What we have here.

What we have here is a beautiful 8 month old baby with one tooth.

 

Marie is delighted with swinging, and squeals and laughs at whoever is pushing her.

She is very interested in solid food, and loves avocado, broccoli and bananas. She will drink anything out of a cup - so much fun! That includes water, kefir, sauerkraut juice, the water I defrosted her peas in - really anything, I think. And Joel declared yesterday we should not let her drink lettuce soup anymore because it comes out looking exactly like it went in.

Marie loves baths and swimming. She finished her first course of swim lessons. She loves to kick and splash in the water and doesn't mind water getting in her face at all. She can go under the water and hold her breath the whole time.

She loves being on the ground, and can get pretty much anywhere she wants to go. Which is inevitably directly to the nearest power cord, or tiny piece of old stale food that fell on the floor.

On Father's Day, we planted a Staghorn Sumac tree for Marie. The tree is now growing with the help of Marie's trusty old placenta, which was buried beneath the tree.  The tree will have beautiful colors in the fall, right around the time Marie was born.

And what we have here is a case of sibling envy. I do believe it is the classic case of the older child wanting to be the baby again, don't you agree?

Growth!

This is my garlic! I planted it in October and since the winter, I've been entering and leaving the house from the upstairs front door and haven't been in the backyard much, thus forgetting about the garlic, and neglecting the worm bin. Thank goodness both of those are pretty forgiving during the wintertime. Today I succumbed to the overflowing compost bin on the kitchen counter and finally brought it to the worms to work on. While out back, I ventured to the far back corner of the garden, only to be pleasantly surprised that this whole garlic-planting adventure works! Before planting, this area looked like wilderness, really overgrown like most of the backyard, and I had put a lot of work into making it plantable. When I went back today, there were only a few weeds which I pulled! I guess this mulch idea works too. :-)

We planted Susanville and Chesnock Red, and I'm fairly sure the garlic on the right, which is growing much better, is the Susanville. Should have written it down I guess.
In other events, this is Ginger purring away in Joel's arms.

Across Washington in the Winter

This post is for all our non-Washingtonian friends. Every time Heather and I drive across Washington between the Seattle and Spokane areas, we wish we could bring all our friends from other places to show them what our state is like. Of course, we assume you would all actually want to come. This time, as we were driving back from my parents' house in Newport to Seattle, I decided to photo-document the five-to-eight-hour, 320 mile drive. Imagine that you are riding along with Heather, Ginger, and me, as I drone on about each interesting landmark or geological feature. Please try not to fall asleep, as this will be very interesting and educational. After all, you're getting the condensed version!

Feel free to click on any images you find particularly pleasing to see them at a higher resolution.

We woke up in Newport to fresh snow, so Heather had to clear off the driveway with my parents' snowblower. She truly lives for this experience.

Newport is at about 2500 feet (762 meters) above sea level, and there are hills and coniferous trees. The drive from Newport to Spokane, south on Highway 2, takes about an hour.


We pass Diamond Lake, which is frozen over, and the building where my church used to meet, originally Rogers High School, and now for many years the Diamond Lake Grange.


Heather handles snow driving expertly, but some situations are more difficult than others (British friends: the 'lorry' you see in this picture is actually called a 'truck'. The second image features a 'snow plow').


We drive through Spokane, then out on Interstate 90, past the trees into the center of Washington.


The center, which includes such wonderful areas as the Columbia Basin (technically a much larger area), the Palouse, and the Channeled Scablands, is mostly flat with rolling hills or plateaus, and gets less precipitation than the western side of Washington, lying in the rain shadow of the Cascades.



The town of Moses Lake – the lake is also frozen over.


Next, we approach the mighty Columbia River, which flows down the middle of the state, then goes down to form the Oregon border. Driving down into the Columbia Gorge:


The Columbia Gorge is a very windy place, and a large wind farm was recently built on the west side, at Ryegrass.


The land gets a little more hilly, and we approach Ellensburg, the home of Central Washington University and about 600 fast food restaurants aimed at travelers halfway across the state (British friends: after returning from Glasgow, Heather and I had a very hard time remembering how to pronounce Ellensburg properly--hard 'g'!).


Hey!


Now we are starting to climb into the Cascade Range of mountains - to most Washingtonians, the border between Eastern and Western Washington (completely ignoring Central!). Not a very good day to photograph them, but I tried anyway.


Going over Snoqualmie Pass, traffic was reduced to one lane because of an overturned tanker truck. This added at least an hour to our trip, and we had to stop in the tunnel for a while.


Nighttime in the Cascades.


Then home to Seattle! Thanks for riding along. We'll do it again in the summer sometime, and give you a better look at the Cascades!

The early family Christmas

Promised photo of my mom's tree, up and decorated.My new niece, Maicie. What a cutie. She has stolen my mother's heart. Why didn't Ginger's entrance elicit so much fuss?
Look at that adorable little tail. I love the sausage body. Can't she stay this small forever? Oh wait, no, she's lab/german shepherd mix.
A portion of the beautiful Christmas present from Justin and Allison.

Ginger in front of our extremely realistic gas fireplace.