Had a great day

Leah had a nice birthday on Saturday. We all loaded up the car in our Sunday best and headed to Sears, I mean Toy's 'R' Us. Leah did some toy shopping, and after a full perusal of the goods, decided to get a guitar with her money. She came in right on budget - I think she'll be as shrewd a shopper as her mother. Note that the electric guitar is Leah's world favorite color - pink. The only way to improve this will be the addition of Hello Kitty stickers, which I'm sure are shortly to follow.

After a rough start to the day (I was grumpy, what can I say), I'm happy to report that all ended well. While Catherine and Nancy hosted a Pampered Chef get-together, I was entrusted with the kids. What was planned as a one hour soiré actually lasted much longer. Good thing the kids and I were having a blast in Olympia and came home late.

We made our way to the marinas in downtown Olympia. The sun was out, the mountains were out, plenty of people were out too! We walked out on a public dock to see the sights, turns out it was chock full of sea jellies/jellyfish. Temperature aside, today would not have been a pleasant swim.

Both Ian and Leah played very nice and posed for the camera a bunch of times. They got to have their fun too. They threw rocks into the Sound, built a fort out of rocks, explored for sea shells, and had fun trying not to get wet when the occasional baby wave came ashore.

Leah loves to ham for the camera. I didn't have to ask for this kiss at all. I love it when they give me free ammo.

This location should look pretty familiar - same spot as with our anniversary photos (and our Christmas card photos). I'll be back for sure, very photogenic!

Have a great day everybody!

Cheers,

Marc

Spirit Lake and Tolmie State Park

Just some more photos from Dan and Leesa's visit. The first photo is a panorama of Spirit Lake. Again, those logs are the trees that were blasted into the lake from the eruption in 1980 - what is left of an old growth forest. If you look close, just right of center, you can see Mt. Adams looming in the distance. At one time we were looking at Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Hood in the far distance.

Photoshop failed to make the panorama, so I found a great program - Hugin, made by the same folks that make Handbrake (puts your DVDs on hard drive). I'm not sure what is up with Photoshop, but this is not the first time it has failed to make the pano.

Ian or Leah took this photo below with my camera. It was Sunday afternoon, after Dan and I watched the Packers trounce St. Louis (undefeated!!).

And this is one that Dan was kind enough to take with my camera of our family. Good looking bunch, if I do say so myself.

Have a great day everybody. We sure did.

Cheers,

Marc

A short trip to Puget Sound

We tried to see "Kung Fu Panda: 2" today, but it was completely sold out. Fortunately there was a Target nearby, so we all walked around a bit before lunch. After lunch we made our way to Puget Sound a little north of Olympia - probably about 5-10 minutes from our new home - for some fresh air and exercise.

The kids had a great time at the water's edge splashing in the water, throwing stones, collecting sea shells, and finding crabs.

The sun made an appearance, so we stayed a bit longer than we originally planned, not that we had hard and fast plans. In fact, this wasn't the beach we were looking for, turns out that one was a private beach. On a random side-note, if you look at the photo above below, just above my head to photo left, you'll catch a glimpse of the Olympic mountains still shrouded in snow.

Both kids had a great time exploring the beach, while I think Catherine and I just treasured having space for the kids to roam away from the hotel room. We have two more (loooooooooonnnnng) weeks in the hotel before we can occupy the house we are renting, so we'll be looking for these opportunities as often as we can.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day today!

Marc