Month: August 2016

I did a very brave thing this week: I went tent camping with all four children, sans spouse, in Moran State Park on Orcas Island. This was my first trip to the San Juans, and I was just a little bit intimidated by the idea.

Granted, it was in a group that, counting my brood, included 8 women and 20+ children, so we weren’t exactly lacking for company. But it was still on me to do the packing, prep, transport, set-up, etc. by myself.

Okay, the kids helped some. In fact, the three big kids are capable of packing their bags by themselves, and Jeff and William even set up their little tent all by themselves. Bringing the second tent was Brian’s last-minute idea, and it was a brilliant one. It was much easier for everyone to have the extra room.

Having a big bunch of kids to play with was rather brilliant, as well. The group campsite at Moran is wonderfully secluded: a circle of campsites surrounded by forest. The kids all skipped off to play and make forts in the trees while the adults talked or got food made. (My contribution was pulled pork sandwiches for dinner on Monday.) My kids are all old enough to wander freely on their own without me worrying about them too much, and it was great to give them that kind of freedom.

Jeff insisted on bringing a bunch of different card games (like Munchkin), which I was skeptical about, but the three big kids got swept up in long games while the littles built their fort.

The rest of our time was spent hiking up to Twin Lakes . . .

. . . and having a picnic on the shore. We turned back early (for a 4.5 mile hike) while the rest of the group continued up the hill to Mt. Constitution (for a 7.5 mile hike). My kids didn’t want to hike that long, and I was exhausted from not sleeping well the first night. Nap time and card games seemed a lot more fun than hiking up a mountain.

Feeling refreshed, we headed off to the beach on the shores of Cascade Lake later that afternoon.

The water was so cold! I couldn’t wade in more than the top of my legs, but the kids dove right in. Lest you fear that I was bored, I should remind you that I had a book and there was an ice cream stand nearby.

I slept much better the second night, which was great, because packing up camp is not nearly as much fun as setting it up.

We paid a visit to Mount Constitution ourselves before going back home. This was easy for us because you can just drive up there.

Aren’t the views spectacular? I love the breezy, emerald-and-azure world of the San Juans. I’m already looking forward to a return trip.

However pleasant my feelings about the location, it was right about then that my children’s tolerance for exhaustion snapped. Katie threw a full-blown temper tantrum in the gift shop because I wouldn’t buy her a stuffed animal; the other three began to alternate between bickering over trivial things and acting hyper. I was more than happy to cram everyone in the van and race down the mountain to catch the return ferry home.

Think that was enough adventure for one week? OH HO HO HO.

No.

On Thursday we were invited to a pool party hosted by one of Katie’s preschool friends. My kids got to spend a solid two hours in a swimming pool, with the big kids taking turns springing off the diving board. (They are much braver than I was as a kid. I hated diving boards. Eleanor, on the other hand, spent time trying to dive deep enough to touch her feet at the bottom of the 12′ pool. She succeeded; it made her ears hurt.)

(Yeah, sorry, no pictures of this event. I was too busy finishing my read of Eva Ibbotson’s The Morning Gift, which is a perfect summer poolside read.)

That evening I looked at the weather report and realized that this week was our last chance the temperature would be warm enough to visit the Denny Creek Waterslide. As much as I would have liked to spend a day catching up on the now-insane piles of laundry, I packed up our beach towels once again.

The Denny Creek Waterslide is a place where a mountain stream in Snoqualmie Pass pours over a large outcropping of slickrock, creating a natural slip-n-slide. Although the storebought slip-n-slide probably doesn’t cause as many torn swimsuits and scraped ankles.

Eleanor and William loved cruising down the rocks. Katie slipped and fell on her first attempt and then refused to try it again, but spent time hovering near the action, collecting rocks (something she’s always loved to do).

Jeff gave the waterslide one try and then declared the water too cold. (It was incredibly cold, so I don’t blame him, but I’m sad that he was bored while the other kids were playing.)

It takes an hour to drive to the Denny Creek trailhead, and another hour to hike the mile to the waterslide. Add two hours of splash-time to that, and with the return journey, this becomes an all-day affair. It’s easily the most exhausting and time-consuming of our various summer outings, but I still look forward to doing it again next year.

Well, maybe. When William found out that our Saturday would be spent at Golden Gardens Beach for a friend’s birthday party, he declared it to be the last straw. “I don’t want to do anything with water — I am sick of being in the water! No lakes, no pools, no rivers, no ocean. I do not even want to be in SIGHT of water!” It’s okay, kid, it was way too breezy to even think about getting wet.

This was a science-themed birthday for our friend, D. His mom (my friend M.) did an incredible job of coming up with science experiments for the kids to do. Just when I thought we’d finished, she pulled another activity out of the box. I was totally impressed.

And then I collapsed. Never have I needed a nap so badly. The only thing that got me up again was knowing that the Puget Sound Dahlia Association was having their annual show in my neighborhood, and I wanted to go and take a gander with Brian.

 

I am going to nap so hard when school begins this fall.

 

Brian was relegated with the task of accompanying the Boy Scouts on their weeklong camp this week, Jeff included amongst them. Spending a week at home alone with the other three kids seemed a dreary prospect, so I decided that we would have our own trip:

A yurt!

There are several yurts that are kept as part of the state parks system, and I was able to snag one just off the beach at Graylands State Park, which is right on the Pacific Ocean. As I prepared for the trip, I alternated between blissful sighs over sun-kissed sands, and panicked anxiety over kids drowning in the waves.

Turns out, I needn’t have troubled my mind about either option.

Nobody told me that the Washington coastline is often beset by cold, foggy haze. Think San Fransisco. Think 62 degrees. Think “thank goodness I grabbed our rain jackets just before heading out the door.”

This is sad news to someone who just left a hot, sunny Seattle summer. I had the air conditioning blasting in the car up until the last 30 minutes of the drive, when the road suddenly lead us directly under a cloudbank. I frowned with a little squeak as I watched the blue sky shrink and disappear in the rear view mirror. Within a few minutes, goosebumps broke out on my arms and I turned off the air conditioner.

This . . . this wasn’t how it was supposed to be! IT WAS SUNNY IN SEATTLE! IT SHOULD BE SUNNY HERE!

We still had fun. Our yurt was blessedly snug in the evenings, what with its electric heater, electric lights, and — yay! — place to plug in my phone.

The kids loved getting soaked by the waves and playing in the sand. They even put on their swimsuits and dashed hip-deep in the water while I happily buried my nose in my books.

Speaking of the sand, there was lots of it. The beach was a good 1/4 of a mile from the forest edge to the water, flat with low rolling dunes.

It makes for a great kite flying destination, but I will admit that it got tiresome to haul our stuff back and forth.

We even made a half-decent attempt at kite flying. Delta kites are hard to fly. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Beyond that, we had excellent fun playing card games, roasting food over a campfire, and sleeping in our snuggly yurt. I’ll have to look for other yurt options in the future.

Our return home was met with a grand collapse of Mom Energy. Beyond helping my friend Jessica move out of her home (gone to Colorado, sniff), there wasn’t much that I accomplished over the next two days.

But! Saturday morning marked the return of my favorite Seattle street festival: Viking Days at the Nordic Heritage Museum. So many medievally things to do!

Eleanor was entranced by the spindle spinning, so much that the woman demonstrating the craft gave Eleanor a spindle to keep. At the same time, William was so interested in the drum carder that that volunteer gave us a big batting of wool roving to take home. So now Eleanor has all she needs to make a nice big ball of yarn.

When Ye Olde Crafting was finished, we walked to the Nordic Food booths and munched on ableskivers. Mmm, those Danes know their way around a frying pan.

When we returned to our car, we were delighted to discover that the house across the street had a life-sized statue of one of the robots from Castle in the Sky in its front yard. Upon closer inspection, we saw that there were even little red blinking lights in its head, just like the movie. Aww, Seattle. You know I love this stuff.

We’ve had a whirlwind of family visitors this week

Houseguests Round 3 were my parents, who delighted us by staying over a few days on their way to a vacation in Victoria, B.C. I did my darndest to cram in as much grandparent-time as possible.

On the evening of their arrival, Brian and I took them on an adults-only outing to the Cinnebarre to watch Star Trek: Beyond and eat delicious hamburgers. Totally fun movie — it was great to have some adult time with my parents.

After church the next day, the grandparents took Katie on a trip to the beach and came home with pockets full of pebbles and shells. Having this one-on-one time with grandparents was a big deal to her; it’s been two weeks since then, and Katie still talks about it at bedtime.

The following morning, Grandpa and Eleanor were ushered out the door for golf. She’s taking a genuine interest in this sport, and my dad is a great teacher. She made par on one of the holes!

Meanwhile, Grandma taught everyone how to make “burrito” pillowcases (I spent a morning cleaning the decrepit disaster that is our craft room for just this occasion you are welcome, Mom):

When our crafting was over, the grandparents and I took William out to West Seattle for incredible Hawaiian-Korean fusion food at Marination Ma Kai. Nummm, kimchee quesadillas and shave ice!

The evening was rounded out with a visit to the Ballard Locks, which my dad had never seen before. A boat towing logs came through while we were there, an arrangement which I had never seen before. The logs were lashed together and just floating in the water. I half expected to see lumberjacks astride them, juggling axes and stroking their fluffy beards.

And if that weren’t enough fun for one day, we stopped at Molly Moon’s for ice cream on the way home. Whew!

My parents took off on Tuesday morning. This left us with just 24 hours to prepare ourselves for Houseguests, Round 4: Uncle Michael and Aunt Natalie and best of all, Cousin Anderson!

My kids were very excited to see their first Shirts cousin. Jeff even requested to come along when I drove out to pick them up from the airport. I initially thought he just wanted some time out of the house, or time alone with me, but when we pulled up to the airport, Jeff jumped up and whispered, “I can’t wait to see that cute baby’s face!” and rushed to give Anderson a hug.

Our first excursion the next day was Jetty Island. The older kids hadn’t had a chance to visit Jetty yet, so it was a nice treat for them. The only snag is somehow there was a reservation mix-up and we showed up on the wrong day. But we were early enough to grab the standby tickets (whew).

Jeff and William asked to go off and explore the island on their own. They walked over to the “lagoon” marked on the island map and walked around it. It always pleases me to see Jeff wanting to be a little more independent.

Anderson loved dipping his feet in Puget Sound and observing his cousins build a giant pile of seaweed. When it was time to go, he was so cold his lips turned a little bit blue, but he kept asking to go back in the water.

Day Two of Anderson Week was spent riding the ferry to Kingston for crepes and ice cream, one of my favorite summer activities. (I intentionally had a skimpy breakfast because I knew exactly what good stuff was up ahead.)

Anderson loved the ferry ride, as did my kids:

Between crepes and ice cream, we romped on in the park and played around with a Frisbee. My kids were being “a bunch of goofy-goofs,” as I like to say:

The boys quite literally collapsed in a pile on the way home:

Saturday was the next day, so Brian was able to join us for a trip to the waterfront to ride the Seattle Great Wheel, which he hadn’t been able to ride before.

Jeff wasn’t very happy about the heights. He curled against me during the entire ride, and I could feel how tense his shoulders were through his shirt.

After the wheel, we walked down the street to the Olympic Sculpture Park. The walk was a bit longer than anticipated, and it was hot and dusty downtown. Nobody was in that much of a good mood when we arrived, but spirits lifted as we began to explore the statues.

Discovering an indoor play space wasn’t that bad, either. (Shade! Hurrah!)

Sunday was Anderson’s last day in town. We trooped to church, and then headed over to St. Edward’s State Park for more excellent cousin play on the wooden castle playground. Eleanor was wonderful at watching over Anderson, which gave the adults ample time to talk (adult convo is always at a premium around here).

Speaking of which, we were lucky enough to have some evening adults-only time during Cousin Week. On Friday, Anderson was put to bed early so the grown-ups could meet up with Kristen & Patrick at a restaurant in Ballard, and then on Saturday evening the big kids were left at home while the adults took Anderson to the Cheesemonger’s Table, followed by a nice stroll around downtown Edmonds.

The only bad thing about houseguests is that eventually they have to go home. Thanks to all of them this summer for making this season an excellent one!

 

 

It’s one of my goals every summer to try and get my children outdoors as much as possible.

Even if I don’t always get the chance to do the same myself. But I think I may have gone a little overboard with my goal this week.

Sure there was some indoors time, such as the construction of this Space Pod kit which Brian and I gave to Wimmy for his birthday. The boys initially wanted the grown-ups to help, but we pointed out that the instructions said it was either for one adult and one child aged 6+, OR two children aged 9+. William was thrilled that he could finally count himself in the 9+ category, and set to work.

Nice, right? It’s the preferred place to read books right now. This afternoon, the boys grabbed all the pieces of the Snap Circuits sets and “installed electronic space equipment” in the Pod.

BUT — despite that inside stuff — it was all about the Outdoors this week.

The biggest contributor to this was the 2nd half of Summer in the Woods. Every morning I’d drop Wim, Ella & Jeff off in Yost Park forest, and they would spend six hours learning about nature, whittling spears, making cordage, hiking and playing games. They were under the care of camp counselors that have names like Hawkeye and Little Bear and were barefoot every single day of camp.

I didn’t take any pictures of them at pick-up (I regret that now), but they were often covered with glorious scratches, mud streaks on arms and legs, and slumping with exhaustion. We’d often swing by Dairy Queen for ice cream cones (I tried to resist doing this every day, but I’m a pushover and the kids know it), then spend the afternoon quietly collapsing with books.

My time in the Great Indoors during Summer in the Woods was spent dealing with Fruitstorm II: the Reckoning:

Yeah, plums and blueberries. I’m started to get really tired of making jam.

Eleanor had to miss the last three days of Summer in the Woods because of this:

GIRL SCOUT CAMP!

Her troop spent two nights at Camp St. Alban’s, from Wednesday to Friday. I was recruited to carpool five of the girls down to the camp.

Which . . . went less smoothly than I anticipated. My cell phone died about 3/4ths of the way there, so I lost my GPS directions. The printed map from the camp was unclear, so I missed a cruicial turn and ended up driving the Key Peninsula Highway for an extra 45 minutes.

Did you know that the Key Peninsula Highway dead-ends at a cul-de-sac? I do! Guess how I found out?

I will say that the girls in Eleanor’s troop are an absolute delight to spend time with. They spend their time singing camp songs and chattering about other music (“Have you heard of this song called ‘American Pie’? It’s like the best song ever” and then they all sang the chorus together and it was adorable!) and geek culture (Monty Python quotes, lengthy debate about how spells in Harry Potter effect one’s physiology) and what they want to be when they grow up (one girl wants to be a large-mammal vet and spent time identifying all the horse breeds we passed on the road; another wants to be a cultural anthropologist and “solve the mysteries of the ancients”).

The drive home was not nearly as fun. Podcasts are entertaining but just aren’t as fun as twelve-year-old girls. (5 hours driving in total. Ugh. And oh yes, I still had to carpool William to skating class right after I arrived home.)

AND THEN . . . after multiple days spent in the outdoors, I had the NERVE to take the family hiking this past Saturday.

Such a thing could not be borne by . . . certain unnamed persons in the family.

Said persons voiced their opinions mutiple times and then sulked on a pile of tree roots.

But Wallace Falls was otherwise a delightful hike. About 4.75 miles roundtrip, with a stunning trio of waterfalls at the end. The trail continued another 4 miles or so, but we declined to do that.

I love this sign the park put up as you begin the main part of the trail. I love the North Cascades, I love these forests!