2013 Christmas in Denver

Technically Lakewood and Golden, but to those outside Colorado, Denver might be more familiar.  We had a lovely time visiting Tiger Lily's grandparents in Lakewood and Golden.  Beth's sister Louisa and brother-in-law Mike were able to visit at the same time, so we had a regular family reunion.  We were showered with delicious food, great company and generous gifts.  The weather was great too. It was actually somewhat warmer where we were in Colorado than Seattle for the time!  Beth and Tiger Lily were also able to reunite with Beth's High School friends, some of their spouses and a whole bunch of their kids!

Click the picture below to see 41 pictures of the trip:

2013 Christmas in Seattle

We've done all sorts of fun things this holiday season around home including visiting a camel and reindeer at Swanson's nursery with friends, a fun trip to the mountains to cut our Christmas tree, the "Snowflake Lane" spectacular light/snow/music and dance show in the streets of Bellevue, an unplanned visit to Santa at Macy's (who would have guessed Santa would be at Macy's?) and ride on the holiday carousel at Westlake Center. We visited the Christmas Ship on Lake Washington and caroling around a bonfire at the Mt. Baker rowing club. We even made holiday tamale's in time for dinner on our Seattle Christmas Eve! Click the polar bear to see all 22 pictures.

2013 Thanksgiving in Eugene

Granny and Papa hosted us for Thanksgiving and we had a wonderful time. Merrick's Aunt Judy Richmond came too which was wonderful.  We hadn't seen her for a couple of years.  After dinner, we went over to Uncle Marc and Aunt Pat's house for dessert and Tiger Lily got to see more family, including Great-Grandma Harsch.  Since we are going to Colorado for Christmas, we celebrated Christmas with Merrick's side of the family while we were there.

Granny and Papa's house is about 3 miles away from a wonderful hazelnut orchard which has been turned into a park called the Doris Ranch.  We had a lot of fun there kicking through the leaves and playing on an old tractor. There is another hazelnut orchard a couple streets away that neighbors have access to which is right on the McKenzie river and fun to visit too. Perfect walk after a big Thanksgiving dinner! Click the picture to see all 30 photos from the trip.

Halloween 2013

We had about a full week of Halloween activities this year.  We did costumed Halloween fun run for people and dogs, visited the pumpkin patch at Remlinger farms with Tiger Lily's class at We Are the World daycare.  They also hosted a fun party. Who knew there were so many 3 foot tall superheros in Seattle?  Later in the week we met up with Tiger Lily's friend Rosie at the Zoo Halloween event which included visitors in costume and pumpkins for the animals!  We went with our friend down the street to a Halloween party hosted by the businesses and condos at the Hiawatha lofts. Thanks guys!
(click the photo below to see all 15 pictures)

Leavenworth Oktoberfest Marathon

Time for our fall trip to Leavenworth! The city has thoughtfully scheduled the first weekend of their Oktoberfest celebration and annual marathon to coincide with Merrick's birthday, so we just had to visit.  Merrick's parents came up to cheer him on in the marathon and have some fun with Tiger Lily and Beth.

We stayed at a charming cabin about 10 miles outside of Leavenworth up the Chumstick Highway where we were visited by wild turkeys one morning!

We also visited Smallwood Harvest Farm, which is a combination fruit stand/petting zoo and just about every kind of little kid diversion you could imagine. Click the picture below to see all the pictures from the weekend (41).

Aunt Louisa, Uncle Mike, Meema and Granddad visit Seattle

Aunt Louisa, Uncle Mike, Meema and Granddad came to Seattle in September to attend a close friend's wedding.  We got to spend about a week together, share a very moving wedding ceremony and go crazy on the dance floor together! Congratulations Steve and Clare! Unfortunately, we didn't have our photo act together and didn't get any pictures at the wedding, or of Meema and Granddad this trip, but we did get some good ones of Uncle Mike and Aunt Louisa (7 pictures)

End of August Trip to Eugene

Tiger Lily's daycare closed for teacher training the last week of July, so we took the opportunity to visit family in Eugene.  We had fun visiting Granny and Papa, Ginny and Hannah and their dogs, Lacey and Tilly! Granny and Papa have all sorts of good things growing in their yard, including a plum tree!

2013 4th of July in Eugene

We had a great time again in Eugene for the 4th of July weekend.  Aunt Judy, Travis and his fiance Morgan, and Janey joined our merry group for the Butte to Butte this year for even more fun! Hooray for Granny Janny who decided to do it again this year at the last minute and finished strong! And another spectacular family BBQ at the Burgess house.  Thanks so much Mike and Shannon, Marc and Pat! Click the picture below to see 61 photos from the trip.

Tiger Lily and Granny Janny on the Pizza Parlour Merry Go Round

Newfoundland Trip with Grandpa!

Grandpa George took the whole family on an amazing trip to Newfoundland this summer.  We traveled the Avalon peninsula and saw an unbelievable number of wonder things - whales, seabird colonies, an iron mine, light houses, light houses, forts and more light houses! The weather was beautiful and the company grand.  The people of Newfoundland were kind and generous.  If you ever get a chance, you should definitely go!  Thank you so much Grandpa George for the wonderful experience! Click the picture below to see 51 pictures of the trip.

Below is a video compilation of cool things we did on the trip:

Camping at Wenatchee Confluence State Park

We shared a wonderful weekend at Wenatchee Confluence State Park with the Toft family. We had a great big grassy area behind our campsite, a nearby playground and swimming beach! The weather was beautiful and we all had fun. Lessons were learned, such as nobody gets as much sleep as they need when sharing the tent with a toddler. Our friends left Sunday but we decided to stay another night.  We took a wonderful ramble on the Forest Service roads between Peshastin and Cashmere and found all manner of beautiful wildflowers in bloom, including Tiger Lilies!  Click the first picture to see all 73 pictures at once:

Lunch at Swauk Creek Campground

Playing in play tents

At the swim beach on the Columbia river

Sharing home-grown strawberries

Bedtime stories

Tiger Lily with her namesake flower

Father's Day Run

Magnuson Park, Seattle

Tiger Lily's 2nd Run!

Click the photo to see 4 more pictures from the race day.

Breakdance Class!

Tiger Lily's showing off her tattoo from Breakdance class at Massive Monkees studio in Seattle's International District. Click picture to see all pics at once.

Click picture to see all at once

Family trip to Whidbey Island

Beth's boss Jeff and his partner Gail invited us and Beth's co-worker Jason's family to their house on Whidbey Island for the 2013 Memorial Day weekend. We had a fantastic time exploring the tide flats, running around the house and enjoying fresh seafood! Click the picture below to see 139 pictures (really not as bad as it sounds, thanks to updates at Flickr)

Link to 139 pictures from the weekend trip

Tucson Trip

Click the picture below to see the whole set from the trip

Tiger Lily feeding a Giraffe at Reid Park Zoo!

Riding the little train at Reid Park

First time cooking muffins...

In preparation for Tiger Lily's 2nd birthday we tried cooking muffins. It went pretty well!

New Years Day 2013 in Cle Elum

Snow day! We passed right on through the zoo that is the Snoqualmie pass ski area and various snow parks with exorbitant parking fees (at least for what we planned to do) and ended up at a snow filled city park in Cle Elum, about 80 mile east of Seattle. Merrick towed Beth and Tiger Lily once around the football field, in the sled, then we crossed the senior center parking lot to a little sledding hill for some real thrills... Click the picture to see an 8 picture slide show or see all the pictures at once here