New Year's Eve

Usually for New Year's Eve we go to Gail's brother and sister-in-law's house up the street to bring in the new year. What do we do to stay up that late?
Colin and friend Pedro played Kinect soccer:

Rilla and Cian played with cousin Sterling on the GameCube in the living room:

Caleb and Emma did computer-things with Quinn and Kyna in the computer room:

And a few of the adults worked on a 1k piece jigsaw puzzle:

btw: the jigsaw puzzle wasn't finished before the new year. Anyway, here's to an awesome 2011!

Hike around Lake Tye

Today we dodged the rain-squalls and braved a wind-chill to do a quick hike around Lake Tye in Monroe, WA. It might have been too cool for Ray(out visiting from Pensacola, FL) but all persevered...only a few complaints were heard from younger members of the group. Here is a shot that Colin took on his Sony Cyber-Shot.

Hike at Lake Tye 12.28.10

2010 Christmas Newsletter

Here is this year's post-card sized Christmas newsletter which we inserted into the Yuen Lui photo-cards. We had these printed at Cascadia Copy and Print in Snohomish. They did a great job - just taking the PDF that was created out of InDesign (no problem with the transparent background or drop shadows).

Christmas newsletter 2010

Christmas Tree 2010

Here is the Brenchley Christmas Tree 2010. We only had one ornament break this year!

Cian at the gym

Here is a short video of Cian at the Gym...

Recent Whale News

Here is some recent Puget Sound whale news:
http://www.theolympian.com/2010/12/06/1464296/biologists-seek-to-tag-orcas.html
Researchers think injured whale seen in Totten Inlet near Olympia will die - Environment - The Olympian - Olympia, Washington
Interestingly Caleb and Jack have personally meet both Brad Hanson of NOAA and John Calambokidis of Cascadia Research featured in these articles at Whale Trail events over this past year.

Emma's 12th Birthday!!!

The day before my birthday my dad and I picked up my friend Cheyenne and went to Starbucks Coffee and got drinks. Chey slept over that night and went to church with us on my birthday. After shopping and arriving home again, Chey and I went dunking for marshmallows: a big bowl of whipped cream with a jumbo marshmallow hidden inside and chocolate sause drizzled on top.
See an image Dad took on his phone here.

Later that evening we all watched "The Spy Next Door", a movie from Netflix with Jackie Chan in it. Mom and I took Chey home at around 8:30 and came back and went to bed.

-Emma

Rilla's Thanksgiving Art

Here is Rilla's Thanksgiving art. It has a turkey, the moon, and the sun! What more could you want for Thanksgiving! She says that it is, "a beautiful turkey" - just like the one our neighbors gave us this year which they raised.

Rilla (7)

Thanksgiving Playlist 2010

Here is a playlist set up on iPod #1 (a 60g fourth generation classic) for our Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow. After all Martha Stewart has a Thanksgiving playlist too! Click on the list below to see the version uploaded to Scribd.

Ostling Birthday Party for October, November, & December Birthdays

I don't turn 12 until December 5th but my mom's side of the family combined 3 months of birthdays together, October, November, & December, this year so I got to have an early birthday party. We held it up at our neighboring cousins, the Ostlings, house. Their dad, my uncle Ridge, works at Microsoft so they had the new Xbox Kinect set up to their flatscreen tv, which in about the size of a wall, and played it a lot of the time we were there. I got some very cool presents this year including an added up amount of $40.00, a 6-pack of Altoids, an electronic dog, a messenger bag, a Coldstone gift card, and a 5 pound bag of mini marshmallows. For desert mom & I shared a big chocolate/peanut butter cake, which was supposed to be doubled the size we made it, but it was already big enough. Much later on in the party we went a show by Tim Noah down in downtown Snohonish with some of the Ostlings and our grandma. We got home late and went straight to bed, having church in the morning we needed to get up early.

-Emma

apple picking

We all piled in to the car on October 30, 11:30 A.M and drove to Rockport. It's a little past Mount Vernon. Once we got there, the owner gave us all hot homemade apple cider, which was delicious. They also had chickens, like us! Once she told us directions and told us to eat as many as we want we set off. I found a lot of trees that had pretty ripe apples.I got a picture of them too. (picture shown obove). -Colin (10)

Brad Hanson on the Whale Trail

On November 10th, Wednesday, Dad and I took his Corolla down to the Duwamish Longhouse in west Seattle for another one of the Whale Trail's presentations, this one on "Welcome the Orcas" . The last time we went to a Whale Trail convention, we managed to take a wrong turn on the intersection on the way (an easy thing to do on that particular intersection). But this time we came prepared, with our keen eyes and Dad's Droid Motorola with built-in G.P.S., and made the turn with no mishaps this time. On arrival we went to right to work, setting up the sound system, turning on the microphones, and connecting the computer to the projector, and making very sure to deactivate the screen saver (unlike last time). The speaker was Brad Hanson who's a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and researches orcas by collecting samples of their scat, mucus, and regurgitation for analysis. His presentation was on the new findings about the resident orca's diet, complete with a power-point slide show. Brad also had placed a critter-cam on one orca in hopes that he would be able to observe its food choices and displayed it for us to see.Unfortunately the orca didn't actually go foraging, instead it went to the kelp beds and socialized with its pod.

Fall Fun DANCE Party

The Fall Fun Party at our church was different from last year. Instead of going around playing games to get candy they handed out goodie bags with silly bands and candy in them and then we all headed into the main sanctuary to first do Game Zone ( in witch at one point I got to be on the big screen walking on my hands ) and then they had a concert, Kickn' It Old School, with the Go Fish Guys, witch was why they called it the Fall Fun DANCE Party this year. Rilla went as a princess ( wearing a blue dress with yellow tights and MAKE-UP!!), Cian was a gymnast ( wearing his gym uniform) and I went as a One-Person-Piggy-Back-Ride ( shown below).

-Emma

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today, was Mom's much anticipated birthday, and children of all ages were bustling about blithely, with the pleasant thoughts of their self-bought or self made gifts, which one and all were thoroughly appetent to bestow upon our dear mother. All that is to say, except one alpine, eldest child, who had no gift to give yet.

Our disconcerted Caleb, at the moment, could see no way to purchase a gift and to still conserve its stature as a surprise, or how to make one which could still be venerated through the years.

Caleb was still pondering these things in his consciousness when Mom and the other siblings left for swimming. Unanticipatedly, vaguely around twenty minuets later, the doorbell rang. When answered the doorway greeted him with the sight of a FedEx pulling away from the front driveway. And a very big package sitting on the porch.

After bringing this bulky box into the living room, I scratched my head over who would be sending my Mom a Hoover SteamVac MaxExtract. While I was puzzling over this, a more significant notion came to mind. To wrap it. With time and rapping paper running short I barely managed to finish the job before the van pulled in.

Boy were they surprised to find a three foot high birthday present sitting by the front door! And special thanks goes to Papa Ray for sending that gift at such a convenient time.

Fall Sail

The fog lifted just after noon and the day turned into a bright blue-sky gift. So we called Jack's cousin Rich and all went down to the boat for a quick sail in the bay. There was a nice breeze and not too much chop. With the Staysail, Main, & Mizzen all up we even were pushing four knots (which is remarkable for our boat)! Straight out and back in for a two hour tour. Here is a shot that Colin took from the deck looking up at the Main (notice the top of the Staysail in the shot too).

Freewind's Main (10/16/10) by Colin

The Whale Trail update

The Whale Trail team has been busy over the past month! Here are just a few of the accomplishments:

1. Four Whale Trail signs installed along Highway 112 on the Olympic Peninsula. See the picture below from Freshwater Bay in Clallam County.
2. Today the newest sign was dedicated at the Salt Creek Recreation Area just outside of Port Angeles, WA.
3. The website has been updated. Check it out at: www.thewhaletrail.org!

All of this is pretty amazing - this concept was a dream that a friend and co-worker (now former co-worker) Donna Sandstrom had for years. When she 'retired' and then asked me to be a part of the Board of Directors a year and half ago I was sold on the idea but dubious that things would be able to execute so quickly. This is a real testament to Donna's perseverance, on the job project management training at Adobe, and a deep passion for a cause she believes in. Congratulations Donna!

Whale Trail signage
Freshwater Bay, Clallam County, WA

2010 Boat Trip Journal Entries

Here are some journal entries from the kids during our 2010 boat trip:

Caleb (14)

8/15/10

This morning we started off normally, with eating breakfast, Dad starting the engine, and me and mom raising the anchor (where I got to remove a crab clinging to a strip of seaweed stuck on the chain), and waking everybody up. After we left Nanaimo I drove the boat for about an hour,then Emma got to drive. Afterwords we did some filming with the digital camera,in Emma and Colin (act out) arguing about cushions, bed and such. Now that we have crossed the Canadian border, all signs are written in English and the in French, and the same goes for the weather radio.We have just anchored in quiet bay of Grace harbor. The stream on the map in the head of the bay had dried up, apparently it's been a dry month here. This was disappointing as we were planing on playing in the freshwater. Luckily there were other things there instead. Jellyfish from 1-5 inches wide were floating around, one was close to shore, so I got to test the "Tops Won't Sting You" theory. But the best part was the snakes. The snakes were about a foot and a half long, had two yellow stripes down it's back, which was colored black. They would slither around the rocks and then slide into the water, skim around the surface then dive down until we couldn't see them anymore. Most surprising of all was when we figured out that they were ordinary Gardener Snakes!!(of course Rilla and Cian still freaked out when one came towards them.)

Emma (12)
Day 13 Sunday the 22 Nanaimo Harbor 8:45 p.m.
Since today was Cian's birthday he opened some presents before we started the day. After taking a walk to the park we went to two bookstores and a bakery. At the bakery I got a cinnamon bun that was very good. After leaving the bakery we hiked to the Nanaimo Museum and had a Blast! There was a cave exhibit with "rock" walls and a mine cart. There was also a Education exibit with a classroom and very old books that were lying around for you to read. After leaving the museum we went to a suviniershop called "Newfoundland to Nanaimo" to buy t-shirts for our christmas photo and gifts for friends. After heading back to the boat we went to the library again for wifi but we was only there for a little while before it closed. For dinner we went out for burgers at a resterant called Mrs. Ritchies diner. After eating we headed back to the park to play. Back at the boat we let Cian open the rest of his presents after having cupcakes and wishing him a Happy Birthday. -Emma

Colin (10)
My favorite things I did were seeing Orcas and swimming in the bays and lakes. Next, was seeing a false killer whale, and staying in Nanaimo, One time, we ate at a buffet. I also liked playing at a park in Nanaimo, and my grandpa gave me a camera, so I go a lot of pictures too. I had fun sailing on the Freewinds.

(This is a picture of the false killer whale)

Rilla (7)
Here is a picture that Rilla drew of the killer whales:

Boat Trip 2010

Freewinds 8.10.10

This year the goal for our annual boat trip was to explore Desolation Sound which is about a 150 kilometers north of Vancouver. Since our boat is slow it took us five days just to get there - we were out for eighteen days total! Here is the link to last year's account which was only ten days.

Here was our 2010 itinerary starting from Everett, WA:
8/10/10 Port Townsend, WA
8/11/10 Bedwell Harbor, BC
8/12/10 Nanaimo, BC
8/14/10 Pender Harbour, BC
8/15/10 Grace Harbour, Desolation Sound, BC
8/16/10 Squirrel Cove, Desolation Sound, BC
8/17/10 Tenedos Bay, Desolation Sound, BC
8/18/10 Gorge Harbour, Desolation Sound, BC
8/19/10 Secret Cove, BC
8/20/10 Nanaimo, BC
8/23/10 Montague Harbour, Galiano Island, BC
8/24/10 American Camp, San Juan Island, WA
8/25/10 Penn Cove, Whidbey Island, WA
8/27/10 Everett, WA

Here are the stopping points on GoogleMaps.

Click here for some highlights from the kid's journals.

Speed run to Whidbey Island

We made a speed run up to Whidbey Island on Saturday. Gail, Grandma Bev, and all but Cian and Jack, went to a 50th wedding anniversary for Denny and Marci Zylstra in Oak Harbor as well. While the others visited with relatives, Cian and Jack were busy making sea otter and bald eagle sightings. Here is an image of Rilla and Cian on the beach.

Eleven Stiches!

Two weeks ago and six days I was running and playing tag with my older brother Caleb. Suddenly, I felt a horrible pain so I looked down at my foot and saw a BIG cut. Caleb went to find Dad, and then Mom.They brought me inside and told me the painful truth. I had to get stitches. So they carried me to the car. We got to the walk-in-clinic 5 minutes before they closed. They gave me 11 stitches. Today, they pulled out 2 stitches.
-Colin

G2 Camp 2010

Every year our church hold camps for City Kids (1st-4th grade), G2 (5th and 6th) and GC (Junior High -College). I am going into 6th grade so I went to G2 camp for the second year. Colin's going into 5th so he went to G2 camp this year. Unfortunately Colin cut his foot and had to have stitches two days before camp. He still went but he couldn't get wet and had cruches. My team was the Orange team and after they had rounded up the final scores it turned out our team had won! I'll bet G2 camp is one of the only camps were you get to sleep in college dorms, have Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast, shoot at human paintball targets, and have an amazing encounter with God! - Emma

John Calambokidis on the Whale Trail

On June 17, vaguely around 6PM, Dad and I drove down into Seattle, to the Duwamish Longhouse. The Longhouse is the first built in Seattle since the last one burnt down, and is now also a cultural center. One of Dad's former co-workers was doing a presentation for the Whale Trail with John Calambokidis (who conducted the necropsy on the whale beached on Arroyo), and had asked dad to help her with the technical part of it. When we got there Dad and I started with setting up the projector, checking the sound equipment, microphone, and setting up the power cords.After we finished,and all the people came, we took some seats so we could sit near the sound equipment while we watched the presentation. Everything ran smoothly, except once when the computer displaying the logo started to go into screen saver mode (so we had to move the mouse occasionally).
-Caleb

Toy Story 3

For Rilla's 7th birthday we suprised her by going to see Toy Story 3 in theater. Even though she didn't know where we were going she brought along her Toy Story 3 barbie doll. The movie was realy great ( especialy because we got to see it in 3-D) and mom even cried. We can't get Dad to go see it in the theater but he did agree to by it as soon as it comes out on DVD (he normaly waits till the price comes down to $12). All-in-all geting to see Toy Story 3 in 3-D was amazing and I can't wait till it comes out on DVD.

-Emma

Red Robin

For Rilla's 7th Birthday we went to Red Robin. I orderd mac -n- cheese because it was all you can eat and strawberry lemonade because it was ( you guessed it ) all you can eat. After we were done eating our dinner some of the waiters sang a birthday song to Rilla and gave her a ice cream sunday. As soon as the waiters left Colin stood up and and announced " I'm going to sit next to Rilla". -Emma

Officially 11 and a Half!

On the 5th this month I officially turned 11 and a Half! That means only 6 more months till I'm 12! I have been keeping track of things I see and want since January and have a pretty good list already. The two main things I want are a new bike with gears and a 4-person innertube for our dinghy. I still am amazed that next year I'll be 13; the same year dad turns 50 (I can't believe I just revealed his coming age). Anyway, I'm happy Being 11 (for now). -Emma

Caleb's First Place Art

At the Valley Art Show in Duvall this year Caleb took first place for his oil painting. Emma had a first place entry a couple of years ago. Here is Caleb's on the wall at a local restaurant.

"Whidbey Hill" by Caleb (14)

Emma's Keyboard Creation

Here is a video of a song that Emma composed on our Yamaha keyboard. Caleb did the camera work and Dad did the video editing. Enjoy!

Colin's Art

Colin created some artwork in Paint. Looks strangely like Mario, doesn't it?

My 14th Birthday!

When I turned 14 I joked that I didn't feel any different from when I was thirteen and 364 days old, but I suppose I have a new-found authority. This is mostly because at the age of 14 I'm allowed to legally drive our dinghy ( with a 65 M.P.H. motor ), even if I still have to ask Mom and Dad to drive.

On my actual birthday I didn't actually have a party ( don't worry I had one later ), instead I got some pre-party gifts.Some of these: A wii game "Endless Ocean", a dolphin PartyLite candle holder, The art of drawing people kit, and The Up soundtrack piano book (Rilla and Cian accidentally gave it to me to early.)

For the first party we celebrated with Dad's side of the family, hosted at our house. We all had a great time ,and I got more gifts and some gift cards too.
For the second party with moms side I got another wide variety of gifts including, (Colin and Cian's favorite), two Super Soaker water guns; imagine.

Well, I've had a great year, and here's hoping for another.
-Caleb

InDesign CS5 & Flash

Adobe CS5 was officially announced/launched today! I've been working on InDesign CS5 for the past 18 months or so and wanted to show some cool animations that can be created in InDesign and then exported to Flash.

I took individual images of the family with their iPods (or borrowed iPods...from me). Dropped them into Photoshop and created the iPod ad-like image. Placed both images into InDesign then did a fade-out animation on the top image on mouse-over. This was exported to Flash and embedded here.

And this proves that Flash can work with iPods! (...okay maybe that is stretching things a little). Just mouse over the image below or open in a new window with this link.

Easter 2010

We hosted an Easter Celebration at our house Sunday afternoon, with the usual feast with family/friends. The highlight is typically watching the kids hunt for Easter eggs in the front yard. Here is a picture of Rilla with her Easter egg bag.

Rilla (6) Easter 2010

Honey, what happend to the license plates?

You know that sinking feeling...after a tough day at work, the commuter van drops you off at your car and you realize something's wrong. Sure enough someone had stolen my license plates! Fortunately they couldn't get the front one off - which made it easier to explain to the officer who took the report, that it really had been stolen. Within a couple of days we had new plates and all is well. Bummer of a pre-April Fools joke though!

All Fools Parade

For the first time ever we got to be in the All Fools Parade representing our gym Northshore Gymnastics Center (NGC). All of us kids were in it except for Caleb who was at a church conference. Dad was the camera man (It's all thanks to him we have pictures) and, ever since Rilla and Cian joined the team, Mom has been an assistant coach to help out with the younger kids and got to walk with us in the parade. [Emma 11]

Uncle Jack's 90th Brithday

Uncle Jack's 90 birthday was on March 5 (Which was on a Friday), and we celebrated it on Saturday. I had a great time. We got him a box full of Oh chocolate!, we had homemade cou-cous salad for dinner, and then he opened presents and had chocolate cake. It was great!

-Colin

Jake and Cian

Cians "friend" Jake

Last year, after Cian had gone upstairs, a new "friend" of Cian's came downstairs, saying his name was Jake and that Cian had gone to his house. Since then, Jake has come with us to many places including church, or at least the car ride to church, mom always tells him that Cian should probably go to his class and then Cian will suddenly appear in the car and Jake will have disappeared. I think the "Friend" thing is spreading because Rilla now has a "friend" named Ariel and Cian has many more including a "pirate" named Jack.

-Emma

Jack the Pirate

New Chicks

On February 10, Mom and all the kids decided to get chicks early (as the weather had been rather mellow this year),and went to the Dayville hay and grain store. Usually we get chicks at the Bothell feed store so the variety's a bit different then usual. Dad had wanted to get all Rhode Island Reds,but due to his absence, we only got two Rhodes (out of eight chicks). Only one chick death (Emma's chick) and the rest are all healthy and growing fast. In fact we have had to expand the chick box and soon we'll have to move them out to the garage. This works out in our favor because on March 22 we are getting more chicks and by then the first ones will be out in the garage and the box will be free. Then again we only have one heat lamp....
-Caleb

George Washington's Birthday

Today is George Washington's birthday, 2/22/2010. Whats more interesting is that (unintentionally) we happen to be doing speeches on the first three presidents at this time.

I'm (Caleb) on Thomas Jefferson, Emma is on John Adams, and Colin's on George.

Despite the fact that I am speaking on Jefferson, I will lay down some facts about George Washington. George was an interesting man, aside from normal things such as having several pairs of false teeth (made of materials such as deer antlers,hippo,and elephant teeth), having a dog(named "Sweet Lips"), and owning land at age eighteen(15,000 acres).

Aside from the normal things Washington was a farmer before he became an army general and then first President of the United States of America. Tobacco was a major crop then, but it sucked all the nutrients out of the ground, so George as a farmer liked to experiment with crop rotation and fertilizer, and also was the first to breed a horse and donkey together to make a mule.
Yes George Washington was a interesting man and great president.
-Caleb

Trampoling & Tumbling: Meet #2

The second meet of the season was hosted by our own gym Northshore Gymnastics Center. Here is a video of everyone's Double-mini trampoline run.

Super Sugar Cookies

Making sugar cookies is a blast but making them with friends is even more of a blast--and a blast is what we were having on Monday the 1st when our friends Grayson and Gabreilla Lobbs came over to make sugar cookies to eat and for the Lobbs to take home. Mom had already made the dough, so we could immediately start cutting out cookies as soon as lunch was over. Soon after starting Colin and I got a little tired of the small cookie cutters and made some giant hand-formed hearts. Frosting the cookies was definitely my favorite part of sugar cookie making. With five different colors; blue, red, white and green we could slab and spoon on colorful globs of frosting and dump on mountains of sprinkles. After we were done cutting out and baking the cookies we, of course, ate some and had also eaten most of the blobs of frosting and sprinkles from the table. We can all say that all the cookies we made that day were Super Sugar Cookies. -Emma (11)

Living Life Together!

Had an awesome afternoon with the Brent & Joanne Smith family! Wii time for the kids then Pizza and homemade cookies! Best pre-Superbowl party ever! (…wait the Superbowl isn’t until next week, right?). This was a perfect example of what they say at The City Church, “Living Life Together!”

…And Happy Birthday to Jack’s sister Becca Norwil in Chandler, AZ

Trampoling & Tumbling: Meet #1

The Brenchley kids had their first Trampoline & Tumbling meet of the year! This is Rilla (6) and Cian's (5) first year competing. See all the kids on the big Tramp in this video:

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs last night for movie night (thanks to Netflix). For once the movie was better than the book! We stopped in the middle and had banana splits! But other than that, no other food rained from the sky. That's it for today's food weather report.