Christmas at Home

We spent Christmas Eve making gingerbread houses with friends.  It was so much fun to see all of the different creations the kids created.

Alia used a green circle for a wreath, a candy cane for the door and andes mints on the roof.


There's a lot of snow on Avery's roof!


That looks tasty!


We went back to Angie's Christmas tree farm on Vashon and cut our tree down again this year. This was the first year we had a fir. 


This year Venus tried to pull the branches off of the tree.  Luckily each time I caught her and was home.  My only guess was there are a lot of fir trees in our yard and lots of branches fall down in wind storms.  Avery and Venus always play tug o war with the branches in the yard and Venus wanted to continue the fun inside. 


I made my first real wreath this year with friends. 


Santa came to visit the kids.


So did his elves Happy and.....


Goofy

She asked Santa for a stuffed Santa this year.  She was very excited when she got it.

Avery got dye-free gum balls for his gumball machine from Santa. Venus is helping open the gifts.  Every Christmas she can be found in every picture trying to see if the gift has food in it.  This year she even went so far as to start ripping the packages open.


We had snow for a few hours a few weeks ago and the kids raced outside to build a snowman before Wilderness.  The temperatures have been so cold lately that it took the snowman 3 weeks to melt.

Deception Pass

This year my friend Sacha and I signed up to run our very first ultra trail race.  We signed up for the 25K at Deception Pass State Park in Washington.  It was a beautiful trail race that took advantage of the amazing views that the park as to offer.
 

 
See the bridge in the background?  We started where we are standing and ran over that bridge during the race.  It's a pretty amazing spot to run.

 
 All smiles even at the end!  This was a really fun race that I would love to run again.


 We made it!  Sacha is an amazing friend and we had so much fun on this race.  I always love when she says, "I'm having a happy moment!"  when we run together. It is a great motivator to stop and look around and take it all in.


 Scott and the kids and Francois and Maarten drove up to cheer us on.  While they were waiting for us to finish the race they explored the park.

 

  

 

After the race, the sun came out and we even saw a rainbow.

 

 

 

The park has 850 year old Douglas Fir.  It was one of the most amazing trees I have ever seen!

Green Friday Hike

On Friday we took advantage of the nice weather and decided to go for a hike.  Maury Island Marine park is one of our favorite hikes on Vashon and it never disappoints. 

 Tilly was enjoying an amazing view

 This location used to be a gravel pit.  They transported the gravel out to the boats using this structure.  It is still intact even though it hasn't been used for years.  It's a fun jungle gym for anyone that can find it's location on the island.

What a great group!

Happy Halloween!

First Day of 2nd and 4th Grade

Fall Pictures 2016

Here are the annual Fall Pictures.  The first sets are them being silly and fun and the last few pictures are the final pictures.

 Why not throw a pine cone at the photographer?

 This is how he really felt taking a picture with his sister!

 She loves being a ham

 Alia age 7 years 6 months- 2nd Grade

 Avery age 10 years- 4th Grade

We decided to include the dogs in a picture this year.  Venus is 13 years old and Maia is 5, almost 6.