Camping and Gaming

A quick hit from the scanner:

Emily, Frank, Fran, Dave, Magen, and Annie on a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters

And a bit of post-Thanksgiving game playing at Jon and Sara's:

Thanks for the photo and the fun!

One more kid-camping shot:

Fran, Magen, Dave, Emily heading into the Bob Marshall Wilderness

Hope you have a great week, reader!

Rain Forests

We had a great time in the rain forest last weekend! So amazing. Otherworldly, even.

Here's Emily in the Hall of Mosses, in the Hoh Rain Forest

Also saw some big trees, like this Cedar:



Most of our fun was in Olympic National Park, which also includes a strip on the ocean:

Ruby Beach

The surf sounded so cool because of all the rocks--take a listen (you can hear the water pulling back from the rocks at about 3/4 of the way in):

(Sorry for the clunky player; guess my coding's getting rusty...)



Emily is getting pretty good with her camera phone:




The best part was definitely the rain forest, though. Every inch of it seemed to be green and growing. Trees covered in moss and fern, growing out of other dead trees. Even this:



Couldn't have done it without our awesome REI parkas and water-proof hiking boots. It rained literally the entire weekend (they average 12 feet per year! feet!), but we were comfy and dry the whole way through.

And we saw two herds of elk...


Speaking of wild animals on the Olympic Peninsula: we were so close, we pretty much had to at least spend a little time in Forks:


So many pictures! If you want more, check out the whole set on Flickr. In the meantime, here we are outside the Lake Quinault Lodge:


And one more big tree:

World's largest Sitka Spruce.

Enjoying the Fall

So it's mid-November, and we're heading out of town for the weekend.

Spending a couple of days at Lake Quinault Lodge, out on the Olympic Peninsula.

Here's a shot from their website:


Our main agenda item while out there: the Hoh Rain Forest.

Crazy moss pic from the Wikipedia entry:


In case it really does rain 2 inches a day while we're there & I'm scared to use the camera, here's a link to a Google image search of more pics of the rain forest.

Old Photos, New Recipes

Still scanning...

One of my favorite photos of Merrica and myself. At Lincoln Park, on a boat (!), in 1999.

In school yesterday, a student brought in some cookies she'd told us about earlier in the week.

Bacon and chocolate chip. Tasty? Weird?
For some comments from other friends of mine, you can check out the Facebook post.

One more from the scanner:

Larry and David Hughes, at St Olaf for Emily's graduation, 1999.

From the Scanner

As you may have heard, we picked up a scanner recently...

Some highlights from out test runs:

Emily, Magen, and Fran, skiing in Michigan, sometime around 1989



Yancy & Rodrigo on spring break in California, 1996.

More to come! Happy Monday!

Storing and Stewing

I dropped by the Seattle Area Archivists table at the Washington Archives Fair last week, in the Seattle Public Library:

Emily, current Chair of the group, manning their display.

Also worth displaying:

some delicious lamb necks.

We bought them on the recommendation of the nice gentelman at the Olsen Farms stall at the farmers market, and we used them in stew. Probably the best stew I've ever had, or at least up there. Necks: who knew?


Finally, in bonus We're Better Than Maine news, it looks like Referendum 71 is doing well. After two days of vote counting it's ahead 52% to 48%.
Who's voting for it?

Apparently those of us who live near water.

Well, whatever. As long as it passes!
And the scary lady who opposes most all forms of public transit will not become King County Executive! Phew!
So whatever you might want to say about races outside of Washington, at least the results here look good...

All right, reader, back to grading!
Cheers!