Thankfully Odin decided to play with the kids instead of run it with us.

10 feet from our protected put in

One of our stop and bail spots

 We all needed that kind of weekend. Odin was so excited to just runs and play in the woods. He fell asleep in the Jeep on the way home. In my book that's the judge of a good weekend!