Thursday, August 21, 2008

The simple things.

Just to share some beauty from our garden...



Persistence...


Kirby has this thing for rice...
If you put it in front of him, even though he may be sitting on your knee at the table and too short to climb up, he will try anyway.

Monday, August 4, 2008

2nd Anniversary

For the weekend of our second anniversary, we escaped to the sleepy town of Sequim to a cute cabin on the beach, looking out at the Dungeness spit. No internet, no phones, perfect weather, and wonderful company...it was perfect.

View from our deck.


Stopped in at the local farmers market and Brian found a feathered friend.
And Sequim is famous for it's lavender, fields and fields of it.



Built in 1892, this beautiful old school house is still used for community functions.
http://www.dungeness.com/schoolhouse/index.htm
Brian trying to cook our dinner over a fire on a very windy day...but it was awesome.
One of the highlights was the Olympic Game Farm...highly recommended to all. You pay your entry fee which is good for the whole day and an extra $2 will get you a loaf of bread to feed the animals.


The yaks were particularly persistent. If you didn't stop your car for them, they'd walk in front of you so you had to stop and then they'd circle around to the window looking for a hand out.
Then they would run after you when you drove off.



He didn't like bread...


And the bears!! They were behind an electric fence but very visible. They loved the bread!
They would do tricks for you to show you just how much they deserved the bread. They would sit up like this guy, wave at you, or wiggle their lips at you.

The elk...well, they were big, quiet, and snuck up on you to blow on your ear and freak the daylights out of you. Brian was standing up through the sunroof and an elk came up behind him...he's never moved so fast to get inside!
Then the buffalo...persistent and smelly. Their heads were too big to fit in the window so they just stuck their nose in as far as they could and snorted at you.






These little guys were cute and a little timid...but not for long.
closer...
closer...


ok...that's close enough...











Sunday, August 3, 2008

Family Times

Towards the end of June and early July, the whole Lee family was in Washington for the first time since our wedding. I took two weeks off from work to be with everybody (and have another knee surgery). The first Sunday after Kevin, Robin and the girls arrived, Grandpa and Grandma took a bunch of the cousins out for lunch. On Monday, we took the ferry to Kingston,

then drove out to Point No Point.




Alayna was not at all impressed with the smell coming from the dead seal we found on the beach.
We then headed out the the Foulweather Bluff Nature Conservancy where we explored the beach,
and tried to squirt eachother with geoducks.

Kevin, Amanda, and Alayna tried to dig one out, but the geoduck won.
The following weekend we headed to Dad and Barbara's in Omak. We went on what started out as a great hike through the Okanogan National Forest. A fire had gone through there two years earlier.



We stopped for lunch at Tiffany Lake, where I was able to impress the small children with my fishing skills.



After lunch, the smarter members of our group went back to the cars, while the rest of us followed Kevin off into the wilderness.



Kevin lead us on a hike using a map he either got off a cereal box or downloaded from Wikipedia. His brother-in-law, Scott had a GPS unit with an altimeter, but that didn't do a whole lot for us when the map didn't show coordinates or land topography. At one point we came across a sign pointing to the trail we were supposed to be on, but Kevin didn't believe it and after much debate he somehow convinced us that his map was more accurate than the trail markers.
We blundered on through a marsh (we were supposed to be skirting a ridge) as the grumbling grew louder and the dissention grew stronger. We finally got so far off course that even Kevin had to admit that we were not where we were supposed to be. His proposition was that we turn around and go back the way we came, which was a couple miles back through the marsh and then uphill to the infamous sign pointing the way to the trail. From there it would still be a considerable hike to finish the originally planned course. At this point, about half the group decided to mutiny and head off for civilization on our own. We had descended quite aways and knew we should be coming up on a road before too long. Along the way we came to a stream that we needed to cross. Merlin sudied it hard
...as did Dad.

Merlin almost gave me a Kodak moment on his first attmept to cross.

After a little teamwork, the stream was behind us.


Before long we made it out to the road, where we had about a four hour wait for the rest of our hiking comrades to make it out of the woods and bring the cars. We came across this log alongside the road that made me do a serious double take.

After we all made it back safe and sound to our worried wives, who had expected us several hours earlier, all hard feelings were put aside and we were able to enjoy spending Sunday together.

Back in Seattle, we took in a beautiful evening at Safeco Field. As usual, the Mariners lost.



On July 4th, we helped Grandpa and Grandma celebrate their 68th anniversary at Anthony's.

We then got to go out on Glenn and Hazel's boat to watch the fireworks on Lake Union.


As we got out on the lake fairly early in the afternoon, we had time to play around on the lake a little. Shorly after this picture was taken, I was humiliated when a kayak passed me.