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.