Just your average, restful weekend with Franklin...

But seriously, who wouldn't want to spend a long weekend with that guy?
(Pictured there in the hat Emily made & the scarf I made!)
(Sounders colors, by the way, at Franklin's request...)

So, okay, Wednesday before Thanksgiving it was volleyball, UW vs. Stanford:


Souvenirs too:



Thanks for suggesting it, Pete!

Back home, we were all about the pumpkin pie:

Butternut squash to be specific, but pumpkin's pumpkin, right?








He was so into it he ate it for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving. Rightly so!



Small party, but it was great to spend the holiday with family & friends:


And I'm also grateful that we had the chance to talk on Skype with even more family (not pictured, alas).



This video was actually from a few days before the holiday, but what the heck, I'll include it here too:


Rain came in on Friday, but luckily we found out that our local YMCA does a kids' gym setup most days. Awesome:








Saturday, at long last, we took Franklin to see his first movie:

He loved the popcorn and pink lemonade. And did laugh a couple times at the movie (including that bit in that trailer with the crunchy snacks...).

Sunday we got our tree:


I worked on the scarf pictured up top:


We finished the leftovers:

And then, finally, we relaxed... and got ready for Monday. Well, there you have it. More soon!

Bubbling with Excitement

Three hours of work and a trail of recycling in our wake, and we've nearly got the room ready for our little guy. Hope you like his new dresser, reader (hope he likes it too!).

Also swung by Tricoter for some yarns and some ideas. If things go according to plan, this will soon be a hat:



And, on a more or less completely unrelated note, I heard about this on CHS the other day, and I think you need to see it.

A guy riding around our neighborhood on a bike delivering antique seltzer bottles full of sparkling water may sound a bit like a Portlandia sketch, but I sure hope we can sign up soon!

Here's to An Amazing Year!

Let's be clear: 2011 was just about the coolest year ever. And I have high hopes for '12 too!

In the meantime, how about some fifth day of Christmas fun? The photo up above was taken with the cool fisheye iPhone lens that my mom got me.

Here's a photo taken from exactly the same spot with the normal lens:

Wild, huh?

Got some great SmartWool stuff from the Iwanski's, but the package was just as cool as the gift:


Meanwhile, Mimi is keeping warm in this handsome hat:


And I went for a run. Here's a map:

Okay, reader, we've got a few things to take care of, and then we're off for a mini vacation hiking and snowshoeing in one of my very favorite places: Olympic National Park!

Happy New Year!

Marmots Monitored!

Look at that thing! Who wouldn't want to spend four days on a mountain pass looking for more like him?

Our marmot monitoring started with a day of training, led by Patti Happe and Sue Griffin. Did you know that when marmots hibernate their heart rate slows to like 3 beats per minute? Wild. What else? Oh, how about this: when they sun themselves, they're actually trying to cool down, since they have so much natural insulation...

After the indoor training, Sue showed us around Hurricane Hill, where marmots and their burrows were almost too easy to spot.



And then we were off: after a night of camping near Lake Crescent, we headed for the Appleton Pass Trail, via Sol Duc. In case you don't follow that link, let me quote the key word there: "strenuous." 7.4 miles and an elevation gain of 3100 feet—serious stuff, especially with three days of supplies on our backs.

Fortunately, the hike went well. (Feel free to read my trail report on the Washington Trails Association site.)

The hike went well, and the scenery is amazing.

Junction of the Sol Duc River Trail and the Appleton Pass Trail:


By the way, I know this is a long post, so I'm leaving out some of our photos. If you want more, there's a set on Flickr.

Luckily we got an early start, so I had plenty of time to catch my breath on the Appleton trail proper, where you gain about 2000 feet in about two and half miles...


Trail's mostly snow free, but not entirely:

We even got to practice our "route-finding skills"—exciting!

Worth it, though, to camp in a place like this:

Oyster Lake.
(Can you tell that the snow is melting later than usual this year?)

Here's a view of the campsite and Mt. Appleton from a nearby ridge:


Can you spot our campsite? How about here:


So where were we exactly? Well, I posted the map from the Park Service over on Flickr, and I've used their data to create this interactive Google Map, complete with the units that we actually managed to survey and pins marking our campsite and the marmot we spotted:

View Marmot Monitoring: Appleton Pass in a larger map

Here's another interactive map, found at the Hurricane Ridge visitors center:

I'm also hoping to get the GPS log of our surveying, so keep your fingers crossed!

In any case, not many people make it up there, that's for sure.

On Friday we saw four people, a persistent family of deer who visited our campsite daily in search of—ahem—salty patches on the ground, and one bear (from a distance, thankfully).

Saturday, we saw another bear (or was it the same one?)—it was much closer, maybe only 50 yards away, but it starting running away from us before we'd even noticed it. We didn't see a single person Saturday, but we did, at long last, spot a marmot!

No photo of the Appleton Pass marmot, alas, but here's the occupied burrow:


And the bear, from a safe distance:


We kept at the surveying, on foot and with field glasses.


Did some nice day hikes, though a lot of the trails involved snowy patches.

Not sure it shows up on the blog-size photo, but see how that switchback just disappears into the snow after a while? Exciting!

Nice summer colors, though, in spite of it all:


But if you're wondering why we didn't see more marmots or completely survey all of our units, the answer can be summed up by the phrase that we repeatedly wrote on our data sheets, which is also the title I gave this photo:

Snow cover; steep slope.

And for the record: even after three full days, hiking off trail never stopped feeling scandalous :)

But did I mention that we had a beautiful campsite? Here's our breakfast nook:


And maybe my favorite photo from the trip, taken by Emily:


Finally, beyond all expectations, check out the awesome shirts they gave us:

Love it! And just wait until you see the back!

Marmot Monitors Are We!

As you may have heard, our application to monitor marmots in Olympic National Park this summer was accepted!

I'd seen a story about the project in the Seattle Times the other day, and we just had to apply. I mean, hiking, camping, and marmot tallying? Who could resist?

Am I a little nervous about "navigating off-trail and working on steep slopes"? I am, yes.

But the training sounds cool. And did I mention the marmots? :)

Here's some info on marmots (and some adorable photos) from the National Park Service:
Olympic Marmot Ecology and Research
(Let me know if that document looks funny, by the way--trying some new tricks...)

Okay, reader. Check back in late August to see how it goes!

Sweet!

I know it's been a while, but I've been so busy having a great week (great month? year?)... Too much for one post, perhaps, but what the hell?

First Rodrigo came to visit. So cool to catch up, see some lovely sites, and enjoy some great film and food in Capitol Hill (okay, downtown too I guess).


Then like the day after he left I heard that the Classical Quarterly accepted my essay on Plato's Symposium for publication!

I've been working on it (and talking about it) for a while, and it's a great feeling to know it'll end up in a good place.

I also celebrated a birthday, and was given the excellent gift of dance lessons at the Century Ballroom. Can't wait!

Among other good gifts was this play in yesterday's Kansas game. Beautiful:


Part of what makes the first weekend of the tournament so cool, of course, is that there are like four games at a time all day long for like four days. So much fun to be had!

Emily's facebook caption: "It is technically possible to watch every game at once but there is a problem of diminishing returns. Still pretty cool."

And me? A very cool week. Cheers, reader.

Rain, Forest

Fall, summer, and now winter: just one season to go and we'll have seen the Olympic Peninsula in all it's beautiful variety.

Amazing waterfalls around Lake Quinault this time of year:

See me up on that bridge? Maybe try the larger version.

Rained pretty much all the time, even on Hurricane Ridge, way over on the other side of the park.

Still some pretty good snowshoeing, though:


And is this really the World's Largest Western Red Cedar?

Definitely big, that's for sure.

May have seen better days...

Still a nice little hike on the north side of Lake Quinault.


Finally, here's one of those photos that could just never capture the thing itself, but makes for a nice reminder nevertheless:

Which reminds me: thanks for reading! Have a great weekend!