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.

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.

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.

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

Save the date. =)

Caleb: My new email/IM account, that I have now, has what I hope will be its permanent picture, (This one actually is centred around me.) And if I type this out, when somebody looks at my picture and ask's "When was that?" I'll say, "its on the blog!"

now

then

Christmas is coming!

It's already October and just two months away is Christmas! And so(I hope that this doesn't ruin my reputation of being patient) I've decided to bring out my Christmas list early, so here it is. (Not in order of how much I want it.) By Caleb B.

1. "The art of drawing people", I do not remember the Author but you can give me any book under this title.
2. Nintendo's "Metroid prime trilogy" for the Wii. See trailer.
   
3. Anything you think I'll like!
4. Orca trinkets.
   
   
   

Skagit Valley Meet II

Today was the second meet at Skagit Valley and last meet of the regular season - now on to State. Here is video of Caleb on the Trampoline:

Caleb's Fish Tank

I've had a fish tank for several months now , and just last month (last December) I finally filled it up, filtered and heated the water, bought six fish (3 neon tetra's and 3 zebra fishes). But then I got an algae bloom (from too much light) we know because mom found Aquarium pros. and now we know how to fix it.
Current Status of Tank:

Snow Blog

Here are some snow blog reports from the Brenchley kids. See more images at our Photobucket snow site.

"It snowed very hard and high last week.and we built a giant snowman. We also sledded on our hill. that is a road. and it was fun!!!!!" - Colin (8)
"We went sleding down the road while there was lots of snow.We had so much fun! And when we got home we had popcorn,hot cocoa and watched a movie." - Emma (10) "My snow blog - We got snow, on the week of Christmas! On the first day it was 6 inches at 19.8º The truck door's seals were frozen and when Dad finally hairdriered the driver door open the engine wouldn't start. And we had to hairdrier the hood and charge it too. Then a blizzard hit and some places it was 4 inches and some was 2 feet! Papa Ray landed safely, and Alaskans may laugh but this is our storm of the century!" - Caleb (12)

GC Camp 2008

This year Caleb and his cousin Kara went to the Church's GC camp at Warm Beach. Here is a (very brief) clip of Caleb playing dodge ball.


GC Camp 2008 (Junior High) - Day Two Recap from Generation Church on Vimeo.

Soccer Camp

Caleb, Emma, and Colin, attended the NW Soccer Academy camp this week. Here is Emma's artwork titled, "Go Team!"

"Go Team" by Emma (9)

National Geographic Live with Robert Ballard

Caleb and Jack went to see Dr. Robert Ballard (most famous as the discoverer of the R.M.S. Titanic) at a National Geographic Live presentation at the Seattle Symphony’s Benaroya Hall. For the boys, dinner in Seattle consisted of Subway sandwiches (how fitting!). Here is Caleb’s report, which he typed himself:

My report on Robert Ballard's speech. Robert Ballard's inspiration to be an ocean explorer is that when he was young he wanted to be 'Captain Nemo'. His parents didn't ignore this, instead they inspired him. When a teenager in need of a job he joined the Navy, and got his first underwater mission. To find the heat sorse of a underwater sea valt. His second mission was to find some french batleships with the undercover of trying to find the TITANIC ,what a suprise when he found it!

-Caleb (11)

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

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

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

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

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