Yearly Pictures 2024

Senior age 18 

 

Sophomore age 15

First day of school 2024-2025

 

Avery's final first day of high school.  He's doing Running start again this year for his senior year at Tacoma Community College.  For his first quarter he is commuting in every day for calculus and upper level physics.  He also has an online drawing class.

Alia's first day of sophomore year at SAMI.  The commute is going well so far with ferries running.  They aren't always on time but at least they are running.  

Exploring Blake Island

After a decade of looking at Blake Island from Vashon and wanting to visit the island, we finally made it there this weekend.  The first night we had to tie up to a buoy because there wasn't room at the dock.  It was a fairly calm night and we rocked from side to side until about 3 am when we were tossed around from a giant rogue wave.  We lost a few things overboard like a small table and learned the importance of tying everything down.  

We didn't know how to tie to a buoy so Avery pulled up a YouTube video.  It was pretty straightforward.  

There were so many fun trails to hike.  We decided to hike the 3.5 mile trail around the island.  

There are so many raccoons there and they are known for stealing food from people's boats.  We watched as one raccoon stole an entire bag of chips.  In this photo a Mama was teaching her babies to check every boat after everyone headed to bed for the night.

Alia made homemade watermelon drinks.

It was fun sitting on the bow of the boat and looking over at Seattle at night.

We are getting better at docking but still have a lot to learn.

We had fun geocaching.  

A view from the beach of Vashon and Mt Rainier

Looking at a little mouse on the trail.

Blake Island was home to the Suquamish Tribe and oral tradition tells the stories of it being the birthplace of Chief Si'ahl (Seattle). The island is quiet and is now a State park.  There's only camping there so it feels serene and quiet.  

A large for Seattle storm rolled in and we watched it from the boat.  We rarely get lightening so it was a treat to watch, we were just glad there wasn't hail and high winds since we were in a boat.

Maia is oblivious to the movements of the boat but Luna is not.  She is not convinced that boating is fun.  We have been giving her sailing snacks to convince her.  It was a great first overnight trip and we are excited to explore more of the Puget Sound.
 

Meet Miss B' Haven

Living on an island accessible only by ferry has it's challenges from time to time.  In the last 10 years our ferry system has become increasingly unreliable.  Up until last year it didn't really bother us because both Scott and I work from home and the kids worked and went to school on island.  Last school year, that changed when both kids decided to go to high school in Tacoma, Avery doing Running Start at Tacoma Community College and Alia going to a public high school on zoo grounds called SAMI.  Last year was stressful always worrying whether the kids would be able to make it to school or be stranded in Tacoma so we needed a solution.  Housing prices in Tacoma are crazy and we looked for a year and couldn't find anything affordable to buy or rent.  This lead to thinking outside the box.  I wondered if we could buy a boat we could stay in since the marina is right next to the ferry and Alia's school.  That wondering lead on a very long process of buying Miss B' Haven and the garage she is parked in at the Tacoma Yacht club.  We  took her out last weekend to enjoy the weather and celebrate our 23rd anniversary.