June

Hanging out at June's house. It's always fune to have new toys to check out.

 
 

A Friday trip to a neighborhood park with some friends.

 
 
 

Iowa Floods

Talisha is from Cedar Rapids where they have been having devastating flooding this week. It seems that our friends and family have been spared from the worst of it there, but it can't be an easy thing to deal with with something this large. Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone there.




Railroad tracks near Mema & Papa's house.

Tiny Treks Last Week

Well it was the final week of Tiny Treks for the Spring semester. Unfortunately Tine Treks decided to go to a park that was pretty far away this week, so Braedyn and Daddy went off on their own to stay closer to Daddy's work (which he had to get to for an important meeting later....). We went to Ferrel McWhiter park in Redmond which is a favorite of ours. There is a great little forest there out behind the animal pens, and there is a neat little stream that runs through with a faint path following it. We hiked back along the stream throwing rocks and sticks in and getting quite wet ourselves and ended up having a grand old time without the rest of the Tiny Treks fols anyhow. Braedyn never really got into the crafts and singing we did in Tiny Treks anyhow, and always just wanted to get out and find the dirt and water and rocks! The class took us to a lot of fun new parks that we hadn't explored yet, so it was worth it in that respect, and it gave daddy a good reason to cancel Thursday morning meetings for a few weeks at work.

Summer in Washington State

Michael and a friend from work, Ben Martens, headed down to do a little backcountry skiing this past weekend at Mt. Rainier. The plan was to head up to Camp Muir and ski down. This is about 5000 vertical feet up from Paradise visitors center. We expected to be able to walk in hiking boots for a mile or so before strapping on the skis. To our amazement there was about 4-5 inches of fresh snow in the parking lot when we arrived in the morning and it snowed pretty hard all day long. We talked to a guide and a lot of the summit expiditions were turning back because the conditions were so bad up at Camp Muir. So we decided to just go as far as we safely could and then head back. We spent some time on the way up digging a snow pit so Ben could learn a little about avalanche assesment. We passed and were passed by a few groups that were heading up for summit attempts and others that were just out snowshoeing. After awhile we stopped for some lunch about 1200 vertical feet above the parking lot, the wind was blowing pretty hard so we dug a little shelter to sit and enjoy our food. While we were sitting there one of the big summit teams passed us on their way back down, this was the same group that we had started with earlier that morning. They had made it up about a half mile further and then turned back because the wind was so bad and there were whiteout conditions. We took that as a clue that we should head back as well and so headed down. There was some really nice snow for skiing and so we got a few nice turns in. A news team was at the parking lot filming when we got back and we found the spot on the news website, click here to see it.

Tiny Treks Week 6

We're getting near the end of Tiny Treks for the spring session. It's been a lot of fun and has let us explore a lot of new parks that we hadn't been to yet. This week was at Juel Park in Redmond which was donated to the city by a local farmer. Up until a few years ago it was a working farm surrounded by dense forest with streams and ponds. It was a really pretty park and had the requisite rock throwing that Braedyn looks for in parks. It was pretty much pouring rain the entire time we were out, but the thick canopy of trees kept us relatively dry.

Radishes

This kid loves radishes, he always has. But these ones are extra special. Braedyn helped build the garden in our back yard, planted the radish seeds, anxiously watched them grow for weeks (pulling a lot of them out just to see if anything was down there yet), then picked these radishes, carried them inside, washed them and ate them! Now every day when we've been playing outside, the only way to coaxe him inside without a fit is to let him go pick some radishes and go inside to clean and eat them.

Blueberries

Making sure he doesn't miss a single drop of the remaining juice from the bowl of blueberries...

Back to Lincoln Park

We headed back to Lincoln park last weekend as the sun was poking its head out a little bit, although it was still pretty cold. This place is a rock throwing paradise for the little guy, but there's plenty other things to do including log hopping an picnicing at on of the nice playgrounds.

Bill Gates

Michael works on a project named Oslo at Microsoft. This project recently had a project review with Bill Gates and he was quite excited by it and even gave us some air time at his Keynote speech at a recent conference.

• Audio of Bill Gates Speech
• Video of the Speech
• EWeek Article
• Another Article
• Another Article

[Some links stolen from Ben's Blog]

Cleaning up

He already likes working in the garden, but Braedyn has been helping out around the yard a bit lately as well. Since our pine tree dropped all of its cones this week we put him to work collecting them. He started out getting them all into the container I put out for him, but then soon discovered that they were pretty fun to throw and so he proceeded to empty the container...

Bored Shopping

Braedyn is already starting to learn that when you go to the mall there are fun toys to play on, but when mommy goes into a store you need to find a nice, comfortable chair to sit on and wait.

Chism Park, Bellevue

Not quite as nice of a day, but in Seattle, if it's not raining, then it's a nice day! We took advantage and visited Chism Beach Park in Bellevue on the shore of Lake Washington. This was a nice little park that is much like many of the other small, neighborhood parks that line the lakes around here. There is a nice sandy area on the water with a small playground and some nice benches and grass for the parents to watch the boats pass by. Lots of rocks and sticks are around for throwing off of the dock and there are seats for lifeguards that I assume must be there in the summer time. Both sides of the park are flanked by multi million dollar homes with nice yachts sitting out back to drool over. We had a fun experience finding the parking lot as we came in the back way which takes you down near the beach where there are a couple handicap parking spots, but these are really on the walking trail. Of course they don't block off ther rest of the trail or put any signs up so we just kept driving down this small road which kept getting narrower and finally ended at some stairs leading up to the real parking lot.... If only the Pruis had a little more clearance...

Saturday Park Visit

Summer is slowly poking its head out of the clouds here in the Seattle area. We headed up to Snohomish this past weekend for a continuation of our local area parks exploration project. This time we headed to Bob Heirman Wildlife Park. It was a nice little park with some really pretty natural areas and lots of greenery. The trail crosses a marshy, open field on its way towards the Snohomish river and then wanders along the river for awhile before sort of dying out. Some information we had found talked about a nice rocky beach, but with the amazing amount of snow in the mountains and the unseasonably warm weather, the river is near flood stage so the beaches were not to be found on this day. It ended up being a nice, relaxing, little walk in the sun!

Tiny Treks Week 5

Dad was a little sick so MeMa and Mommy took Braedyn for Tiny Treks on this week. The trip was to Beaver Lake Park in Sammamish. There are a number of interesting totem poles around the park and other fun indian types of things to see. Unfortunately it was a typical, rainy day so it wasn't just perfect for Grandma, but everyone seemed to have fun none the less.

 
 
 
 

Bike Ride

Just a quick bike ride down to the river for some rock throwing.