Christmas Wrap-up!

We had a great Christmas! Let's see...here is a numerical account:

1 = The number of Christmas cards that were returned due to an incorrect address.
2 = The number of glass Christmas tree decorations broken (tied with last year's record!)
3 = The number of packages for distant relatives...which incidently were shipped on time.
4 = The number of gifts that had to be returned or were missing parts (all purchased by Jack & Gail for Brenchley kids).
5 = Number of Brenchley kids.
6 = Number of hours added up on December 16th for performances (both The City Church kids' Christmas program & then the kids' piano recital in the evening). This doesn't include lunch with the Marquees at the Kitanda Brazilian restraunt.
7 = The number of days it took Papa Ray and cat Ojo to cross the country via RoadTrek camper.
8 = The number of plates of cookies passed out to neighbors while Christmas Caroling.
9 = The date in December that the family went to the Lobb's Gingerbread making party.
10 = The number of December events (either hosted or attended) according to Emma.
11 = The number of hours (including travel time) for the Christmas Day celebration at Good Beach with the Ostling side of the family.
12 = The number of different "Twelve Days of Christmas" lists the Brenchley kids created this year.

All in all we accomplished just about everything we needed to...although we did pospone viewing the Bellevue Botanical Gardens d'Lights display until after Christmas and only just yesterday dropped a gift off with Jamie.

R2-D2 in Prison!

Caleb (11) is one of our budding artists and here is his first stab at electronic art (using Windows Paint no less!). He thought the zoom tool was really helpful. So...when do we start him on real drawing programs like Illustrator or Freehand?

Caleb 12.23.07

2007 Christmas Newsletter

This year we tried for a less, "tell everything that happened over the year" approach and made cutouts of the kids that folks could include in their Christmas Creshes. Here is a thumbnail of the page:

Christmas Newletter 2007

Snow!

So we woke-up on the first of December with a dusting of snow - which melted by noon. Then it started snowing heavy in the late afternoon. The kids went out and were joined by their cousin Sterling. Later the older cousins even ambushed the house for a snowball fight. Here are a few shots on Photobucket - including the cold flamingo.

Cold Flamingo 12.1.07

Thanksgiving 2007

We had a great Thanksgiving with two turkeys, tons of food, and a houseful of people. This included Grandma Dot, Grandma Bev, Uncle Jack and Aunt Shirl, George and Anne Kordwig (neighbors down the street), Uschi and Louis and their two children, Beatrice and Pedro, Franklin and Joy Lobb, and their two children, Gabriella and Graceson (the youngest attending at only 6 months), also the Ostlings and Wade. Coming to a total of 30! Things went very smoothly for that many people!

The mix of folks was unique...George was born in Germany and Uschi and Louis are from Brazil, but most recently from Germany . The other interesting find was that Anne and Uncle Jack were born in relatively close proximity in Scotland, but ten years apart!

We are thankful for our friends and family and really enjoyed hosting this year.

Just to remind Jack...that at the end of the evening we did play the board game Therapy with Uschi, Louis, Kyna, and Shannon.

And just to remind Gail...Jack would have won if she hadn't given Uschi the peg reward for successful group therapy instead of him! Maybe next time he will not suggest that she is what she eats.

Here is a turkey that Emma (8) drew this year, using her hand of course for a template:

Art by Emma

Freewinds pull-out voyage

Okay, so a cruise from Everett to Seattle in November may not have been the calmest adventure our family has ever been on, but the boat was in desperate need of deck repairs and today was the day to take her in! Here is a GoogleMap of the adventure.

After a couple of nice, mild days we woke up to some fairly stiff winds at the house. Undaunted, we forged ahead. The marina was fairly calm, and at least it wasn’t raining! Well, it wasn’t the smoothest ride we had. In fact, with 20 mph winds in our face (and gusts up to 30 at times! Hmmm…just below small craft warnings.) and a changing tide, we had plenty of chop and slop with an occasional roll from the Straits. Since we didn’t plan on tacking much we didn’t even put the sails up. Still the boat did great.

The other adventure was navigating through the multitude of gill netters (who else would be out on a choppy/windy day like today?). More than once we had a panicked fisherman come full throttle towards us as we were merrily bouncing along, oblivious that the white caps ahead of us were really net floats. Caleb, who was the undisputed net finder, took the helm for most of this excitement so Dad could stand on deck and make reassuring gestures to the irate fisher folk. Let’s see…that was about when the littles decided to upchuck. But the winds were declining.

As we were coming to Shilshole, the huge mega-yacht Laurel crossed our bow and tied up. We were pretty impressed! Come to find out the Laurel is listed as the 8th largest American-owned yacht and was built right here in the Northwest.

The trip started going pretty fast after that point. The BNSF bridge was up so we scooted right past – good thing – the bridge clearance is 43’ at hightide and our mast is around 50’. Then we were ushered right into the large locks with only a barge and tug and one other small powerboat with us. Pretty good for the first time through the locks in our boat. Exit the locks, veer starboard, and back right into CSR’s travellift.

Freewinds pull-out 11.9.07

A Number of October Moments

Jack usually does the blogging, but this has just been a week of good blogging material, plus I just reviewed how to log on! First, Cian has started taking responsibility for picking out his own clothing. He prefers "busy" or colorful items, so technically his shirt and pants are not meant to go together. However, I am happy that he is taking the initiative, and we will tackle "busy with non-busy" in the not too distant future.

Last night, we attended our annual family concert, performed by the NW Symphony Orchestra, starring Uncle Kyle, as always. Actually, Kyle is one of several second violins, but he is the star we go to see. The conductor tries to select music appropriate for a younger audience (i.e., lively, not overly legato), and many of the performers and people in the audience dress in costume. Kyle wore silky p.j.'s with hearts on them, which I had certainly never seen before. Colin went as Darth Vader - and some of his enemies were also in the line that paraded across the stage. Emma went as a basketball player, Caleb as a superhero, Rilla as a fairy princess, and Cian was a furry green dragon.


Rilla later swapped for the dragon on the way home, and fell asleep wearing it. This was not easy to remove when we put her into bed.

One other big event this week was the arrival of chocolates from Dean's Sweets in Portland, Maine. We ordered them online as the souvenir of choice from the state of Maine during our homeschool tour of all 50 states. We'll also be getting a lobster trivet as soon as the potters from Cabin Pottery can fill our order. Wonder what we'll find in New Hampshire??!!

Lauritzen Pumpkin Party

Each year we try to attend an annual Pumpkin Party hosted by Pam & Jane Lauritzen. The idea is to come with pumpkins, carve them, then put them out along the sidewalk where a passer-by can objectively judge them. Here is this year's creations.

Pumpkin Patch 10.27.07

Salmon Dance

In the Northwest, the fall salmon run is an amazing event and this year we got to see it when the run was in full swing (thanks to Gail for having a dentist appointment in Issaquah). The Issaquah Fish Hatchery is located right downtown and is a State Hatchery, where as the Leavenworth Fish Hatchery we visited in May is a National Hatchery. Here is a live SalmonCam of the creek and hatchery.

It started to really pour while we were there so here are some wet shots of kids. Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures of salmon – wet or dry. Emma was most entertaining with her damp Salmon Dance.

Labor Day 2007

Like past Labor Days we did a lot of work around the house. Amidst picking blackberries and stacking wood, we had the kids doing a host of tasks; after all that’s why it’s called ‘labor day!’ In fact we re-introduced the chore chart, pictured below, so everyone was on board for their weekly tasks. We finished out the day by watching Newsies, which is a great musical, and a good introduction to the real meaning behind Labor Day.

2007 Evergreen State Fair

We try to make a yearly excursion to the Evergreen State Fair - especially since it is only a few miles from the house. This year we again had a great time. Here is some art work from the kids: Emma (8); Colin (7); Rilla (4)

Trip to Portland

We made a quick overnight trip to Portland to pick up Papa Ray. Here are some of the stops on the way back using GoogleMaps. Here is Emma's picture of the Zoo Train. More Pictures on Photobucket.

Norwil and Brenchley Get Together

The Norwils (Jack’s sister Becca’s family) were on a whirlwind trip to the NW and stayed with us for a few nights. It was great to have all this side of the family’s cousins all together. On Sunday we had a get together at our house which included Grandma Dot and Jack and Shirl. See all the images at our Photobucket site.

x

Norwil/Brenchley Cousins 8.5.07

Colin on the Bow

Here is a great shot of Colin on the bow of our boat the Freewinds. Caleb took this picture one evening when Dad was working on the boat. See the Seagull too?

Sounders Match

Last night we were invited to go to a Seattle Sounders soccer match at Qwest field by our friends the Soules whose daughter had been on Emma’s gymnastics team this past season. A friend of theirs, Mo Yousef had offered them his corporate suite – his company, US Home Mortgage is the premier broker of the Sounders and the suite was practically right on the field! Here is a phone/camera shot of Caleb asking for his autograph. Overall the kids had a great time! They even got to go out on the field with Mr. Soule. And the Sounders won 1 to 0 against the Miami FC! Here is the play by play. After the game, the kids got autographs from a bunch of the players on a mini soccer ball.

Here is Colin's drawing of the game.

Memorial Day Weekend

Typically Memorial Day is to honor those in the armed forces that have given their lives for the freedoms we enjoy. It is also the unofficial start of Summer. Here is a taste of what we did this weekend.

On Saturday, the whole family went to put flowers on Grandpa Chuck’s grave at the Floral Hills cemetery. While Chuck wasn’t killed in action…he still served in the Navy from 1948 to 1952, during the Korean War. As a medical corpsman assigned to the 13th Naval District in Seattle for the majority of his service time, he once told Jack that he would often process paperwork from buddies who had died in the war. See an earlier blog about Chuck. Anyway here is a shot of Jack and the kids at his grave.

Jack had called ahead to Floral Hills and had asked where his grandparents were buried since he really couldn’t remember. With the map they provided we found the marker as well. Here is a shot of Gail and the kids (with Colin hiding) at the grave site. Also at Floral Hills there was a live military display which had a lot of artifacts – including a couple of running WWII Jeeps! We also bought cookies at the Vietnam Veterans cookie sale which has become a tradition as well. Pictures have been saved up to our Photobucket site including a funny vblog (a.k.a. video blog) sequence of Cian who had had enough of Memorial Day.

Other pictures of the weekend include: Caleb on the tractor; Emma doing chores; Rilla on her trike; and Cian sandwiched in the screen door. Colin is noticeably absent and was probably playing Age of Empires on the computer. Gail blames his Uncle Ridge for this! We finished up the weekend having the cousins down for BBQ'd Buffalo burgers (Jack's idea and they were pretty good) and smores, and in the end we all stayed up late to watch A Night At the Museum. Here’s to the official start of Summer!

Jack and kids 5.26.07

Extended Weekend in Leavenworth

We had a great extended weekend in the Leavenworth area. Actually it was in Plain about 20 miles North at the Whispering Pines Lodge. This was an excellent lodge accommodation for our family and a much better value than the two hotel rooms we had to have in Kennewick a few weekends ago. Gail did a fantastic job finding this one!

On the car ride over we had the kids work together as a team to spot these items:
Dog
Caboose
Boat
Tree House
School Bus (or Tour Bus)
Tunnel
Wood Carving
Tractor (or Construction Vehicle)
American Flag
Out of State License plate
With the incentive of ice cream cones everyone was duly motivated. And the team was successful finding everything by the time we arrived!

Friday morning we breakfasted at the Renaissance Café in Leavenworth then hiked around at Leavenworth’s Waterfront Park. Here is a shot at the start of the hike and here is a shot on the hike. The kids and Jack let Gail shop and played in the park across the street…next thing we found ourselves on a horse and buggy ride around town. Here is Colin's sketch of Lucky the horse. Here are some other Leavenworth shots: Caleb & Rilla, Emma, & Colin. Later that day we went out to Lake Wenatchee State Park and followed-up with the ice cream debt.

Saturday we headed over to the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery, did the Interpretative Hike over the spill way and around the area, and then had lunch. On the way back we stocked up with Cold Stone ice cream cones and supplies at Safeway. We spent the rest of the day back at the Lodge, including smores in the firepit.

Sunday we packed up and then went back to Lake Wenatchee State Park to play for a while. Here are shots of: Caleb, Emma, Colin & Rilla, and Gail & Cian. Then we hit Highway 2 West bound….stopping only at Zeke’s for burgers before rolling into home.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day Gail!

Penn Cove 4.27.07

Here is some art work from the kids: Caleb (11); Emma (8); Colin (6).

Elephant Art

Colin (6) wanted everyone to see his latest piece of artwork. Inspired by today's visit to the zoo.

Colin Art 5.10.07

Level 4 State Gymnastics Meet Trip

Emma has had a remarkable first year in competitive Level 4 Girls Gymnastics. In fact, she did so well at Sectionals that she qualified for State! So on May 3rd we packed up the car and drove clear across the state to the Tri-Cities where we stayed at the Wingate Inn in Kennewick. If you think that we made the trip without any stops you haven’t driven any distances with children; how about five (actually six on the way home). Here are the stops: One (Snohomish Library – yes, this still counts!); Two (the pit toilet rest stop just East of the pass – note the wee bit of lingering snow); Three (dinner in Ellensburg); Four (bathrooms at the Bi-Mart in Sunnyside – probably best not to visually chronicle that one…). Actually four stops before our destination isn’t bad…

The first day we drove around to figure out where Emma’s practice session and meet was, had a picnic at Wye Park, did a short hike across an isthmus, and even found the Costco! Plus swimming at the hotel and dinner with the whole team at Red Robin!

The next day after dropping Gail, Emma, and Emma’s friend Ariel, at the TRAC pavilion for the first day of competition, Jack and the rest of the crew went to Columbia Park. Here is a shot of the kids and some baby geese. That afternoon we collected the girls and went to Sacajawea Park where we had lunch, played, and soaked up some sun in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark. Alas, we only spent a few hours here rather than the few days the Corp of Discovery stayed. But we did go through the newly opened Sacajawea Interpretive Center and even dropped in on a medieval group, the Barony of Wastekeep, a branch of The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). With the Hanford Nuclear Site in its realm, the name ‘Wastekeep” is truly fitting(!). Anyway, here are pictures of the kids: Caleb; Emma; Colin; Rilla, & Cian at the park.

Before Emma’s competition the second day we zipped up to the Ice Harbor Lock and Dam on the Snake River where we went through the Visitor center and watched spring Chinook heading up the ladder. Here is a picture of the kids with the dam in the background (and including Emma’s friend Ariel!). Then back to the TRAC pavilion and lunch at the baseball park across the street before warm-ups.

At the meet a local beauty school did the girls hair. Here is a picture of Emma’s web.

At the meet Emma did a great job! In fact her all-around score at State was the best so far! Here she is right before her salute and floor routine – and you can tell she is really focused! Obviously her parents need to get a better camera to focus those distance and speed shots since most in the set are blurry! Oh well!

Here is Emma's State Certificate.

The trip home was uneventful except for finding Winegar's Ice Cream in Ellensburg. Sort of, ‘icing on the cake’ of a packed but fun weekend/trip/meet/vacation.

Here is the 'good-luck' ad we created for Emma for the Level 4 State Meet Program:

Goodbeach

We headed up to Whidbey Island for a few days, where Gail’s family has a beachfront house. Arlie, Gail’s grandmother who was actually born in nearby Coupeville, claimed that the Indians referred to this area on Penn Cove as Goodbeach – which describes it nicely. So besides playing on the ‘good’ beach, doing some gardening, we also did some hiking at Fort Ebey State Park and at Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve (which has an excellent map of the area). The kids did a better job of describing the trip than Mom or Dad could, so here is their input:

Here is Emma’s narrative
Here is Caleb’s sonnet
Here is Colin’s picture of one of the battlemounts at Fort Ebey (compare to the actual image here)

There are some more images of the trip at our Photobucket site.

Fort Ebey 4.27.07

Tulips

We did a speed run to Mount Vernon. Here is a snap of one of the fields:

Tulips 4.13.07

Easter 2007

Easter 4.8.07

FOTI & Hiking

I recently read, “The Flight of the Intruder” (FOTI) by Stephen Coonts. This was a great read and I look forward to Neflick’ng the movie (though it is currently #117 in our queue). It is always impacting when a book you are reading refers to places or things that you’re familiar with. In this case a paragraph on page 320 was a déjà vu of sorts.

“Back in the States, Jake Grafton had taken great pleasure in flights like this along training routes over stretches of wilderness where the legal altitude was a minimum of 500 feet above the ground. Being young and full of himself, he often flew as low as his nerves allowed just for the sheer hell of it. In those days, when military planes were still permitted to fly under visual flight rules, he would occasionally return to NAS Whidbey Island over the Cascade Range at 200 or 300 feet above the floor of the craggy valleys, shoot through the passes at full throttle and snake his way down between the cliffs, following the streams until they emptied into rivers that flowed into Puget Sound. He had wondered what the hikers had thought of the man-made eagle that split the solitude with a roar, then disappeared as quickly as it had come. Higher authority had finally stopped the illegal flights. Now he was glad he had had the experience.”

This actually happen to Gail and I. We were hiking with a friend in the Cascades Alpine Lakes area in the Summer of 1987 when a Navy jet came screaming up the valley. We had no idea what it was at first with just the roar of the engine. Since we were in an open area we then saw what we thought was a Navy jet from NAS Whidbey Island. Perhaps we were the hikers referred to here?

More Snow!

Yup, we actually had 1 to 2 inches this morning! And April Fool's day was supposed to be yesterday! Most of it melted before noon anyway.

Welcome Spring!

For the first day of spring we actually had snow mixed with rain - which melted promptly.

A day in Port Townsend

Recently we spent the day in Port Townsend - primarily for a NW History class that Gail was completing.

We had lunch at the Salal Cafe and visited the Jefferson County Historical Society Museum – except for Rilla (3) and Cian (2) who had had enough ‘history’ for one day and ended up watching a DVD in the van with Dad. We also drove through Fort Warden.

Part of the adventure was riding the Port Townsend/Keystone Ferry Klickitat. Interestingly this past week a crack was discovered on the Klickitat and the ferry had to go in for repairs. See the story here and here.

Of course the highlight was re-visiting Elevated Ice Cream before we left...

Port Townsend 2.24.07

Saint Patrick's Day!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Tractor Pulling

I had a big list yesterday. Haul wood down from the red barn, clean out the chicken coop, prune fruit trees, move sawdust from driveway, etc.... However, plans ground to a halt when I circled the red barn with a bucket-full of firewood and sank axle deep in mud. It wasn't that deep to begin with, but with a good effort, our faithful Kubota tractor was fully entrenched. About an hour later, after digging mud away from the tires, sprinkling offerings of gravel into the mud, and finally laying strips of cedar bark into the ruts (these were just laying where we had split wood - I didn't tear the bark from trees), that we emerged triumphant. Caleb became so concerned, that he called Jack on the phone for advice and then brought the phone to me. No secrets among family members. In the end, it was Rilla who came up to ride the tractor out with me, yelling excitedly, "We did it! Good job, Mommy!"

The Tractor c. 2000

68 Degrees!

Yesterday set a record high temp of 68 degrees – and yet just last week we had eight inches of snow! Here is a picture of a few of the kids at Lake Sammamish State Park enjoying the sunshine yesterday – from Jack’s cell phone camera.

Emma, Rilla, Caleb 3.6.07

Snow Again!

Well, even though a previous blog stated something about the last of the snow for the year, the last day of February brought more of the white stuff. Rilla (3) who has been dropping her s'es calls it "no." Jack made it home from work after an extended commute while Gail and the kids zipped back from the gym; chaining up on 88th to make it up the last mile or so. March 1st awoke to clear skies and over eight inches of the white stuff. Here are some images (or ‘snaps’ as Jack’s colleagues in India say) including a video of Cian.

Snow 3.1.07

Twenty-one years!

Today is our 21st engagement anniversary! Who would have thought that now: with five kids; two zebra finches; a dozen chickens; no four legged pets; two Master's degrees; up-to-date teaching certificates; after pounds of consumed chocolate (including white); doing Jr. High youth ministry, College & Career, AWANA; one diesel truck; one diesel tractor; and one big diesel engine in the boat; hours of crafts; hours of knitting; technology starting out with an Apple IIc; then a Macintosh SE; to now where we don't have any Mac's (unless you count the Shuffle, Nano, and iPod) and the PC's almost out number the humans; considering that we have never bought a TV (the 13" color TV that was given to us years ago still works though we did recently upgrade to a 32" flat screen - but that still doesn't count since we don't have cable and probably wouldn't sign-up anyway); one player piano; one Yamaha keyboard; zillions of books; yearly watching A&E's Pride and Prejudice...all this and we are still madly in love with each other!

Engagement Photo c.1986

Shuffle shuffle

It’s understandable that our iRiver U10 failed after it fell into the toilet – we didn’t even ask Rilla (3) about the details on that one. Colin (6) perhaps was the most upset since he was the undisputed champion of the pre-loaded Flash games. But when the Apple iPod Shuffle (albeit 1st generation) started to fail intermittently and then came up with an unknown 1418 error when connected to iTunes and then totally conked out – we felt cheated.

You see, that shuffle was better than a stick of gum (…okay, admittedly it does look like a pack of gum) especially at events like gymnastics meets and trampoline contests where the kids that weren’t competing needed some entertaining. I confess to even plugging in Rilla, the iRiver deviant, to the shuffle at a church event to quiet her down(!). Anyway, the kids really appreciated the entertainment value – even, not unlike gum, it was good ear candy. So much so that Emma (8) chose an iPod Nano over MyTwinn Doll accessories for a birthday gift (to go with her iDog – another birthday gift). Now even Caleb (10) who rarely asks for anything is looking into an iPod for his birthday. Though instead of wanting an iDog to go with it he is asking for an iFish instead.

So anyway in the meantime we were able to figure out how to resurrect the Shuffle…after hours of internet searches and trying this and that we let the battery die, preformed the “bang-it-on-the-desk” operation and plugged it in. iTunes was able to recognize it and started syncing it up with no unknown errors. Interestingly, my iMac at work was little help for its Shuffle cousin where as the IBM laptop with XP ended up being the Shuffle’s Good Samaritan. At least it looks like we won’t need to resort to gum at all those up-coming meets!

Snow!

Yup, we had some snow this year. It wasn't measured in feet, but it was enough to slow things down a little. Here's an image of our back yard...and the last of the snow...we think.

Snow 1.16.07