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

Easter 2009

We had a great Easter! After Church we joined the Ostlings for dinner and then back down to our house for egg hunt and dessert. Here is a picture of Cian in the Easter egg hunt downpour.

Cian (4) Easter 2009

Goodbeach July 2008

We spent three days and two nights up at Goodbeach; Gail’s family’s beach front house on Whidbey Island (See April 07 for more Goodbeach blogging). Gail’s Grandparents, Allan and Arlie Ostling, built the house in the early 70’s and Gail has fond memories of Summers spent on the island (don’t ask her about berry picking though).

Some of the things we did included, hiking to the point, and two extended hikes:

1. Hiked from Ebey’s Landing up along Perego’s bluff. It was pretty foggy out and we couldn’t see Port Townsend let alone any shipping traffic when we started out. Had a small lunch at a ‘Whale Bone’ looking fallen tree. Gail was able to find where the trail that they used to take across the island from Goodbeach came out – now it is fairly overgrown.

Continuing the hike we dropped down to the beach and came back that way. The sun had come out by then and was actually getting warm! The kids were excellent hikers and the two littles only needed a relatively small amount of carrying.

On the way back we stopped at Prairie Center and then in town at Kapaw’s ice cream for essentials. They do great ice cream and are definitely worth the stop! Interestingly, the building Kapaw’s is in had once been owned by Luther Weedin, Gail’s Great Uncle (Arlie’s Uncle) who was the Island County Sheriff and later U.S. Immigration Commissioner in Seattle in the Twenties. We slurped our ice cream as we walked the wharf to the red barn to look at real whale bones.

2. The second hike was the next day where we stopped off Highway 20 and hiked in Kettles Park across to Fort Ebey State Park. Kettles is named appropriately due to the many glacial indentations in the area (check out the topo). Without a map and numerous enticing trails scattered through the area we took a round about way finally ending up in the park. Jack trek’d back to fetch the van; needing Gail’s guidance over the talk-a-bout to sort out the marked and unmarked trails. Everyone was worn out and the vote was to return to Goodbeach. There folks swam, laid out on the beach, and even had s’mores after dinner!

Overall it was a jam-packed three days! Here are images for Cian, Rilla, Colin, Emma, Caleb, Gail, & Jack. See more at our Photobucket site.

Perego's Bluff 7.1.08

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