The Launch!

I'm beginning to go through photos from our latest trip (those of you who do this immediately upon your arrival at home--or better yet, while still on vacation--can feel quite superior to me at this point) and don't want to miss the chance to tell you about an exciting event that occurred the day before we left.


Bryan had decided to take our gear and the new dinghy to LiLo and then drive back to meet us at my parent's house. The plan was to celebrate July 4 with them and then take the train back to Olympia so we didn't end up with a stray car there at the end of the trip when we brought LiLo to the Columbia. But before we took the dinghy up, we had to launch and christen her!

The girls always wear their lifejackets on the docks so we had brought theirs home, but Bryan and I had left ours on the boat. As we were trying to figure out who might have some we could borrow, we had to laugh at ourselves. "Let's see...who would be the most likely people we know to have lifejackets?" "Um, that would be...us." But N&A came to our rescue and we picked up their pfds and drove out to Hagg Lake.


We put the dinghy together by the truck and then carried her about 50 yards down to the water. This would have been an impossible distance to carry our old dinghy; already we were in love with the new one! We posed for the obligatory pictures and slid her down the bank into the water.


Everybody got a turn to row around a bit...



...and then we made up our own christening ceremony. She is now officially Split Pea!



We got a few funny looks when Bryan took her apart in the water to see how well that worked (very, as it turned out.) Don't forget to tie off both halves before trying this trick!

More to come from the trip...at some point.

Mystery Watercolor Memories

You may have noticed that I am a photograppreciator, not an actual photographer like some people I could name. Over the years, this has resulted in a rather careless attitude toward cameras and the many gaps in camera ownership (and my complete inability to get film developed) have caused a back-up of disposable cameras and old film in our junk drawer. This week, I finally gathered up six rolls of something-or-other and took them in. "All I want is the negatives and the CD," I told the lady at the counter; I wasn't paying for prints of mystery pictures. "We'll be back in an hour."

While we waited, we went to the Farmer's Market and walked over to the library. When we thought we had whiled away enough time, we hopped back in the car and headed back to pick up the pictures. I flipped on the radio and was more than a little surprised to hear words like "severe thunderstorms" and "tornado." I had noticed the wind picking up, but thought we could manage to get our pics before heading home. As we were standing in line, the lights flickered through dim to dark and the very efficient--and shoplifting-aware--store employees quickly herded all the customers (many waving lit cell phones like lonely concert-goers) to the front of the store where they peremptorily booted us out into the growing storm. My brave girls were beginning to crumble in the face of so many strange events and the crazy "car-wash" rain. We were all relieved to pull out of the traffic into Lafayette and home where we spent a candlelit evening counting lightning/thunder seconds, singing the obligatory "Raindrops on Roses," and cuddling (my personal favorite when it comes to power-outage activities).

The power came on sometime in the night and, before I completely lost all momentum and left the photos languishing at the store forever, I ran back to pick them up. Some of the pictures are so old and so...just plain BAD, that we can't even tell who is pictured. (Anyone have a baby with this head shape?)

Using carbon dating methods (and adjacent pictures), we determined the approximate decade of each roll--oh my, there's baby Hannah! Some of the pictures make us wonder what we were thinking,


but others are real gems, bringing back many good memories of adventures long (LONG) past.

This roll, including the picture from the top of the post, are from our first year of sailing. Bryan and I brought Nissa into Portland for the weekend for our 9th anniversary (this summer will be 13!). There are many pictures of bridges, since we had to sail under each one, and a few pictures of relationship landmarks--mostly restaurants we can no longer afford. I remember the exhilaration of figuring out how to call for a bridge lift (the Steel Bridge's pedestrian span is too low for our mast) and the wonder of seeing a familiar city from a new perspective. Flush with freshly-minted boat ownership, I wanted to wear my fluorescent life jacket everywhere. We walked to Saturday Market (a first-date memory) and all the way over to Powells, where we bought too many books to carry back comfortably and a Portland Bridge T-shirt because it may be the only time we can ever truthfully say that we have "been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt." On the way back to our marina in St. Helens, we stopped a Cathedral Park to savor the last hours of vacation and the amazing architecture of the St. Johns Bridge (seen above).

Not all the pictures were ancient and I'll likely be posting some more (of both vintages) soon, but thanks for indulging me this meander down proverbial memory lane.

While riffling through old blog post drafts, I found these pictures from last year's San Juan trip. They are mostly from our visit to the Westcott Bay Sculpture Park at Roche Harbor (19 acres of verdant meadow, forest, and wetland dotted with sculptures of all varieties), but a few are from the next day on our way to Stuart Island. On the way there, our camera broke...so that was that. I'm posting these primarily for my own memory's sake; please feel free to ignore them.


This little fellow served as welcoming committee and curator.

These are not sculptures, but I love to look at them anyway. I think their Artist is amazing.

I loved these flashing birds, twirling in the breeze...

...and this abstract whirligig.

The gong was a family fave.

And I savored the wonder as I strolled down this slope to view the front of this piece of art. What could possibly be more beautiful than the freshly baled hay in the field behind it? When I finally reached the piece, I smiled. On the easel, the artist had simply placed a mirror.

These are the last two pictures our poor camera took (we now have a waterproof, shockproof, drop-proof model). I used to think that boats with line snaking everywhere and gear lashed to every stanchion were, well, just a bit unkempt. Now I just remind myself of the best compliment our well-loved boat ever got--"There's a boat that looks like she goes places!" It's true what they say, that you see the same sights no matter how fancy or humble your boat. I wished so hard our camera had held on for just one more shot, because as we rounded this point, Mt. Baker leapt out at us, bold and dazzling against the blue sea, blue sky. We may not always have proof, but we have seen some spectacular sights from this messy vessel of ours.

First Sail of the Season

Sheepishly, she realized that she had written the story in the last post once already. She hopes you will accept this overdue story as a peace offering.

In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of...sailing? And apparently a young-ish woman's thoughts too. The nice weather the last few weeks hasn't hurt, but beyond that, our recent days have been littered with sailing-related gifts. A sale on anchors (at the same time we had the extra money to get one and the time to research which one we wanted. For those of you who care, we bought a Delta), a dodger on Craigslist, dinner with a delightful family who will be leaving this summer on their sailboat. We took a class at a local jeweler and made a pair of simple silver wedding rings so we don't lose a diamond (or a finger) while sailing. The girls and I started taking Spanish lessons from a friend (she's taking piano lessons from me--yay for bartering!) And we took our first sailing trip.

We had reserved Mother's Day weekend for a sailing trip some time ago, just hoping for good weather. And, though it was still cold enough at night to sleep in 4 layers and a hat, the daytime weather was perfection itself. We began with the obligatory trip to the Farmer's Market across the parking lot from the marina and followed it up with the traditional later-than-hoped-for sailing time.

After motoring up Budd inlet, we put up the new mainsail (another of the unexpected acquisitions of the winter) and the drifter, and sailed...very...slowly...past Boston Harbor. After an hour or so of fighting current and headwind, we decided to let the wind plan the destination and turned toward Hope Island. Sailing up to the mooring buoy always feels like an accomplishment. Dropping the boat hook overboard when the handle fell off quickly reminded us not to feel too sure of ourselves. We pulled around again and Bryan leaned over the side to retrieve the hook (still hanging from the mooring buoy ring), and it broke in two. We finally got a stern line through the ring and pulled the boat around by hand to hook up properly, bow first.

That's when Bryan realized...we had no oars! We always leave our oars on the boat, but we'd brought them home after the last trip to fit them on the new dinghy and now we had no way to get to shore. After a brief family conference, we all agreed to motor on over to Jarrell Cove State Park, where we could stay at a dock.

We pulled in to the Cove about 8:30 and found a spot at the inner state park float. We were a little concerned that the -2 tide on Saturday would not leave us with quite enough water under the keel, but the bottom was muddy so even if we did touch for a few minutes at low tide (we didn't) it wouldn't hurt anything.

Saturday, we enjoyed getting to know the neighbors, who laughed with us at our forgetfulness and offered to loan us their paddles so the girls could dinghy around the lagoon. We tied the dinghy to the anchor rode so we could reel them back in if necessary and tied the borrowed paddles to the dinghy. But after a few minutes of awkwardness, and several near misses (we discovered that shifting one girl to the stern seat greatly reduced the chances of paddle handle meeting sister's face), we cut them loose. Each year, they shock me with their independence.

Watching them intuit how to work together to steer and row efficiently settled any concerns I may have had about the ability of kids to learn teamwork without organized sports.
Often, we spend a portion of each vacation day traveling from one place to another. So we weren't too disappointed to see, on our way to Jarrell Cove, that Joemma Beach didn't have their docks out yet. It was so relaxing to spend the whole day at Jarrell Cove, hiking, chatting with the camp hosts, cooking (and eating!), reading, playing games, watching the Purple Martins commandeer our mast, and fiddling with my Mother's Day gift...a new telescope.

Sunday, we moseyed back to Olympia, packed up, snagged some sushi at our favorite local sushi spot and were home by bedtime. Despite the laughable glitches, this weekend satisfied our need for some peaceful relaxation and deeply gratifying time with our family.

Our family motto (apparently) is "A place for everything and everything all over the place." We're having too much fun living life to stop to clean it. It doesn't help that we homeschool, so we're home a lot! I have finally begun to give myself grace for these tendencies, especially after figuring out that my messy housekeeping wasn't going to rub off on my girls any more than my Mom's good housekeeping rubbed off on me.
It all came together in my mind, though, the day I caught myself lecturing my girls about cleaning as they go. "Someday," I said, "you will learn to clean up as you go along and it will be so much easier for you. Someday..." and here we moved slightly to take in the full view of the terribly messy kitchen from which had come many delicious meals without a single clean-up spree--"...someday you may learn this. But if you do, it WON'T BE FROM ME!"

Day Nine-Jones Island to Roche Harbor

Prepare for a deluge of pictures from our time here, one of our favorite islands of the trip. Bryan took the girls for a hike around the western shoreline and I joined them after some exploration of my own. You can see the island's only permanent residents, these almost tame deer.

Bryan and I love the madrona trees with their whimsical shapes and cinnamon bark.I also love these three. I feel so blessed to be traveling through life with these wonderful individuals.

By afternoon, it was time to move on. We had a good sail over to Roche Harbor.Right away, we found the marina pool and relaxed, each in her own way:)

If you were here, I would bore you by trying to point out our boat in this picture.
See, right over there. No a little more to the left.

Roche Harbor has a summer tradition of a color ceremony, complete with music and a cannon. This night, a trio of local pilots added to the fun with an impromptu fly-over at just the right moment.

Day Eight-Friday Harbor to Jones Island

Shopping for "Magic Peas" and salad mix at the Friday Harbor Farmer's Market
(we missed our CSA pickup terribly:)

Pics of all the girls with Harbor watch-totems.

It had been our intention to move on to Roche Harbor this evening, but after two days in a busy marina, we were yearning for some quiet. (Also, the current was against us and after 2 1/2 hours of this exact view...
...we turned on the engine and motored in to Jones Island.
While the girls played on the beach, I sat in the shade and read...and read. Ahhhhhhhhh.