4th of July Camping

On the 4th of July we set out for an extreme camping adventure. "Why was it so extreme?" you might ask. Well, when you're taking a two-year-old and a three-month-old out into the middle of the woods it's going to get extreme. Extremely little sleep to be exact.
Actually, the girls slept just about as well in the woods as at home, meaning Ginny slept well and Violet didn't sleep. We were joined by the Grismore clan in its entirety. Activities included making smores, foraging for fire wood (we burned some seriously wet and mossy stuff), playing by the stream, hiking in the high mountains, and general laziness and tom-foolery. You can check it all out in the montage.
For those of you keeping score at home, this was North Fork campground 20 mintues outside of Randle, WA and we were there three days and two nights.
p.s. theres a funny video at the end of the montage, if you can make it there.

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Giraffia turns 3!

On Monday Virginia came up to me, tilted her head eyes wide, and said "Tomorrow's Giraffia's birthday mama!" She finished the sentance while nodding with an open mouth smile on her face. Its very convincing everytime she delivers it like that because you know she believes it.
Well who knows Giraffia better than Virginia? No one. So she and I got to work the morning of the first to throw a party for the little "giaff" (another nickname). We got busy making party hats out of paper and yarn. I printed out giraffes with letters on the to color for a banner and taped them to some yarn. And we even blew up some leftover balloons. Lastly a cake was to be made. Ginny asked Giraffia what she wanted and she said "a pink frog cake." I said that I could do a pink cake but not a pink frog. So a light pink cake from the box was prepared in no time. I am glad to say we didnt watch any TV that day and Ginny seemed really engaged in the work. And her face when we sang, priceless. Maybe will do it again next year.


The whole party: Virginia, Giraffia, Beary, Little Giraffee (aka yudder giraffee), Big frog, Froglet (Violets version of Giraffia), Grama Frog, Baby Frog and Baby Seal and Malcom (the final two are Ashley's animals, Ginny made sure to invite them having played with them at Ashley's. Ashley and Brandon joined in the fun, sorry no imbarassing photos)

Below is the banner. It was a lot of fun.

Checkin' the Mail

Is it ironic, sarcastic, coincidental, facetious, or just plain common sense? Whatever it is, the highest point on Mailbox Peak is in fact a mailbox. I went up to check it out with a friend from work on Saturday. What type of mail is in the mailbox? Well, you'll have to climb the 2.5 mile "trail" with 4,000ft of elevation gain to find out.

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

Hi Mom, We hope your Birthday is a great today! Here is some videos to enjoy. We love you!~Love Bri, Ben, Ginny and Vi

P.S. Here are some pictures of my sister Lily after her ballet. We went down to see it last week. She did a wonderful job! We gave her pink roses.

The Ash, the Ice, the Glory

So I decided to climb Mount Saint Helens. I duped my brother-in-law into going with me by claiming that "it's just like Mount Si, just a little higher". When I said it, it wasn't really a lie. That's because I didn't know at the time just how epic this years snow-pack was. So with the normal trailhead snowed in we found ourselves in late June staring in the face of a twelve-mile round trip on solid snow with 5,665 quad-demolishing feet of elevation gain.

I decided to introduce Grant to the alpine start. That's when you get up early in the morning and climb the mountain before the snow gets too slushy. So we camped at the trailhead and got up at 4am to climb. Here's what we saw:

That's Mount Adams. The weather was beautiful. We climbed up the south side to the crater rim. The snow was deep but it was not too hard, not too soft. We had great views the whole way up. Here what that looked like:

Grant seriously kicked my butt, especially near the top when I was running out of energy. There was just one steep part and it wasn't too bad. When we reached the top it was REALLY windy. Grant's hat blew out of his pocket and into the crater. We could see Mount Rainier, Adams, Hood, Jeffereson, and even a bit of the Three Sisters in central Oregon. Here's a little video for you:

That's when the fun began. The beauty of climbing on open snow is you can slide down on your butt. It was like a 4,000ft tall sledding hill. Thus it took us six hours up and two hours down. We were back at the car by noon. Even though it wasn't my original intention, climbing this on snow was a lot of fun.

Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day!


Fathers Day 2008 with Violet

Fathers Day 2006 with Ginny


The girls and I wanted to say how much we love and appreciate Ben. Ben has been on morning patrol since Ginny was born. He wakes up with Ginny and feeds her breakfast. All this just so I can snooze a little longer. This is coming from a guy who loves his sleep but also is a morning person. Ben also spends every night reading to Ginny and brushing her teeth. Since Violet has come all this has been extra helpful. He also changes all the late night/early morning diapers. These are usually the blow out ones too. So besides being the bread winner and my personal chef (a marvelous one too!) he is an exceptional father! We love you Ben.
~Love Bri, Ginny and Vi

Here is a photo of Ben opening his fathers day gift

We got him two movies from yesteryear
Ducktales Treasure of the Lost Lamp (childhood fave)
and The Rocketeer. Ben you are our hero.

Chocoholic Party

It was an evening of elegant chocolate desserts, I can say so because I made all of them. Chocolate is my forte! To your left is what Marcel Desaulniers calls Midnight Truffle Cake. This is a black cocoa sponge cake, with chocolate sour cream icing and truffles of the night up top, garnished with ganache. Other creations inspired by Marcel were Essential Chocolate Mousses served in Chocolate bowls and Deep Dark Chocolate Fudge Cookies. The mousses were both white and dark chocolate and the Cookies were dipped in chocolate and made into ice cream sandwiches. The final Creation was inspired by my Grandmother, Angel Mocha Pie. This dessert was invented when my Grandmother realized she didn't have all she needed for a lemon meringue pie so the meringue became the crust and the filling deep dark chocolate. The night included great conversation and games played with six lovely ladies, Shellie, Annie, Arrow, Robin, Allison and Erin. I had such a great time serving them these are the only pictures I have, sorry to disappoint. I look forward to next year!
















Last years dessert photo below (nice blond hair)



These are the same cookies, other desserts here are triple layer mousse, a chocolate torte, and a Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory. The guest that time were the Romishs, Alderks, Taffs, and Scotts. Sorry didn't take a photo that time. I guess I get so caught up in serving.