Happy Birthday Nicole

Waterfall hike take two

(chris) We took our second trip to the waterfall this past weekend as Janet and Gookai wanted to go. Many of the purple flowers were replaced by whites and yellows. We are all much less sore this time than last time. Hopefully the flowers survive for one more week.

Nathan's first skate board injury

(Chris) Nathan fell during a competition last weekend and broke his hand in four places. He did this at 9 am but did not come home until 7 pm with his hand very swollen. He has a removable cast that he can take off when he showers and eats. He was very happy when the doctor told him he can skate with his cast on.

Harrisburg

We've had a fun time in Harrisburg.  The babies,Alex and Jonas, are very cute and I never heard either one cry.  Pam seemed to recognize us but has very little speech ability left.  There were times when she definitely was able to follow what was being said as when Natalie told about winning the math contest in her school and Pam clapped at the end.  We all had dinner at the Tokyo Diner where we've been before and the next day Ben and Jas took us to a very good Indian restaurant.  It was really nice to meet Jas's mother and father, who are here from India helping with Alex.

Low Tides and "Twinkle"

This past week-end was fun and full.

Ben played "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" with 30 other violin students at the recital hall of Benaroya this week-end. He was very relieved when his performance was over and he got to sit down with us and watch the rest of the show. The concert was called Mosaic, and was a collection of community players doing players' choice--opera selections, jazz, fiddling, classical. My favorite was a clarinet quartet by students from Ben's music school. We were also happily surprised to see Liam's new paino teacher in a sonata for flute and piano.














Spring is the time of super low tides around the sound. Bob took the boys tide pooling at Carkeek beach on Saturday. Liam discovered a hermit crab colony. In this photo Ben is holding a dead Dungeness crab that Bob found in the eel grass.

Dogs. Big dogs and little dogs...

Tui, what an adorable little puppy you have! Ben wants to take the next plane down to San Diego to play with her.

Lottie is very mellow today after spending half of yeturday in the country; first swimming at Susie Blue's lake, and then playing with the other dogs in her agility class. Yes, Lottie is again in school. She's had 3 obedience classes already which, ask anyone, she(we) has (have) failed. Even our old neighbor David would agree. One day I heard him calling to me so I went around the house and there was David on the sidewalk in a standoff with Lottie who had a large sock in her mouth. I guess the gate had not been locked and Lottie had escaped, run into the neighbor's house, and stole some of his laundry! Unbelievable! Thankfully David was gracious and not too upset. I had always thought him an odd ball. I thought better of him after that.

Anyways, Lottie started agility class and it is very fun. There is an obstacle course she must learn with planks, and teeter-totters, and jumps and hoops. She seems to take to it naturally. At least she shows no fear on the apparatus, and once she learned there's food at the other end she screamed right over/through the obstacles. Her classmates are all labrador mixes, 2 of them Dozer, and Jorden, should probably be in remedial school, but this is all fun and games, and who cares if the dogs do the tricks anyways right? I'm sure they are a little upset to be in class with a completely hyperactive dog who, when she is not busy doing the tricks superbly, is dragging her owner over the field and playfully entangling leashes with the other classmates. We did work on "heal" and "leave it." Now if I could only find time to practice with her....

Waterfall hike

We did the Cedar Creek falls hike yesterday. The flowers were in full bloom with perhaps 50 different varieties. The water is flowing well and the kids all went swimming. This is a much more interesting hike than the desert we did last year and I recommend we do this next year on our flower search quest. Nathan actually jumped off a cliff into the pool that was more than 30 feet high (several feet higher than where he is standing in the picture below). He has a big bruise on his butt. The walk back up hill was very hard made more difficult by the very warm day. Fortunately, John had cold beer on ice waiting for us.

Happy Mother's day.

Happy Mothers Day Everyone!

I hope everyone has a happy mothers day. Instead of flowers Nathan, my dad, and I thought this would be a better present for my mom...

Message from Amy and Sean

Amy had a baby boy, Jonas Paul Gimbel, early Friday morning.  He
weighed 8 lbs 11 oz and measured 19 inches.  Mom and baby are doing
fine.  More details and photos to follow.

Garden Out of Control

Here are a couple of shots of my front garden. We had a very warm January so I started planting the cold weather vegetables then. We have way too many greens already, and they are starting to go to seed. The cabbage, and broccoli are doing well but are not near harvest yet. I planted my first asparagus plants this year, and expect to harvest in the spring in 2 more years. Beets and spinnach are slowly growing due to our cold spring. We also have blueberries, rasberries, strawberries, and an Italian plum tree crammed into our little lot. The Obama's would be proud.

I've managed to post without Bob's help!!!

I'd rather be gardening than figuring my way around all this computer stuff, but it is satisfying to be able to make an entry without Bob's help. You'll be hearing from me soon.

New Barcelona (Vila-Robau) photo

Here is a photo that Claire Talley sent.  It shows the whole gang (except for the photographer, Mario), much better than the rear view I posted previously.