The Book of 2013

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Grandparents, your printed books will be available soon! For everyone else, here's a digital version of our book of 2013 adventures. Happy New Year!

Guemes Beach Day

We got to spend a day with Grandma Debbie, Poppi, and Chloe at Guemes Island.  It was a beautiful day and the kids had a great time turning over rocks to find crabs, picking up shells and pretty rocks, and playing together all day.  

Lunch break - it felt good to rest on a log for a while after a long walk down the beach.

 Chloe even found a pet slug!  This kid will pick up and make a pet of ANY critter she can catch.

Science!  We brought Conan's little microscope and bug viewer/magnifier and the kids had a great time finding stuff from the beach to examine up close, and to show off to Poppi.

Whoa, another crab!  Every rock has something neat under it.  They didn't quite turn over EVERY rock on the beach, but they did a pretty thorough job of it - right up until the (predictable) smashed finger incident.

It was a great day.

Lake Sylvia Camping Trip

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Assorted Pictures

New Spidey shirt!

Watering. (Because it's real dry here this time of year.)

A boy and his kitties.

Helping the gnomes.

Chloe takes her color-by-number turtle very seriously.

Two Mapes brothers

Three Mapes brothers

Conan is 4!

We had a party on Saturday with lots of friends and family.  I can hardly believe it's been four years already!




 The party featured balloons, party hats & favors, a cake decorated with toy cars and a monster truck (Conan picked the design himself), a game of pin the tail on the donkey, temporary tattoos for everyone, face painting (which turned into finger painting because we forgot the paintbrushes - not that the kids seemed to care), photos with a fun circus-themed cutout (painted by my talented cousin Heather), punch with dinosaur ice cubes, and of course, presents!

 We held the party at the Fairhaven Park Pavillion, which is a multi-use public building right by the playground. Unfortunately, it was a very cold, stormy day with too much wind and rain for playing outside. The kids had lots of fun running around inside, bopping each other in the heads with balloons and generally having a grand time playing together.

 All in all, it was a fun smorgasboard of awesome stuff. Theme parties are for babies, right?  No-one can deny that Conan is a big boy now!

Thanksgiving 2012

We hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house this year.  Conan was very excited to have ALL his grandmas and grandpas and GG and cousin Chloe and Uncle Jon and Uncle Brian and Abby and Nikki come over for a party.

 

A few years back I got a dinosaur muffin pan.  Turns out, dinosaur ice cubes for the punch bowl are even better than dinosaur shaped muffins.  They were a hit with all ages. I may never make muffins in it again!

 

Mom and GG had come over and helped with two days of cooking, and everyone else brought dishes to contribute as well. We had a great feast.

The menu included:
Turkey (salted and roasted in a traditional style - delicious)
Stuffing (with bacon and turkey drippings)
Grandpa Dave's vegetarian stuffing
Turkey gravy
Brian's Vegetarian gravy
Cranberry sauce (with lemon, rosemary and pears)
Oven-fried Red Snapper
Butternut Squash with browned butter & thyme
Parsnips with Pears, Apples, rosemary & Maple syrup
Mom's Homemade Rolls
GG's Apple Sauce
Abby's Roasted Sweet Potatoes (or are they Yams?)
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Anita's Macaroni salad
Nikki's Potato salad

 

And that's not even counting the 6 pies we had for dessert.  It was truly a feast.  Everyone had a great time, it was a great group of people to be thankful with.

 

After dinner and dessert, the kids changed into their PJs for a 'jama party and stick dragon rides.

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

Cousins

This past weekend we went to Plain for a going-away party for Chloe and Nadege. They will be moving to France at the end of this week. I'm really glad we got to spend a little time with them before they go. Conan loved getting to play with his cousins Chloe and Odessa and holding baby Marco.

Mt Baker Berry Picking

This past week I took a day off work and went up to Mt. Baker with Mom, GG, Uncle Fred and Debbie to pick berries. It was a gorgeous day for it. The berries were small, and somewhat patchy, so we didn't get the volume we were hoping for, but they are so tasty it hardly matters.

 

 

 

The star attraction on these high-alpine berry expeditions are the wild, low-bush wild blueberries that mingle with the heather to form a 6-8" high ground cover in the meadows. These mountain slopes also feature an array of huckleberries, standard (not low bush) blueberries, salmonberrries, and even a few thimbleberries tucked into sheltered creek beds. All of these are tasty, but none compare with the low-bush blueberries.

 

In case you've ever wondered the difference between Huckleberries and Blueberries, the simplest way to tell is the position of the berries on the plant. Huckleberries (bottom) hold their berries up proudly, above the leaves. Blueberries (top) hide demurely below their leaves. The leaves are also somewhat different; Huckleberry leaves are pointed at the end while blueberries are rounded. Blueberries are also usually blue-er, and huckleberries are generally more purple-black, but color is not always a reliable indicator of which is which.

Labor Day Weekend in Plain

Whew, we've been busy! Here's to trying to catch up to our summer on the blog. Labor Day weekend we went to Plain to visit my parents. We had a lovely time.

 

The first thing we did was "hike" along the irrigation ditch to watch Poppy bale hay at the Old Pobst Place, which is the farm my Great Grandpa Otho Pobst originally homesteaded on. It's been subdivided and there are some new houses up there. A nice couple from Alaska live in the original house and are farming the attached hayfields and keeping their horses in the barn. It's nice to see the place looking so well cared-for.

 

Mom and I watched from a convenient haybale.

 

Poppy rigged a little seat especially for Conan to ride on the tractor with him. It's pretty neat to think that he participated in farming the land that was once his great-great grandfather's.

 

Fishing was another big attraction. Conan has been working on casting this summer and was really excited to show Poppy how far he could cast.

 

Poppy restrung his reel and tied on a real lure (with an actual hook) and then he was really off to the races.

 

Cary, Poppy and Conan took the boat up to Fish Lake for some guy fishing & bonding. Cary caught his first two fish ever. I'm told the other one was much, MUCH bigger.

 

So big, in fact, they completely forgot to take any pictures of it.

 

Another highlight of the trip was finding a large toad in the garden. Both Conan and Chloe got to hold it. The toad took his new fan club in stride, but was glad to go back to his quiet life in the cucumber vines after a few minutes in the spotlight.

 

It was a great visit - hopefully we'll get back over again before too much longer.