NOVEMBER - Charlotte and Edison swimming

After loving summer swim team, Charlotte and Edison have joined Cascade, a year round swim team. They just had their first meet and looked great in the pool! Meanwhile, I served my hours by staging the eight-and-unders so they would make their races. Quite an experience for all! They are both swimming in lane 1 for these videos (closest to viewer).

Halloween!

The kids finally got to carve their pumpkins on Sunday morning! Reed was really excited that the boys did it with no shirts on. Eben was enlisted to punch through the massive walls of Edison's white pumpkin and turn it into a storm trooper.

 

 

 

Tuesday was Halloween and we got all dressed up. Edison was Ash, the Pokemon Trainer and Reed was his trusty sidekick, Pikachu. Meanwhile, Charlotte was a snappy cheetah and I got to wear a Star Trek suit from Sara.

  

We had a festive open house at Razi and Stephen's after school, followed by trick or treating in the neighborhood. The kids had so much fun! (We did, too!)

 

P.S. Reed is loving preschool, choosing challenging work, and enjoys being a leader in his class this year.

Eben's Birthday / Family Fall Birthdays / 80s Book Club

We celebrated Eben's birthday before school with presents and breakfast at Leena's Cafe. Then my dad babysat the kids and enabled us to go out to Woodinville for wine tasting and a fancy dinner.

 That weekend, we had a beautiful day to spend with the family and recognize our fall birthdays: Eben, Bonnie, Evie, and Karen. It was remarkable to be outside on such a lovely fall afternoon in late October.

 Our book club read "Ready Player One" this month. In honor of its 80s themes, we dressed up. It was super fun to see everyone in their 80s garb and hair styles! Plus the book was a great read, too!

 With Tiffany!

Charlotte twinning with Margaret and the doll.

Pumpkin Patch Time

It was pumpkin patch time again this weekend. We went out to Snohomish on a glorious fall Sunday morning and set out to find just the right pumpkins to bring home. Mission accomplished and we drank in the stunning beauty of the day and a flourishing farm. Kind of hard to believe all of these plants and pumpkins started from seeds this spring!

 

 Next year Edison might hit five feet. Now, that is scary!

OCTOBER - Football, Cheer Camp, and Wood!

Edison has been playing flag football this fall. Eben is helping coach the team. Edison is getting a chance to put all of his skills to the test and have some real-game practices each week which he enjoys.

 

 

Team sportsman of the week!

Meanwhile, Charlotte is honing her cheerleading skills at the Little Scotties cheer camp before the Friday Shorecrest game. She had a blast!

 

 

On Eben's "to do" list for the cabin was to drop three dead trees and get them split so they could start drying. He spent several days at it, but finally got them all cut up and stacked up near the house. We have enough wood for three winters I think and Eben got it off the list!

 

The pay off was a great fire Saturday night!

 

 This time of year is spectacularly beautiful up in Plain. There is a fresh dusting of snow on the mountains and this sunrise pink light hit them and just set them aglow.

 Reed was excited to receive a belated birthday present from Floyd and Kathie - a great activity book and board game set. Yay! Thank you!

Cascade High School Class of '97 - 20 Year Reunion

You never think it is going to happen to you - until it happens to you. We celebrated our 20-year high school reunion this weekend at McMennamins in Bothell. It was actually pretty great to see this fine group of people and get reacquainted with a number of them. Definitely way more fun than the 10-year and I think I'll actually look forward to the next one with excitement and not trepidation.

 So great to see Clare again!

 So glad Kim was there and we could talk each other into going!

 Rocking the 90s style.

Over the Ridge - Exploring Entiat Valley

We spent a beautiful fall Saturday driving around the back country last weekend. We drove up and over the ridge between the valley where Plain lies and Entiat valley to the northeast of us. It was about 20 miles of dirt road to get there. Entiat River is beautiful has some really cool waterfalls and bridges. We went on a little hike around Silver Falls which was really neat and very well maintained. We had hoped to go an additional ridge over, to Lake Chelan, but didn't have time on this trip. So - another day!

 Entiat River has a sturdy bridge over it at this trailhead and this was our lunch spot for the day.

 This is Box Canyon a little upriver - the Entiat River has carved this canyon out of the granite over thousands of years.

 This is Silver Falls that feeds into the Entiat River. There is a great loop hike that goes around and up and over the falls.

 On our way back we drove to Sugarloaf Look Out at the crest of the ridge. They still have volunteers who live and sleep in there as fire look outs each summer.

 From the look out you can see all the way to Lake Wenatchee to the northwest and great views in all directions. It was a little eerie to be surrounded by a ghost forest.