Lander's Hidden Talent

Good thing Thanksgiving is tomorrow. It looks like Lander desperately needs some food.

(It's worse in real life. I'm still having nightmares!) 

JJ Designs

Josh is never one to sit still and he always needs to have a creative outlet. This fall he started to use his creativity to design knives. He draws the knife blade, then takes it to a local (but also one of the best in the country) Damascus steel producers who then forge his blades to his specifications. Then Josh creates the handles. 

Tae Kwan Do Demonstration

The martial arts academy hosted a demonstration/fund raiser. This was the first time that Jake and Lander had to perform in front of a real audience. Lander was thrilled to be wearing his new uniform (even if his name wasn't embroidered on the back yet). Both boys broke their boards on the first try. They did a good job!

Lander turns 11

All that Lander wanted for his birthday was a demo team uniform and bow staff so he could join the tae kwan do demo team and a remote control car.

The demo team uniform meant that he had to commit to 6 months of being on the demo team which includes putting on special performances. Mom made him think about it for about 6 months to be sure that he was really willing to make the commitment.

He did not expect the uniform for his birthday and was so excited!




Papa joins us for Lander's birthday celebration

Egg Drop Experiment

Jake had an assignment: figure out a way to drop an egg without breaking it. The rules:

1. The egg has to be raw

2. The egg and it's package can only weigh 120 grams

3. The package can not be bigger than 6"x6"

Our solution? A ziplock bag stuffed with Rice Krispies.

The first attempt at 3 feet worked, so we tried 8 feet.

 It worked.

Good thing too, because Jake's science grade depended on it.

In class they would be graded on whether the egg could survive a 3 foot and 6 foot fall. The grand-champions would compete for a 20 foot fall, so we thought we had better test out our egg.

Jake drops his egg from the second story window.

IT WORKED!

IT WORKED!

Jake went to school, confident in his abilities, but when it came time for testing, his bag flipped just slightly wrong and his egg broke on the 20 foot drop. Bummer!

Straw Maze

We (finally) made it to the straw maze. It was so much fun! The boys ran on top of a giant tire. We raced through the maze at record speed and were told that were the fasted that the employees had ever seen.

It still took us more than 15 minutes!

We didn't tell the employee that the reason we were so fast was because Jake was worried that the sun would set. Sunset means that the employees haunt the maze.

He was having none of that!




Lander, Dixie and Jake

Jake does flips off of giant straw bales while Lander awaits his turn

Lander & Arrow of Light

Lander worked very hard on his Cub Scouts. He earned EVERY badge as a Webelo and was awarded the Arrow of Light, the only Cub Scout award that can be worn on a Boy Scout uniform.

Way to go, Buddy!

fall days

Summer or fall. Which season is our favorite? Right now, we are leaning towards fall!

Belt Testing Time, Again

Jake and Lander earn their orange belts in Tae Kwan Do. Dixie earns her yellow belt.

40

Yep, it's true.

Josh turned 40.

Happy birthday, babe!

Josh opens Lander's gift, a Skylander video game character.

Lander lights the candles on the cake.

Seattle

We stayed overnight in downtown Seattle. We swam in the pool, walked to the Space Needle and enjoyed pizza at a very trendy and urban-style downtown restaurant.

The boys were terrified.

They were convinced that we would be mugged or killed.

I'm glad that they were wrong.

Friday Harbor & the San Juan Islands

Dixie and Josh at Friday Harbor

Even good times have to end, so it was with a sad good-bye that we boarded the ferry for the States for the long ride home. We stopped briefly at Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.  It made us realize that our arms wouldn't have to be twisted very hard to come back to stay.

The ferry ride was very beautiful. We started in Sydney, BC and ended in Anacortes, Washington, passing what felt like hundreds of little green islands.

Except this island. It was strangely brown. If you look closely you can see a herd of sitka deer. In the 1970s turned Speiden Island into a safari-style retreat.  Hunting is no longer allowed and the sitka deer population has skyrocketed. They were everywhere!

Sitka deer are a subspecies of mule deer, but considerably smaller. They are good swimmers and can occasionally be seen crossing the deep channels between islands.

Jake started to get a bit antsy after a few hours of sitting on the ferry. He had to work hard to contain himeslf.

 Lander overlooking San Juan Island

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.