Simpsons in Seattle

We picked up our finished creations from the glass blowing class we took a few weeks ago and I think they came out great! Can you tell who made which one? Nora's sunset pumpkin, May's bluebird and Evie's snow pumpkin.  

The other weekend, Scott arranged for us to get a private tour of the Salmon hatchery on Orcas Island. It's surprising that we've been going to Orcas for over 10 years now and never noticed this place before!  The tour started down by the waters along Eastsound where Mike, the facilities manager, showed us where the Salmon come in from the ocean ever year. There is a fish ladder down there and a little dock that lets them catch the spawning salmon and they can quickly fertilize the eggs. Then we drove up to the main hatchery where he walked us through where the eggs incubate until they are little hatchlings before being moved to larger swimming pools.  It was an interesting little tour to learn all about the life of the salmon. This hatchery focuses on Chinook (King) salmon, and out of the 800,000 baby salmon they release back to the water, about 800-900 come back to spawn. The rest are eaten up by whales in the Pacific ocean or caught by commercial fisherman out in the open wa

Halloween this year was the quietest one we've had in 13 years! This was the first one we had without the girls! Both of them went to friends houses and left Scott and I to man the door. It was very quiet at home because the doorbell rang only 4x the entire night, but at least both girls said they had a lot of fun despite it being rainy and dreary out. Thankfully, they have finally learned to not trust Seattle weather in October and chose warm(ish) costumes!  

Over the weekend we popped into the free Apple Tasting and Cider Making at the Orcas Island Historical Museum and it was amazing! There had to have been 30+ varieties and all of them can be found locally on the island. We had a lot of fun sampling away, tasting new varieties that I've never even heard of like Albermarle Pippin or Kennebec or early Fuji or Ashmael Kernel. I hope they do this again next year. Who wants to go with us? 

Cross country season is over, and Evie qualified for the Issaquah middle school finals this year! We are super proud of her for sticking with it even though she doesn't love running. The coaches emphasize improving your stamina and time over the season and beating your own record vs winning the race. She's proud to say she got her personal best at the finals yesterday when they ran at Lake Sammamish State Park. Woohoo! Also, in case you are wondering after watching the video, there were 114 girls from 6 different middle schools racing in the 7/8 girls race! Evie placed in 35th place, 2.04 min behind 1st place and about 9 min ahead of the final runner.

Evie made me a cute little jewelry tray for Mothers Day back in kindergarten and I've been using it to put little knicknacks like hair ties. I don't know what material it was made out of but it's been slowly crumbling away until Scott finally got fed up with the mess and threw it in the trash. Before he did though, we took a photo of her old hand compared to now. Look how little she used to be! sniff sniff.  

Yesterday we finally did a very Seattle activity and did a glass blowing class! This was a belated gift for Margie that we finally got scheduled and we had a great time. It was just us ladies (Margie, me, Evie and Nora) and we each picked one item to create. The instructor, David at Blowing Sands Glassworks Studio, was super patient and worked individually with each of us to make our glass piece. Margie, Evie and Nora all made pumpkins and I made a bird. Here's are some pics of the various stages of how to make each glass piece. We will pick them up in a few weeks and I can't wait to see how they turn out!  Starting the piece with getting some molten glass. After shaping the glass a bit and blowing a bubble, you have to shape the glass even further using these wooden scoops. Next you coat the hot glass with colored glass shards. Here is Evie at the end using a pump to blow air into the glass to make the round shape. This is me pinching the hot glass to shape the bird's beak

Just 2 weeks ago I was in the beautiful town of Banff enjoying girl time with my cousins and taking in the picturesque landscape and now I'm holed up in front of my computer doing work. Oh how I wish I could go back! This was my second trip to Banff (first time was back in 2019 on a roadtrip with the family ) and I got to check out other parts of this beautiful National Park while laughing it up with these girls to celebrate Frances' big birthday..  We all met up at Calgary airport on Friday morning and after a quick lunch at Calan Noodles for hand-made beef noodle soup (yum!), we hopped in our rental car and drove the 90 minutes to Banff. I was surprised and impressed at how easy the drive was - even easier than driving to Whistler because of the wide and well maintained freeway.  That first afternoon in Banff we walked around town and did some shopping before making our way to Brazen, a bistro serving "Modern Canadian" fare. What's Modern Canadian you ask? We di

Another weekend, another hike! This time, we went to Mirror Lake, a roughly 5mi r/t hike up in Snoqualmie pass. The girls weren't super excited to go especially because we weren't prepared for the rain that was up there! At least it was just a bit drizzly here and there, and cleared after a few hours. The hike itself was gorgeous and passed by another lake first and meets up with the PCT for a bit as well. We didn't see very many folks on the trail at all, so it was a nice quiet hike. Wet hike! Scott was the only one prepared for rain. Bushwaking for parts of the trail Cottonwood Lake The lake peaking through the trees We found a few spots near the lake to hang out and eat lunch While Scott fished (of course!) more rain coming down We went a little pass Mirror Lake and came across this gorgeous view of the valley. We were at the top of this waterfall. PCT! On the way back, the skies cleared and we got to see how Mirror Lake got its name. Pretty emerald waters!