Christmas Fair at Fort Nisqually

We had a nice day out as a family yesterday. We drove to Tacoma up to Point Defiance Park to take in the "Hyas Sunday" Christmas Fair that is basically a re-enactment of a typical Christmas season from 1855. There is an old timber fort there with several cabins and a house inside the walls where settlers came.

The kids had a nice time exploring, playing with the old-timey toys, churning butter, and making ornaments. We found someone to take a nice photo of us as a family.

After that we made our way back to Joint Base Lewis McChord for a Christmas festival where Santa was making an appearance. Ian was sitting across from me while we ate lunch, so was made my photo target by default.

And Santa did finally show up. Leah and Ian were both very excited to see Santa.

Enjoy your day everybody - we plan on doing just that!

Marc

Veteran's Day Weekend

We've been enjoying a nice long weekend here in Washington. I had Thursday and Friday off from work, and did some sightseeing both days. Thursday was a (rare) beautiful blue-sky kind of day. I hadn't planned on making a trip to Mt. St. Helens, but since loads of snow was forecasted for the mountains starting Friday, I figured I'd head out for one last hurrah.

I went to the northeast side of the park. There is one road in that is closed in the winter, which I'm guessing closed literally the day after I was there. I made my way to the end of the road with some great views of Spirit Lake and Mt. St. Helens (not to mention the other volcanoes nearby - Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, and Mt. Rainier).

The whole point of this trip was to make my way to Norway Pass - which was going to involve some hiking, but only about 2-2.5 miles one way with less than 1000 ft. of elevation gain their. I was surprised by the snow, but wasn't completely unprepared. Luckily there was only about 6 inches at elevation. This shot below was taken only about 5-10 minutes up the trail from the parking lot looking west.

And here is the stunning Norway Pass. I'll definitely make my way back here come next summer - June or July by the time all the snow melts. It has phenomenal views of Mt. St. Helens towering over Spirit Lake looking south, and then turn around and look at Mt. Rainier to the north. I was pushing my luck as far as the timing goes. I waited until just a bit before sunset to take my photos, then I had to pack my gear up in a hurry and high-tail it out of their before it got too dark. Luckily it was mostly downhill the whole way, and I made good time.

Friday, since the kids had the day off from school, we made our way to Seattle for a bit of sightseeing. The Space Needle was high on our priority list, with Ian most keen to go there. The view was nice, the weather not so much. As part of the ticket to the top, they take your picture in front of a green screen and drop in this background. It wasn't like this at all on Friday!

After taking in the Space Needle, a museum, and then walking around a bit around the Seattle Center, we drove to Kerry Park. It has a beautiful overlook of the entire city, and if the weather cooperates, Mt. Rainer (I'm pretty sure the backdrop from the photo above was taken at Kerry Park). The weather wasn't cooperating, but it was still a beautiful view over both Seattle and Puget Sound.

Finally, my own obligatory panoramic-style photo of Seattle. This is another place I'll be coming back to in the future. Most likely next summer when the chances for clear skies are much more likely.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Veteran's Day! We did.

Cheers,

Marc

A quick trip home

Once again, it has been quite some time since me last blog post. I was going to try to post while on our vacation to see our families a couple of weeks ago - but we can all see just how well that went!

I finally have Lightroom support for my camera, so now I'll be working my way through those past couple of trips and posting those photos. For now, though, I figured I'd post just a couple of shots from our trip.

Don't expect too many of those - as I wasn't as diligent in taking photos as I'd hoped (or just wasn't happy with what I got). I think my brother Jeff took the camera for this one, I think it turned out very well.

Leah was the flower girl and we may have found her ideal job! She loved every second of it and did a great job. Ian handed out maps after the service, and from what I can tell, no one got lost. Both of them were just so happy to be a part of the service, had a great time, and did a pretty good job.

There was a picnic/gathering at our sister-in-law's parents' place the day after the wedding. As we drove up to it, I noticed the big front porch and the swing. I thought it'd be a great place for a photo of Ian and Leah. Of course, once their cousins showed up I had to get all four. Now I'm wishing I'd have thought of that at my father's place!

We spent a couple of days at my dad's place prior to the wedding. One of the days we went to the Columbus Zoo. They have all sorts of sculptures spread out around the place where kids can climb on the "animals". Leah stopped at EVERY one and asked me to take her picture. Every. One.

It was a hot day, but we managed to stay cool and explore a good bit of the zoo in the time that we had.

I'm relying on Catherine for photos from Miami. I didn't take my camera out much, or didn't like what I'd taken when I reviewed my photos in Lightroom. We had a great time there, of course. We enjoyed some Shorty's barbeque, fresh mangos and avocados (the biggest you've ever seen!!), family visits, and the beach. Unfortunately the beach didn't enjoy us. SPF 30 applied twice with only 2 hours in the sun left me with a decent sunburn. Who would've thought that 3 years in Germany and then a summer in Seattle would not have prepared my skin for the summer Miami sun?!? ;)

Have a wonderful day. Watch this space for more photos from our travels here in Washington.

Cheers,

Marc