2014 February Trip to Tacoma

We took a trip to Tacoma to check out the campus of University of Puget Sound, where, as it turns out, Beth will be attending school this fall.  It rained something fierce, so we took refuge in the Washington State Museum and had a fun and informative afternoon.

Winter Sailboat Ride

We took a spin on the Admiral on Lake Union at the Center for Wooden Boats today. It was glorious!

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).