This was a pretty eventful weekend for us. We hosted a keg party here and the next day went to a bluegrass house concert. The band was great. Good music, good energy, and the rain did not come for either event. It downpoured until about 15 minutes before our party. Go figure. 25 kids inside that whole time might have been a bit much.
The girls had a good time at the concert hanging out with their friend Ella and her little sister Mia.
Kayla’s last day of school was the school field day. It was of course raining and cold. They held the event outside anyhow and they made it for 2 hours. Once kids started shivering (the otter ice pops didn’t help) and the rain really started pouring down, the principal called it and kids headed back to school. They all seemed to have had fun anyhow. I manned the station where the kids would hold hands in a circle and have to pass the hula hoop around the circle without letting go of hands. It was pretty fun.
Last week the girls and I found out that the Olympic US Diving team trials were being held in Federal Way. We decided to go and see what it was like. We had a good time. The dives of course are quite amazing. The men went first with the 3m springboard. I didn’t know they did 6 rounds of dives. That took 2 hours as it was only semi-finals and there were 18 divers. We got to see only 1 round of the women’s 10m platform but that was super cool too. It was pretty exciting to be there with the judges, scoring, instant replays and cheering. Last time they were here was in 2000, so who knows where we’ll be next time. Keeping the girls up until 11pm was worth it.
We wanted to have a weekend at our cabin. Kayla ended up having a birthday party Saturday afternoon, so Tim went up Friday night and did a great job spreading out some gravel for the “driveway” area. Hopefully it’ll minimize any lake crossings if we get another wet driveway. Looks pretty good I think. The area by the cabin is super pretty this time of the year. It feels more private with all the leaves on the trees. We hung up the hammock for a bit and looked up at the treetops.
We had a lazy day Sunday at the cabin hanging out and doing a bit more work. We decided to go on a late afternoon walk at Deception falls. It is such a beautiful area of Northwest woods. Some super big trees, lots of moss, river flowing. Just lovely.
The river was running quite fast and high. I think it must be prime snowmelt time. I was glad this wasn’t how the river was for my canoe leg on the ski to sea.
The trail usually has a bit of a stream crossing but this time it was very much covered with water. We didn’t have shoes that we wanted to get wet walking across so we found this log that we shimmied our way across on. It was quite fun and the girls loved the adventure.
Well she went head and did it. Julia has graduated from preschool, if one can say that about preschool. Her class had a picnic for the last day and I think Julia is a bit sad as she loved going there. Julia is excited about starting kindergarten as well but of course there are mixed feelings. I decided it was worth an ice cream celebration so we picked kayla up from school to go get a treat. The incoming kindergarteners will have their ice cream social next week, so ice cream seems to be the common thread here. Greenlake elementary look out for the Taft sisters!
We braved the rain and kept our camping reservations at Deception Pass. There was no hope of setting up the tents without them getting somewhat wet. At least we remembered the pavillion so we had a dry table. Saturday late morning the rain seemed to let up and we headed out to the other side of Deception Pass State Park for a walk and some time at the beach. There were found this driftwood see-saw and had lots of fun with that. The girls had fun playing at the beach and managed to get all wet while trying to stand on their rafts (driftwood in the shallow part).
Sunday was overcast but not rainy anymore. The girls had fun in my new hammock. They were pretending they were in canoe race, boat number 255. They were baby animals and won the race. I think they did a lot better than I did in my canoe race for team 255. :-)