Simpsons in Seattle

I was on a video call the other day when this spider dropped down from the ceiling right onto my screen! I nearly had a heart attack! Good thing I was on mute! It was very skinny, but very big!

Nora's ears are officially pierced! She was quite the trooper - she shut her eyes super tight and since they did they both at the same time, it was over and done with very quickly. And, here's the old post of when Evie got her ears pierced .

Rainier was tiring, and the view was bad, so the only thing that made it worth it was the berries. -Evie  But Mom disagrees. I think Saturday had gorgeous views - we picked a new-to-us hike to kick start the weekend and tried out the Snow and Bench Lake trail. It was actually only about 2.5 miles roundtrip, so really not that far at all! And, since this trail was off of the main peak, our views were OF the Mt Tahoma, which was very beautiful! Take a look! Btw, all of these are untouched photos! #nofilter! Bench lake with Rainier in the background. The water was soooo still. Snow lake is a filled with glacial water There's 2 campsites you can backpack in to, and this is where we stopped to have a picnic lunch. Pretty, right? The fall colors were just beginning to showl. Quick stop at Reflection Lake That evening, we did a night hike and I tried to take pictures as the sun began to set. We spent the night at the Paradise Lodge, which is the historic inn at the top of Paradise and was

I can't believe the day finally came!  The girls are back at school full time, in person! They haven't been in school since March of last year and they were SO EXCITED to go back. They did not want me waiting with them or walking to the school entrance; they insisted I drop them off at before school care and truthfully, the new set up on check-in was not super clear to me so pretty much the girls walked away without even saying bye. I tapped on the classroom window to wave but they didn't hear me, they were too excited saying hi to their friends. I was sad. They started last Tuesday, and so far, so good. Evie has Mr Merrill, the only boy teacher in the entire school, but she seems pretty happy so far with how things are going. Nora got a new-to-us teacher named Mrs Porter, and also seems to be doing fine.  The COVID protocols are pretty baffling to me - I sincerely don't understand why folks are upset that we want kids to mask up. We had a bit of a scare when Nora came

We did our last camping trip of the season at Deception Pass last weekend and it did not disappoint! It's one of our favorite camping spots for a few reasons - the campsites are pretty private and shaded, the beach is just a few minutes walk away, lots of (kid-friendly) hiking trails nearby, and since it's at the top of Whidbey Island, you're pretty close to civilization if you need to get something.  We went with our pals Alisa and Alina and their parents Mei and Joe. We've known them since the kids were little, when Nora and Alisa became best buds in pre-school. The girls now all go to the same school (albeit they are all in different grades!) so it was fun to all celebrate the last weekend before school started together.  We did lots of beach time and a couple of hikes. We were surprised to see how many fisherman were fishing from the beach and saw three big Salmon get caught! The beaches had lots of really big driftwood that other folks had rearranged into forts and