Other happenings

Here is a collection of random happenings since September.

 A free water play place (except for parking), very rare around here. Near the Navy yards.

 Juliet's getting brave on the playground.

 We saw a battle of 1812 reenactment. The weather added very nice ambiance.

 Jack's finally pulling his weight around here.

 Went swimming in the local pool after school started so there were no crowds.

 Jack still likes to bury his sister with toys, and she still tolerates it.

At our city's annual labor day festival, Jack was pretty excited to actually ride a ride this year.

 Awesome slide at Penny's house

 Weekly ikea trips, with Penny

 Why should I push a double stroller when they only want one seat?

Every time I go to the grocery store they have to see the lobsters.

 Jack really embraced his service opportunity to help remove weeds from a school.

Summer in Seattleland

We were planning on a trip to Seattle this summer for a while as a little family reunion since both my brothers and family's were able to come at the same time. Chris was able to talk to his contacts at the University of Washington and give his talk there as well which is a good thing. We spent a lot of time with family, picked blackberries (I was so excited to be there for blackberries season, and they were huge and plentiful!), went to the cabin, did some paddle boarding, and went to downtown Seattle.

Some of us had the chance to go hike Mt. St. Helens. It was pretty amazing and quite the experience. I am extremely grateful that our kids were taken care of so Chris and I could  both go. It was about a three hour drive to get there, a four hour hike up, three hours down. It wasn't quite as hard as I was expecting so that was nice, but still exhausting and I was definitely sore. It is an unusual hike because so much of the mountain is rocks. You are literally climbing up boulders most of the time. There generally isn't at trail, just these posts that you aim for however way you want. Near the top, you walking up loose gravel and ash so it is difficult to make any progress as your stepping up and sliding down. It is definitely an accomplishment to make it to the top. The weather was nice and sunny on our way up, and coming down it start to rain, then fog rolls in, it starts to rain more, and then thunder and lightening. Our visibility was so bad you couldn't see the posts and so we weren’t sure if we were even going in the right direction. It was always a relief when we were able to see another pole. We made it back and were soaked through and freezing. It's experiences like those that help you remember them.    

And that was our summer.

 Two four-generation pictures

 Buckets and buckets of blackberries

 At the gum wall. To quote Celia- "The gum wall is really gross."

 We made it to the top!

Summer in Chicagoland

This summer we ended up spending time with both sides of the family. Chris had an opportunity to give a talk/seminar about some of his research at Fermi lab near Chicago, and so we were able to make a vacation out of it. The talk was a pretty big deal so Chris didn't actually get to do anything fun and worked the almost the whole time, but the kids, grandparents, and I got to do some fun things. The weather was amazing, nice and mild and not humid. We went on a lot of walks, played in the little pool, and explored the river. We went to an amazing arboretum with so many great kid activities, saw other gardens, and took a trip to the local “beach”.

This year was a big year in Chris's family with so many milestone birthdays: Chris's mom's 60^th, Chris's 30^th, and Chris's brother's 20^th.  And so there was a party. Chris's sister and family were able to come out from California and our stay's only overlapped a day and a half, but it was still nice to see them and meet Avalyn, the first cousin on the Verhaaren side.

At the end of our week we drove the 13 hour drive back to Maryland, only to leave for Seattle four days later.

 I love Jack's face here