Meet Cosmos, Luna's little brother

We adopted Cosmos from Little Dog Rescue in Seattle. It's a great rescue organization that rescues small dogs from puppy mills. Cosmos came from the USDA auction in Missouri. We are not sure of his breed, the rescue guessed Bichon. He was born April 5th. He is a curious puppy with so much energy. 

 

Wisconsin with family

Luna's first plane ride. She did well but didn't like the loud take off and landing.

Grandpa Dan and Gaven's son Lux

It is great that Austin is living in Wisconsin again so we could spend time with him.

Wunderlin family picnic

Avery's in this picture too. See if you can find him.

We spent the night in Chicago so we could spend time with Irene and Sarah's families. The girls loved walking Luna around.





 

Summer is off to a great start

 Our water taxi or foot ferry from Vashon to Seattle finally has weekend service and we have taken advantage of it. It's fantastic to walk on the ferry on Vashon and end up in the Seattle waterfront. We have enjoyed many trips this summer exploring and shopping at Pike's Place. We also loved all the tourists that have visited because Seattle was one of the host cities for the world cup.

Singer has made it to the Vashon Center for the Arts. So many people collaborated for over 2 years to finally have him displayed. His tail moves which gives the appearance that he is swimming again. From sea to sky, Singer has continued to teach us all the importance of community and caring for the planet. His story continues to highlight how connected we all are and our commitment to make choices in our daily lives to ensure gray whales are still swimming in our oceans for another 100 years.

Grandpa and Grandma Davis got to visit us in our new home and we took them on one of our favorite hikes from the trail by the house and up the hill to Maury Island Marine park. Here we are waiting for the tide to go back down so we can get around a seawall.

We had to put logs down to keep our feet dry. This was an 8 foot tide.

This is what a 12 foot tide looks like. Scott and I had a fun adventure walking through waist deep water on an evening hike.

I had these t-shirts made for Christmas. 

We were able to take the boat out to Blake island again for camping. This year Avery's girlfriend, Chloe, Korean name Naheun was able to join us. She is visiting for a few weeks this summer. Avery will spend the end of his summer vising her family in Korea.

We also took the boat out on July 4th and camped in Quartermaster Harbor on Vashon. We were close to the barge that set the fireworks off. It was definitely the best fireworks viewing I've ever seen.

Avery, Naheun and Alia did the deaf, blind, mute baking challenge. Naheun wore noise canceling headphones, Avery was blindfolded and Alia taped her mouth shut. Naheun had to give Avery directions that she got from Alia's miming. It was comical to watch as they struggled to communicate. I was shocked Avery didn't break anything.

They forgot to tell him to use a spoon.

They made a tasty pistachio cake with cream cheese frosting.

Happy 20th Avery!! He asked for his ice cream cake again.

From Fir Ridge to Gold Beach

 We have been busy the last few months closing on one house and moving to another on Vashon. We spent 12 years in the forest under the fir trees and we were ready for a change. While we will miss the memories of the house on the ridge, we won't miss the dark, wet days. Even on sunny days the sun would stop at the end of the driveway and we would look out at the sunny cul da sac, wishing the sun would come a little further into the yard. We started seriously looking for the right house around 2021. The market here is tight and competitive so we were often outbid on escalation clauses and the houses always had some major flaw that just wouldn't work for us. At the end of February the perfect house hit the market in a neighborhood called Gold Beach. The weekend the house hit the market, it was dreary and cold and only a few people came to the open house. The house also needs cosmetic updates which many people don't want to deal with. The combination of these two things allowed us to come in below asking and get the house. We were able to get our current house ready in a month and list it. The house hit the market on a Thursday afternoon, had 2 parties go through on Friday morning and both parties put in offers and escalated it. We ended up getting $665,000 for it which was a fair price with all of our updates we did over the years. I will miss my Henry mural, close access to KVI and the neighbors but I am happy to be in the sun, enjoying the water view.