Christmas 2024

 

Seattle Christmas Market

Alia loves decorating for Christmas and helped Scott put up more Christmas lights outside this year.  

Our neighbor puts up so many Christmas lights, it's perfect for the dark, rainy season here.

We made a vanilla peppermint cake this year and Alia decorated it.

The recipe was from the Cake Bible and it was smooth and melted in your mouth.

Jingle Bell 5K on Vashon 

Christmas games

Playing a fun new card game from Grandpa and Grandma Davis

I did a puzzle advent calendar this year.  It was fun putting together a small piece each day.

Cross Country Season

It was a great cross country season for Alia this year.  She loved running with the team every day and competing on the weekends.  The girls Vashon team was easy to spot in their florescent pink uniforms.  The girls team received the award for the highest gpa in their district.

This year she was the turkey being chased by the elementary school kids.  It was fun remembering when she was little, chasing the high school kids and now she has graduated to the turkey.  

4th grade turkey trot

Halloween 2024

We had a very rainy year on Vashon this year but that didn't stop the community from coming uptown to celebrate.  

Avery 3d printed teeth for Alia's pumpkin.

He decided he wanted to meet friends so he raided our dress up box.

Alvin and the chipmunks

Huntting's Haunted Forest and Corn Maze

 We traveled to Cinebar WA again this year to do the haunted forest and corn maze.  This year was extra spooky in both the maze and the forest.  The maze's corn grew really tall and there was no light from the moon so it was extra dark feeling in there.  We also got lost and spent over an hour trying to get out.  The design kept us in one area and we didn't realize it until later.  

As you can see from my garmin we were lost in the word "Heaven" as there was only one way out once you entered the letters.  We walked almost two miles back and forth in the same area.

We went in the next day in the light and were able to find our way and cover most of the maze, finding the tracks.

It was so tall this year!

We went into the haunted forest during the day this year to appreciate all of the work they put into it.  There were so many cool things you definitely miss in the dark because you are waiting for the jump scare from the actors.  They also had more strobe lights and fog this year so you couldn't see what was around you.

This was my favorite set up.

Statues like this look like the actors when it's so dark so you don't know what is real and what isn't until one of the actors jumps out at you or creepily follows you in the dark.  

We camped on the lake at Ike Kinswa State Park.  It was a pretty campground.

The trip isn't complete until you enjoy an elephant ear.

So many pumpkins

Discovering a whale

 Back in April my friend Jiji and I were running the beach loop from my house to Kvi and back.  The tide was out quite a ways that day and we saw something shiny off in the distance.  It looked like a giant piece of metal so we ran up to investigate.  We discovered a 30 foot juvenile gray whale that had recently died. I contacted the Orca Whale network and they contacted Vashon Nature Center.  After special permissions were granted, since the whale is protected, the Nature Center decided it would be great to collect the bones and put them on display for all to enjoy through the years.  I signed up to be a whale ambassador and was able to do weekly checks on the whale making sure bones were tied off to the tree so other animals could feast and the bones could naturally bleach in the sun.  It took from April until September for the bones to be mostly stripped and able to be moved for further cleaning.  The high school students will spend the next year reassembling the whale to hang in Vashon Center for the Arts.  While it was really sad to see it dead, it has been an interesting process watching the whale decompose and to see all of the wildlife flourishing because of it.  Trail cams caught coyotes, fish, and birds all enjoying a meal.  My swim just down the shore has also seen drastic changes in the underwater life.  There are so many more sea stars and anemones now.  

He has been given a name, Singer.  After tests were done it was determined that he starved.  When whales end up in the sound they often get lost.  

Singer leaving the beach

That skull weighs around 300 lbs.

Washing the baleen

Whale ambassador team