Lucy loves the Snow!

Lucy has learned to open the front door by herself which is a nightmare for the parents.  We have to lock the door and she is just frustrated that she can’t go outside now that she knows how to get there herself.  Today she put on her rain gear and headed outside to play in the snow.  Since she could sit up Lu loved to play in the snow and take a handful and eat it.    We finally had to talk her into coming back inside because we were so cold

Beautiful Rainier

Katie had a youth activity on Saturday at Rainier.  I agreed to drive up and then went for a snowshoe trip while she was sledding.  It was an incredible day up there.  You get days like this 2-3 times a year so I was tickled to be up there.

Here is Katie at the top of the sledding hill.

I went on the most crowded trail because I was by myself.  There were hundreds of skiers and snowshoers going up and down the mountain so I had lots of company.  I asked another walker to take a picture of me with Rainier in the background.

Here you can see Mt Saint Helens and Mt Adams.  This is the first time I have seen this view from Rainier.  You have to get up above the treeline to see this.

An Avalanche.  This happened about 10 minutes before I walked up.  The wind direction had changed this day and the ridges had loaded up with blown snow.  I saw 3 avalanches this day.  You normally don’t see then because you normally can’t see very far at Rainier!  After I got above the tree line it was blowing like Idaho Falls in the winter.

It was like this all day long.  Not a cloud in the sky and lots of sun.  You can see to the left how the snow had piled up from the wind.

Tasty Treat

Here is Lucy Enjoying a sweet treat from Hawaii.  Freshly grown Pineapple from Hawaii is otherworldly good.  It is very sweet and even the core tastes good.  We even learned a new way to cut up the pineapple when we were in the Islands.  It is much easier and seems to waste less fruit.  After we had cut up this one Lucy grabbed the crown off the counter and was carrying it around saying ‘Treat!’ with a huge smile on her face.  We also brought home Chocolate covered Pineapple and pineapple candy.  None of them lasted very long!

The other thing I learned is how they plant pineapples.  They cut off the top of the plant and stick it in the ground.  From there another pineapple plant grows.  It takes 2 years for the first fruit to come off the plant and then it will fruit 2 more times.  They also plant 1000 plants per acre.  The plants grow to about 3x3 feet. and have the same consistency as the top of the plant you see above.  Picking them looks about as pleasant as hugging a saguaro.

Hi Hi Hawaii

Crystal’s reward for my my constant travel last year was a trip to the Aloha State. We have both dreamed of going to Hawaii and it was so exciting to finally go.

We spent 5 days and 5 nights on Oahu and it was GREAT. We stayed in Waikiki Beach which was ok. It is a crowded spot with lots of cars, hotels and shops. But just outside of the city lush gorgeous Hawaii opens up. We went on our 15th anniversary and it was slightly warmer than 15 years ago in IF.

Some of the activities on our trip were Snorkeling, Whale Spotting, Hiking, Swimming, Driving, Wave Watching, Sea Kayaking and playing in the waves. We never did get to see a sea turtle while we were in the water but we did see them from shore. Both Pearl Harbor and the Polynesian Cultural Center were incredible.

Here are a few of the pictures:

A Great Gift

As you know Salt Lake, like most other northern Utah valleys, gets socked in by inversions. Utah inversions lead to pollution and smog being trapped close to the ground, which has adverse effects on health and are incredibly oppressive AND depressing to live through.

Dad and Mom gave us a great gift for Christmas, money to spend on an adventure, and boy were we excited and happy to use it! We'd already planned a getaway to Mesquite, NV and St. George, UT for some clear skies, warm (or at least warmer) and clean air.

Mom and Dad's gift easily covered the cost of renting a house from one of our client/friends for a long weekend. We loaded up the car with our gear, bicycles and the dogs and headed south.

Our first day we got up and (late, yea!) had breakfast and then loaded up again to drive to Hoover Dam on the Arizona/Nevada border. We were excited to see and walk across a brand new bridge spanning the Colorado River. The bridge is the second-highest in the United States, behind Royal Gorge Bridge, at 840 feet above the Colorado River. Built as part of the Hoover Dam Bypass Project.

It's hard to imagine what it's like to stand 84 stories above one of the most amazing dams in the world so I took this video when I was standing at the midway point of the bridge. The wind was blowing like crazy, the bridge was busy with foot and vehicle traffic, and BOY it was a LONG way down. Pretty darn cool.

Here are some of the photos we took there...

There are great photos of the bridge under construction and more information about it on the Wikipedia website.

The next few days we spent just relaxing and enjoying the clean desert air. The dogs particularly liked the fact that there was green grass and that it was warm enough to ride bikes (in their doggy ride trailer) everyday. We were close to the Virgin River which recently flooded and damaged a golf course. Leaving a great abandoned play ground of grass and sand. We played frisbee and had a great time.

Below there's a photo of me and Chloe and Luke on one of our rides and a video of Chloe and Luke getting ready for one of our rides... (I haven't posted in so long I can't get the photo and text to line up... but they're down there somewhere, lol.) Chloe tricked me in this one, by sneaking out the front of the trailer. Kind of funny.

Of course it wouldn't be a Ward post without the obligatory block photo... Here's a wall going up in the new Del Webb development 'Sun City Mesquite'. Maybe someday we'll be back to enjoy Mesquite in our golden years. Thanks Mom and Dad.

Fire

I went to look at the fire today. It was absolutely amazing how close the fire line was to the houses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap-1sKhCC14

1st Day of school in Washington 3.0

Here the kids are in their first day of school pictures.  Katie is in junior high this year so we didn’t have a picture of all 3 kids together.  Katie was actually out the door before the other two kids were even awake.

Emma is in 6th Grade and has finally made it to the top of the ladder in elementary school. Chas is in 3rd grade this year.

2 Years!

August marks our 2nd year in Washington. What a fun trip it has been so far!

I put this video together as a thank you to our kids for putting up with me and all my adventures.

Boom Goes the Mountain!

We went to Mt St Helens this weekend.  It was an incredible place to visit.  I have seen lots of volcanic evidence in my life but to be on a volcano that erupted so recently was cool.  We got to the mountain just in time for a ranger talk and she was full of excellent information that we all found interesting.  As always a picture tells a thousand words so here are some pictures from the trip.

The whole crew in front of the Volcano.  Except for me of course who took the picture!

 

Meta Lake.  This lake was iced over when the mountain erupted.  It is only 8 miles from the mountain but because of the ice over the lake the fish, frogs and Crawdads survived and are thriving.  We had fun catching the crawdads.

 

If you look closely you can see the tsunami line around spirit lake.  When the mountain erupted it unleashed a huge landslide that splashed into spirit lake.  This caused a tsunami that went 800 feet up the mountain, pulling thousands of huge trees back into the lake.  Over time 70 percent of the trees have sunk, but a bunch of the lake is still tree covered.

Seeing the way the trees blew down was cool.  The closer we got to the blast zone the more downed trees we saw.  Chas is sitting on this downed Douglas Fir that was probably 200 feet tall and 500 years old when the mountain erupted.  There were thousands of trees laying down in the direction away from the blast.  Seeing just how big these trees are and how they snapped was amazing.  In this case the tree was on a north facing slope that was covered by snow when the mountain erupted.  That preserved the topsoil and has allowed new growth.

A stunningly beautiful waterfall.  This was 14 miles from the volcano and you couldn’t tell the mountain had ever erupted here.

MOM! I found the thinker

He's in the Baltimore Museum of Art .. I walked around the corner and saw him (huge!) and said, "oh my heck that's my mom's thinker" (he really belongs to Rodin I suppose).

Next time you're in Charm City we'll go see him together. He is magnificent.

Magnificent Rainier