Sunday, March 29, 2009

Take Your Wife

So I had the snowshoes for another week. Why not ditch the kids in Issaquah and take a stroll up Rattlesnake Mountain? I admit, the REAL Rattlesnake Mountain is northwest of the Tri-Cities is southeastern Washington. This imposter is just south of North Bend.

This is looking across at Mount Si on the Way down. Note the Snowshoes on my back. We had to pack them up the first 1500 feet before we really needed them. But once we were up there it was perfect snowshoeing; sun, fresh powder, and even a view or two. This is what that looked like:

Compared to last week's debacle on Amabilis this was heavenly. The moral of the story: Take your wife.(Note: the good snowshoeing wasn't until above the popular Rattlesnake Ledge, which is what you see from the parking lot.)

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Violet 1st birthday party (March 24th)

Violet turned one yesterday! She is growing up so fast. Ginny gave Violet a boat with fish, a captain and all sorts of fun things. She really likes it.

Her party was fish themed. We brought violet flowers for Aunt Mel for letting us have the party at her place. We blew up purple balloons. The cupcake I made look like small fish bowls, The party favors were plastic fish on pixie-stix in the fish bowl vase (thanks Shawna!). Violets littler friends got fish bath squeezy toys.


Here is a close up of the cupcakes

Maddie helped me put up a sign. Nice work Maddie.

Pop came and brought some books which Ginny and him enjoyed before the festivities. We were glad to have him. Thanks for traveling to see us, we hope your cold gets better soon.


And then the big moment! Happy birthday my angel.



I sewed her that little crown. Turned out better than I thought it would.




Violet's buddy Emerald came. Violet is truly jealous of Emerald's beautiful hair. But isn't that what girlfriends are all about? Someone to look up to.



Emerald's mom is my buddy Tawona, here we all are.


Just before presents I had to lure the birthday girl out of the little garden.



She really had a great birthday. Here she is very happy to get a cute bunny card from Grammy and Grandpa (Ben's Parents).

She was surprised to find money inside. (her expressions really crack me up)



Her are the cute outfits she scored from her aunts and uncles.



This is her today modeling one. We love you Violet we are so happy to have you in our family. You are so grown up!



Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Amapukis Mountain

Brandon and I went cross-country skiing this morning. He puked in the first quarter-mile. That's a good summary of how things went. There was lots of powder. That's a good thing for downhill skiing, but when you're working against gravity not so much. I didn't see my skis the whole time. By the time we were about two-thirds up Amabilis Mountain the powder was waste deep, even in snowshoes. The deep powder prevented a nice downhill run back to the car. At least the early turn around allowed us to get home just a little after lunch.
Did I mention the near white-out conditions?

Friday, March 6, 2009

Ginny the artist


My little girl is growning up. This is what she drew yesterday with a stampin up marker. And those markers are pretty hard to handle for small unsteady hands. Its a self portrait of herself. I think its pretty good for an almost three year old. But of course I am biased. Later she decided it wasnt her because she would be drawn in pink not purple.