Butchart Gardens

Lander, Dixie and Jake at entrance 

One of Dixie's "Must See" items was visiting Butchart Gardens. The epic storm took a gracious pause and we had sun, glorious sun!

Butchart Gardens were built between 1904 and 1929 by the Butchart family near their home. Parts of the garden fill in the old limestone quarry that they used for their concrete business.

("Smile Jake. I mean it. I want good pictures.")

Acres and acres - 55 to be precise - of gardening and gorgeous plants. Dixie was in heaven. The boys? Not so much. After all of our other adventures, this one was shall I say, "less appealing" to the youngsters. It took a bit of reminding that everything doesn't always revolve around them.

Lander, overlooking the "Sunken Garden" that fills in the old limestone quarry.

Shocking, I know.

It was a little hard to take. 

For the kids, too.

But, eventually we had smiles and everyone got into the gardening groove.

It helped when we stumbled upon this little gem. Jake is currently in a "Japanese" phase so he was excited to find out that they have a Japanese Garden and suddenly the adults couldn't keep up with the kids.

Jake, Lander and Josh at entrance to Japanese Garden

The Japanese Garden was very beautiful, and lots of fun. The boys especially liked all of the paths, hidden nooks and colorful bridges.

The gardens border a beautiful little cove. Pictures can't even begin to do it justice.

East Sooke Park

One of our favorite things was hiking in East Sooke Park. Access to the park required driving around a beautiful winding road through a northwest rainforest. We hiked to Iron Mine Bay and Pike Point.

"It's SOOOOO green!"

Jake said this maybe 100 times, and it was true. Greener than anything we have ever seen before.

It was green.
It was beautiful.
It was wet.
And it was home to more slugs than we could count.

Lander and Jake look for shells at Iron Mine Bay

The tide was out (sort of) so we decided to hike over to the little island. We had to time it perfectly. And (to be honest) it was a little freaky to Dixie and Lander, but we did it. Jake cheers Lander on as he gets races to beat the ocean water.

Jake and Josh encouraging us encourage us to join them on the island adventure.

Birthday Zipper in Sooke, BC

Jake crossing a suspension bridge

We celebrated Jake's birthday in Sooke, British Columbia with a ziplining adventure complete with a special helmet for the birthday boy. It was a fun experience that earned a two thumbs up from the boys.

Jake and Lander, getting ready to cross suspension bridge

The boys loved it and didn't need much encouragement to get silly with their rides.

  Our family survived! And the rain stopped while we played.

Not that we were worried. Well, we might have been a bit worried about the rain part.

Victoria, BC

We spent three days in and around Victoria. It rained. And rained. And rained. But we didn't let it stop us. Besides counting the number of times that we heard locals say "eh", which was 154 by the way, we walked around downtown, visited the wharf, swam in the nicely heated pool, and made a couple of day trips to Butchart Gardens and Sooke, BC.

Lander and Jake feed Lucy, the semi-time sea lion at Fisherman's Wharf

Lander played an 1879 Steinway piano while we toured Craigdarroch Castle, the castle that isn't really a castle at all, just a very large (and very cool) old mansion build in the Victorian era (no pun intended).

Josh and Dixie escaped from the kids for a little date and enjoyed the Victoria Parliament building as we walked around downtown.

 Jake turned into - gasp - a teenager. Happy 13th birthday, buddy!

We all liked walking around Fisherman's Wharf.  Jake and Lander stand in front of some crabbing boats.

Speaking of crabs, Jake has been asking for them ever since our 2006 trip to Santa Cruz, California. So we shelled out some serious cash and enjoyed a birthday dinner of (way too expensive thanks to Chinese demand) dungeness crabs, raw oysters (blech...so disappointing!) and fish tacos. Josh ate left-overs.

Welcome to Canada!

Jake with Port Angeles in background

We took a ferry from Port Angeles, Washington to Victoria, British Columbia. This was the little boys first trip outside the US and was something that they were really anticipating. When we drove our car off of the ferry one of the boys said, "Huh. It doesn't really seem like we're in another country." We agreed until we met the immigration officer extraordinare. He quizzed us like we were the worst of terrorists and nearly had the boys in tears by the time he was done, but he gave us a pass and allowed us to enter Canada. We drove into Canada yelling at each other, all of us completely frazzled. Thank you, Canada for your warm welcome.

Olympia, Washington

Dan and Emily were wonderful hosts. We took a Sunday drive/walk down by the old brewery despite continued rain.

Cape Disappointment, Washington

Lander, Noah, Madeline, Josh, Jake, Audrey and Blake standing at the entrance to our yurt

After missing the entrance to what was later named the Columbia River, English explorer John Meares dubbed the massive headland jutting out into the Pacific Ocean "Cape Disappointment." That was in 1788. Almost 20 years later, Capt. William Clark and members of the Corps of Discovery explored the headland in their final push to the Pacific Ocean. 

Our visit to Cape Disappointment wasn't exactly a disappointment, but it wasn't a raging success either. Torrential rains that the news called "epic, even by the Northwest's standards" started within hours of our arrival, and didn't stop for days.

Dan and Emily met up with us and we tried to make the most of it, hiking along the beach in the dark until we got trapped by incoming tide. Josh, Dan and several of the kids had to scramble up barnacle covered rock to avoid being swept out to sea. It was a massive wave and scared our boys enough that they were done with the beach. Josh learned that barnacles are very sharp.

We rented yurts, played games, watched mostly tame raccoons as they scoured the place, marveled at the hundreds of frogs jumping across the roads, counted at least 10 deer, and were nearly blown off the face of the cliff when we toured the lighthouse museum.

Jake, Madeline and Audrey run to the car in hurricane force winds

Fort Clatsop

 Netul Landing, part of the Columbia River estuary, near Fort Clatsop

When Captain William Clark wrote "Ocian in view! O! the joy!" he wasn't actually at the Pacific Ocean but in the Columbia River estuary. It would be another couple of weeks before he and Captain Lewis would stand by the ocean. By then they had travled more than 4,000 miles across the North American continent. Fort Clatsop was the winter encampment for the Corps of Discovery (Lewis and Clark) from December 1805 to March 1806 while they prepared to return east.

Multnomah Falls, Oregon

The first real stop on our Spud Harvest road trip was at Multnomah Falls. It is a beautiful waterfall that is literally seconds off of the interstate. We hiked the trails and marveled at the level of green. 

"The Panic"

Every year as September races past, we start to get The Panic. The Panic is a brought on by the start of school and increasingly crisp mornings. The only cure to The Panic is to (a) move to a warmer climate or (b) cram as many summery activities as possible into the month of September. Since (a) isn't really a viable option, we usually go with (b).

This week's option (b) meant a 7 mile bike ride to Big Jud's for shakes.

School's in Session

Lander and Jake

a day of firsts: first day of middle school and first day of junior high 

No matter how hard we fight it, summer always ends. So in an attempt to avoid the inevitable, I thought we could relive some of our best summer memories.

1. That time the boys turned rap stars. Made chores a lot more fun

 even if the financial rewards weren't Hollywood-sized.  

 2. That time that Lander turned ninja/knight. 

 Unfortanately, his battles didn't end well. 

 3. That lesson on buyers remorse. Those bare bottoms seemed so funny at the store, 

but the longer they sat on the counter, the more and more 

(and more if your name is Lander) uncomfortable they made us feel. 

 4. That time we learned we are part Italian. At least Dad's pizza-making and 

Mom's mozarella-making skills make us think we might be. 

Now if we can just get that olive colored skin...

 5. The death of a few beloved toys. May their plastic hearts rest in peace...

 6. That time we had to fight off the entire town to hang out with our friends. 

Apparently we are popular like that. 

Kaitlyn W., Chase W., Jake, Lander

7. That time we came to terms with living in the Arctic Tundra and 

learned that it really can snow 12 months out of the year.

Meadow Lake, Idaho

For two years we had tried to go on a camping trip with Rachel and Luke Erickson. Our schedules finally collided in August so off we went to Meadow Lake. In our shorts. And flip flops.  It was HOT (!) until we started to make the steep climb to the top of the mountain. We watched, fascinated, as the temperature dropped from the high 80's all the way down to 33 degrees and snow pelted our car. No Gore Tex in sight (The weather man swore that there would be no rain.)

Rather than get upset, we turned it into adventure.


















Josh, Jake, Lander, Lincoln and Luke rafting on Meadow Lake. Lander is getting ready to take a plunge after the dads goaded him into doing it. Gullible kid! :)

Lander had so much fun swimming in the nearly frozen lake that Jake had to give it a try. They tried to convince the adults too, but we we politely declined.

just a "little" yard work

Josh bought a new toy, a vintage Silver Streak Clipper.

But then we had a problem, 

where would we put it?

What about that parking pad that we meant to put in, oh, about 7 years ago?

Great idea. "Why don't you get on it, Dix?"

It started out looking like this. 

Correction: this was after Dixie had already spent 40 hours cutting sod. 

Well, give or take a bit.

 The boys helped some too.

 eventually the ground looked like this: 

 And then Josh got to work!

confessions of a 10 year old

"Mom, just ground me for a month, and then I will tell you what I did."

-Lander

I got a phone call from Lander saying that he was in trouble and to "just ground me for a year so I don't have to tell you what I did." He finally confessed (because he knew that his older brother would rat him out if he didn't) that he notched a bow at his brother while playing.

Yikes...

As a self-imposed punishment, he had placed everything that he dearly loves on my bed and commenced with a mental flogging worthy of any drill sergeant. He had punished himself so ruthlessly that we did not even have to do our own punishment. Instead, we had a lesson on choices and consequences.

And then we took the bow away

Wilderness Survival

Jake and his friends construct a shelter beneath a downed pine tree to sleep in so that they can earn their Wilderness Survival Merit Badge. They all slept in it, despite stinging nettle and an over-curious moose.

Jake, Colter A, Ty S, Thomas R, Matt K

No, Colter isn't flipping off the camera. He's showing off his new stitches. The boys learned that karate chopping a swarm of wasps with a kitchen knife isn't an effective bug deterrent, but is an effective Boy Scout deterrent.

living the dream

Josh lives it up at Teton Springs.

Ahh, life is good, reahh-lly good (use your best Nacho Libre voice please).

Lander tries soccer

And actually did really good,

except for that one time,

the time that he tripped on the ball

just as mom started snapping pictures.