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.

Camping on Washington's Coast

Over Labor Day weekend we decided to finally explore the coast of Washington.  We drove to Kalaloch and Ruby Beach. The Washington coast is so varied and wild.  There are so many sea stacks jutting out of the ocean and many rocky cliffs.   

 The kids loved climbing in and out of the rocks when it was low tide.

 She kept rolling her eyes when I would ask to take a picture so I told her she didn't have to smile.  She responds with an excited, "Really?" and then gave me this face and pose.  Apparently I have been depriving her all this time with the expectation of a smile with a picture.

 You can get an idea of the area from this picture.  The rocks jutting out of the ocean were so big and in the far background you can see the piles of driftwood.  I have never seen so much driftwood piled up.

 It's really neat to time your visit just right to see all the ocean has to offer at low tide.

 We built a small dam and created a town down stream to watch it flood once we removed the dam.  Scott always did this as a kid on Lake Superior and was happy to help construct another dam and town.

 That is Abbey Island in the distance.  Most of that island is largely volcanic rock. It was really neat to see what volcanoes and glacial ice can do to an area.  The sea stacks were huge and made the coast look so wild.  The ocean seems less forgiving here than Florida.  

 There were so many flat stones all over the beach and the kids had fun building cairns.  They also loved climbing over and under the massive piles of driftwood on the beach. 

 He wanted to find the smallest rock he could to finish the cairn.

 We enjoyed camping at Minnie Peterson, one of Washington's many free campgrounds.  

Why eat the marshmallow when you can create a marshmallow man?

  Or burn a marshmallow tree. 

 

This was Salt Creek.  We decided to take a detour on the way home and explore more places. There were really cool tide pools here and the moss colors on the rock walls were so vibrant.  We missed low tide here and would love to come back to explore it another time.  It was windy and cold when we were there and the sun was just coming out.  The area reminded me of Split Rock on the north shore of Lake Superior.