Happy Halloween

I was looking back at past Halloween pictures and I thought that it might be fun to show the kids dressed up in their costumes over the years.

Olivia's first Halloween as a pumpkin.

Caedan's first Halloween as a pumpkin.

Olivia's as a cow for her second Halloween.

For his second Halloween Caedan was a cow.  Are you sensing a pattern here?

For her third Halloween we have the very scary leopard.

I bet that  you will never guess what Caedan was for his third Halloween!

 

 Paging Doctor Connor.

Last year we had a ballerina and a very well timed soccer fan.  We spent Halloween at the Sounders' Game were they had trick or treating for the kids.

Of course we had a princess in there but amazingly that costume was never handed down from Olivia to Caedan.  And now the reason that all of you read this post.  To find out what costumes we have this year.

Olivia is an Orcas Island Cheerleader proudly cheering for her fathers alma mater and Caedan is a 'worker' as he likes to call himself.

Now I can't wait for the kids to go to bed so that we can sneak sample their candy to make sure that it is safe.

Potential costumes for next year - a pilgrim and a pirate. Maybe I can find them on sale now. Of course if I bought something now they would of course change there minds before next Halloween.

Humpy Fishing

A few weeks ago we headed up to Orcas Island to go fishing.  We spent two successful days out on the boat.  I call it a success when no kids fall overboard!  We had a beautiful weekend and the weather was perfect!

Heading out to fish.

Caedan learning to drive.

Caedan reeling in a his first salmon.

Guy talk about boats and motors.

Caedan's favorite part about the whole weekend was bashing the fish on the head with the little bat.  He was the fish knocker.  He came home with fish blood on his clothes and shoes.

Olivia practicing her driving skills.

Caedan helping reel in another fish.

Olivia practicing reeling in a fish.

 Olivia reeling in her first salmon!

The family photo with our catches.  Clearly I am enjoying sticking my fingers in the gills of a fish.  I could actually feel the teeth of my fish.

4th of July

To celebrate the 4th of July we decided to avoid the traffic and parking issues by riding our bikes down to Bothell to watch the Grand Parade.  Keep in mind that I said ride our bike down because that means we also have to ride back up to get home.  At more than 1:45 minutes, this was the longest parade that I think I have ever attended.  My favorite participant was probably the rubber chicken society.  I am not even sure what this group does but they did walk down the street with rubber chickens.

  

Caedan was very excited to score his very own mail truck from the mailman in the parade.

 This is the 'loot' that we scored after that very hot 1:45 minutes at the parade.  I am wondering if it would be bad to save this for Halloween! 

After the parade we head to Home Depot for this big purchase.  When you are on your bike you can only buy small things.  After Home Depot we head home which means that we had to ride back up our hill!  18.5 miles later and we were back home to enjoy the sun.

The kids cooled off in the sprinkler.

 We ended the evening with a fireworks show and late bedtimes for the kids.

Small Fry Race

WARNING:  This post contains lots of bragging about my kids!

Last Saturday at Stevens Pass the Stevens Pass Alpine Club had a race that was open to all kids.  It was an official USSA ski race and drew skiers from Crystal, Mission Ridge, Mt. Spokane, Loup Loup and of course both Stevens Pass race teams.  We thought the kids would have fun participating in the race so we signed them up.  It is important to mention that neither kid has ever raced before.  The closest they have been to a race course is seeing the race team training on the run under the Hogsback chair.  We did watch some ski racing during the Olympics last year but that would be about all of their racing exposure.  My only hope was that they would finish the race and not crash.  Caedan raced in the 6 and under category.  Olivia competed in the 7-8 year old category.  Both races consisted of two runs.

This video pretty much sums up the race.

(If you have speakers you should turn on your sound.)



 

Some important things about the race that I am sure you will want to know:

1. Caedan finished 5th out of 10 boys.
2. He was the youngest racer of the day. 
3. At the end of his second run he asked if he could go again!
4. The 4 place finisher was twice his age and all of the skiers ahead of him were 5 or 6 years old.
5. The only other 3 year old in the race took almost three times as long to finish.
6. His second run was 4.5 seconds faster than his first.
7. Olivia finished 6th out of 16 girls. 
8. She was the top finishing 7 year old and top finisher not on a race team.
9. She beat 8 girls who race for teams from three different mountains.
10. Olivia has a competitive side that I had not seen before.
11. Olivia's second run was the 4th fastest and more than 4 seconds faster than her first run.
12. No other top finisher improved by more than half a second.

Bread

A wise person enlightened me a few weeks ago by introducing me to this great bread making technique.

Artisan bread in 5 minutes a day
http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com

In the past 3 weeks I have made 5 loaves of bread and another one is waiting to be baked. The smell of fresh baked bread filling the house is wonderful and the bread tastes delicious. We have not purchased bread from the store since discovering this recipe.

Resting before baking...
This loaf is now sitting on the counter waiting for us to enjoy!

This Danish Dough Whisk is on my must have list. It is not on my list just because it looks cool!

For Kim

This picture reminds me of something.

Do you know what it is??

Heather Lake

Things to do on a rainy Saturday:
1. Read a good book.
2. Sit on the couch and watch a good movie with a cup of cocoa.
3. Go for a hike in the pouring rain.

Can you guess which one we decided to do?

Don't the kids look thrilled?

We did make it to the lake and by then we were pretty wet. We walked through several streams along the trail. By the time we made it back to the car we were all very thankful for the dry clothes that were waiting for us!