Index Bash

I'd been saving up for this one since October; Mount Index the imposing sentinel of the Skykomish Valley. It's an impressive sight from Highway 2. Here's the view from our pre-dawn approach.

In addition to the impressiveness of the objective, this trip require a particularly hardcore route to the summit. It started with a six-mile mountain bike. Here's what that looked like.

After that there was a three-mile stretch on an abandoned logging road. It was more like a jungle bushwhack with plenty of washouts to boot. See for yourself. Yes Brandon and Chris are in this picture. From there it was up onto the alpine slopes where the snow was deep, the skies blue, and the views incredible. The one downer on the trip were the avalanche chutes blocking all routes to the actual summit. But it's hard to complain when we got in 20 miles with 4,500 feet of elevation gain and a whole lot of awesome terrain.

Tulip Time

The news got around. Due to our unusually cold spring the Tulip Festival in the Skagit Valley was prolonged an extra week. Time to grab the kids for an impromptu photo-shoot. We met the Robecks and Maxfields from our ward for optimal good times and to have a few more cameras on hand. It worked. Luckily their cameras were much better than ours. We came back with 300 or so pictures, just of our kids. Here are some highlights.

Here's Ginny and Violet in a pristine floral setting. Note the flowers in Violet's hands were found on the ground, not picked! Here's me carrying Ginny from the pink flowers to the purple flowers. It's a good thing all the kids involved were girls, there weren't many masculine colors around.

Bri took some time to introduce Violet to the power of her namesake color.
The whole family had a great time. This was all of our first times at the Tulip Festival. It did not disappoint!

Gunnar's Birthday (April 24th)

Gunnar came up on the train from Vancouver to stay with us for two nights for his 14th birthday celebration. We met Grant at The Cheesecake Factory and ate a great dinner. We even got the birthday boy a cheesecake.

I bought ice cream cupcakes from Haagen Daz for him. Appantly the one on the Ave is the only one that sells vanilla chocolate chip ice cream, they said they dont even sell it in stores anymore. Lucky Gunnar! They are pretty cute! The cupcake paper is soild chocolate.

Happy Birthday to Gunnar!

Enjoying the cupcake

Ginny enjoying a cupcake

We played lost of settlers of catan inculding seafairers and citys & knights expansions. Thanks Maxfields!

The next day we went bowling and played pool at the hub. Then Gunnar and I saw "17 again" it was pretty cute. Then more Catan was played. Then we had to say goodbye to our Gunnar. Ginny was so sad when we put him on the train. I've never seen her lip stick out so far. Thanks for sharing your birthday weekend with us Gun!

Portraits

My girls are growning up. Here are Vi's one year old and Ginny's three year old photos.

Happy Easter

Okay I've been slacking off. Here are a few shots from easter!
This is Vi very surprised to have found an egg (Saturday Morning)

Happily showing an egg.

Ginny a late waker-uper proudly showing off her egg.

Look mom I found one in the plant (Side note: our plant's name is Collier Stem, After Collier Strom from Project Runway. This is also why he wears the sassy pink bow)

Ginny happily showing off her card from Grammy and Grandpa

Violet looking at hers

Yet another excited or mischeivous look about the money inside. "Mom think of all the easter candy I can get with this!" says Vi

Our Easter sunday photo. I dunno whats up with my hair ignore that.

We hope you all had a great Easter!

Spring has Finally Sprung!

So it sure took awhile but the blossoms on the Quad at UW are finally in bloom. We were lucky to get a sunny day to take some shots. Thanks to the Maxfields for taking the pictures! Enjoy a our favorites below.

Ginny's Birthday (March 31st)

My little girl is three now, and when you ask her she knows it. She hasn't said two since her birthday. So we decided to get her a kitchen. It's really fun and since Violet got some pots and pans it worked out nicely.

Grandma, Lily, and Gunnar came to celebrate with us. This is Ginny in the morning on her birthday. They gave her books, a bear stuffed animal, and a bee finger puppet. Thanks guys!

Here are the cupcakes I made for her party. All I have to say is rolling out spice drops to make the dresses of nine princesses took two hours too long. NEVER AGAIN! The pirate was simple. I'm glad I could make them for Ginny. Plus I had to buy a mini cupcake pan to make them and its a nice addition to my collection of baking tools.

So Ginny and her buddies and cousins gathered at the bell square play place for a pinic lunch and play time. Fun was had by all.

Heres Annie and Vi climbing.

This is Claire sporting the party favors. The boys got pirate hats.

Here's the gang opening presents.

Violet eating a left over cupcake from her birthday.

Ginny enjoying a princess head.

A hug goodbye from her best friend Riley. Thanks to all who came and make the party so much fun for Ginny.

That night we went to Red Robin for dinner. Ginny chose it because of the mac-n-cheese. Here we have Elaine, Grant, Violet, Ben, Brandon, Ashley, Ginny, Me, Gunnar and Lily. Thanks Mom for taking the picture.

Time to blow out the candle! The big bag behind her was from Brandon and Ashley. It contained a pink princess dress, tiara, and earings. Nice work guys. Violet also gave her "The Little Mermaid" DVD. Ginny had not seen it yet.

Tastes great! (ignore my silly face)

Lastly we have Ginny opening her card from Ben's parents.

With the money inside she bought this dress she fell in love with when we were looking for easter dresses. Happy Birthday Ginny. We love you!

This is her in the dress from Brandon and Ashley.