Lake 22

Another weekend to take advantage of Seattle’s beautiful September weather.  Before the clouds, gray, and rain sets in for eight months, we’re soaking up every moment of sunny dry weather we can.

We hiked up to Lake 22 in the Mt Pilchuck wilderness this past weekend. (The fabulous idea of our friends Emmy and Garret)  That was after a lunch at the well-loved Seattle icon The Maltby Cafe.  We regretted not ordering a plate-sized cinnamon roll to go.  That sounds like a perfect snack beside a mountain lake…

The trail was not super long (5.4 miles round trip) or difficult, which made it perfect for fitting into a Sunday afternoon with limited daylight hours.  The un-original name Lake 22 comes from the fact the lake lies in section 22 of a Forest Service map.  The trail was through old-growth forest, old and mossy and full of streams and undergrowth.

It was late in the afternoon when we made it to the lake, so the sun was no longer shining into the lake bowl.  But it was still gorgeous.

Ryan tried to fish, but his reel was messed up and kept tangling his line.

The obligatory group and couple photos:

Sorry to cut your adorable face off, Ryan. I really do love you.

Ryan: “Enough with the pictures, I’m trying to fish”

Heidelfest

Heidelfest is eagerly anticipated every year.  It is our church’s fall festival of food, games, music, pie contests, and Marketplace.  The Marketplace is a good bit of the reason we’re there.  All the women in our church put their crafty little fingers together and donate homemade goods ranging from jams to kettle corn to cute baby burp clothes.  The proceeds from the Marketplace go to CareNet.

There is also a bouncy house, a life sized Angry Birds game with giant slingshot, and plenty of other all-ages activities.  Even a speed-texting contest.  There were no teenagers in the final round on account of the rule “everything must be spelled, capitalized, and punctuated correctly”…

Ryan, Grace and I assisted our friends Stefan and Megan in the beer tent.  That’s really too limited of a term for our tent.   We mixed five gallon jugs of lemonade about every 25 minutes and filled water jugs almost as fast.  We  popped bushels of popcorn to put into sticky little hands.  We also distributed large boxes of soft pretzels and provided baby holding services.  Grace and I mostly stuck to the lemonade and popcorn and left Ryan and Stefan to serve up the local Georgetown Brewery’s draft-only favorites.

I entered a pie in the pie contest and donated a box of strawberry and raspberry jams to the Marketplace.  Ryan competed in the strongman competition. Every year “older-young men” are nominated and race in a series of fetes.  This year, the course was to fetch three pumpkins from across the playing field.  Then shoot two arrows at a target, for each missed arrow, you owe 12 push-ups.   It’s a favorite event as kids cheer for their dad and toddlers get in the way as they wonder why Dad is running away from them.

There’s nothing quite like chubby legs in leiderhosen

The menu was German themed food, sausages, grilled apples/onions/bacon, corn on the cob, and potato salad.

One of the Grillmasters

Wedding on a Train

One of my dearest friends from college was married this past month (Pretty hard to believe we all started school together EIGHT years ago).  We all got on an old train, and rumbled through California’s Redwoods, stopped on a bridge for the ceremony, and then continued on to a picnic site.  Plenty of relaxed time to hang out with the bride and groom, and enjoy the day.

The ride through the redwoods.  Couldn’t have been a more perfect day.  The train was slow enough for it to be pleasant on the outdoor car in the sunshine.

We’ve been married a year and a half already!

A happy and tired couple of people.

Icicle Creek and Eightmile

Be warned, you’re about to be inundated with pictures of Ryan’s Birthday Weekend.

We drove up to the Icicle Creek area just outside Leavenworth, WA, met up with some friends, and camped for the weekend.  It was in the 90’s during the day, and perfect weather for hiking and fishing and sitting around the campfire.

Ryan was pretty happy to be camping

Morning Coffee

We hiked up to Eight Mile.

Fishing…

A couple of us napped in the sun

Fishing some more…

One of Ryan’s fish

Hiking back down. We made the worst mistake and forgot a a couple of the water bottles in the car. So we were pretty eager to get back and gulp down about a quart of water per person.

Tired, dirty, Chaco-patterned feet

Filleted and cooking

Cooking fish is a stressful business

Baking potatoes in the fire. yum!

Dishes are so simple when it only involves a rinse and a wipe.

Morning faces and our cute little tent

Renting a boat to fish

And then we sat in stop and go traffic all the way back on Hwy 2.

There’s nothing like a shower after camping or dinner out for a birthday.

Happy Birthday, Ryan!!

Wenatchee for a Weekend

We ran off to Wenatchee for the weekend.  Partly to see friends and partly to recover from our crazy week.  It’s nice to leave town so there’s no possible way to attack the to-do list looming in your head.  Very irresponsible of us, I know.

Chilling by the Riverfront

Wenatchee was gorgeous, as usual.  It wasn’t as sunny as we were hoping, but it was mild!  We could walk outside without a sweatshirt and not be freezing.  Seattle hasn’t gotten the memo about it being almost July yet.  I’m still bundling in a scarf and raincoat to get to work.

Ryan is smirking because he’s drinking a milkshake

We went  to see good college friends of mine, and adore their toddler and admire the new baby bump.  Also to see my old Seattle roommate whose husband stole her off Wenatchee.  We spent the weekend in this pattern:  food, alcohol, relax/nap, coffee.  Ryan even got me to agree to a perusal of Home Depot, which is his favorite leisure activity.

A Sister’s Birthday

It is my sister’s 20th birthday today.  We celebrated a little early on Sunday afternoon.  This is the sister who a couple years ago de-moted me to the younger sister.  So even if I am 5 years older, she is the older sister.  Considering she is the more put together between us, it’s probably a good thing I don’t carry the title.

We kept it simple at the parents, and mom made a delicious devil’s food cake with espresso buttercream.

Ryan worked his magic at the grill.  Seriously, how did this man learn to grill so well?  It’s incredible.  His latest is perfectly grilled asparagus.

One of the few pictures of her actually smiling…

Grace and Dad

Bring on the cake.  (Grace is signing ‘please’ in baby sign language. She learned that habit from someone, not me.)

Cake!

Annnndd….a little after lunch baseball practice.  Three-man baseball game. I played shortstop/2nd base/third base/pitcher, depending on what Ryan yelled at me after he threw the ball.   Grace and I have about 2% baseball ability.   Ryan is really good.  Thankfully he is also very patient with two cake-sugar-hyper girls attempting to catch a ball.

Backyard BBQ

This last weekend, some friends that are away at grad school came up to visit so we could all oo and aa over a cute baby bump.  In honor of them making time for friends in the midst of family events, we got up a BBQ that did the best thing a party can do – grow from six folks to twenty.  So we threw on a few extra brats and cut up some more fruit.

Tasting the wine a recently honeymooning couple brought back from Hawaii.

Explaining how to help a wife with both pregnancy cravings and adversions

 Demolished cake

A very happy baby experiencing bare toes in the grass

Discussing the fire and how soon we can roast marshmallows

This kid wanted to roast a marshmallow, but thought the roasted part was un-tidy and picked it all off before she would eat it.