Dad's Trip to Asia

John went to Beijing and Tokyo for work for 11 days in October. He left Monday, October 10 (and with the time difference, arrived Tuesday night!) and spent a week in Beijing, then spent four days in Tokyo before returning Friday Oct 21. Thanks to some great local hosts (natives and American ex-pats), he was able to sample some great food and see some amazing sites. The highlights were staying at a farmer's hostel about 2 hours outside of Beijing and hiking the Great Wall the next day, as well as seeing the main tourist attractions in both Beijing and Tokyo. Click here to see some photos. (Once you click through this link - you can click on "Options" on the top left to always show the title and description if they aren't showing; you can also adjust the speed from the "Options" tab. Also, for some odd reason this always starts at the third photo in the series. If the first photo shown is of a wall rather than a red wall with a picture of Mao, you might want to click the "Prev" button twice on the top of the screen. If not, there's enough other pictures you won't miss much!)

Pictures From Late Summer, 2011

Several blog posts below have highlights from our adventures over the past few months. An album with our "top 31" photos from the summer are at this link: click here

Dungeness Crab Festival

Every October, Port Angeles Washington hosts a festival to celebrate the height of crabbing season – specifically, the local Dungeness Crab, which is a very popular culinary delicacy in the Northwest. Jack is a huge fan of eating crab, and for his Father-Son-Solo outing, we went to the Crab Festival. The highlight of the festival was getting a chance to catch (and then eat!) some crabs! They have two ‘pools’ (about 4-feet deep, and maybe six feet-by-three feet around), each one filled with about 100 live crabs. For $5, you get a pole with some loops on the end (like weed-wacker plastic twine), and you can catch as many crabs as you can in ten minutes, and then buy them (unless you catch one of the 5 in each tank that are marked as free). Jack went twice, and caught two crabs each time – one of which was the free one each time! Dad and Jack had two crabs (one each) for lunch, and then we brought the other two home for the whole family to enjoy as dinner. Here is some video of Jack catching his first crab!

Jack's Fall Baseball

Jack is playing Fall Ball in a local league that draws teams from towns in about a ten mile radius. He’s one of the pitchers on the team, and also has done well in the field and at bat. Here is some video of him hitting !

Northwest Trek Wildlife Park

In late-September, Dad took Henry on the first of what will be three Father-Son-Solo Outings this fall. We went camping (just a little bit of rain this time – and none of it came in the tent!) in Eatonville, Washington (close to Mount Rainier) and then went to the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. It was a lot of fun for the two of us to camp together. We cooked (in the dark), roasted marshmallows, and played Risk (Henry took over the world). We took a tram to see moose, bison, long-horn sheep, and deer, and also walked around the more-zoo portion of the park to see bear, owls, beavers, wolverines, and badgers. Here are some photos!

Camping in Oregon

In mid-September, Dad takes the boys down to Oregon to see some Lewis & Clark sites. In 1804, Lewis and Clark traveled across the country and at last reached the Pacific right on the Washington / Oregon border. They wintered there, and built a fort, called Fort Clatsop, where they stayed for about five months before returning east. The fort has been reconstructed, and there are several parks in the area marking different sites from their journey. Lewis & Clark weren’t crazy about the area, because in the 6 months they were there, in true Pacific Northwest fashion, it rained all but 18 days. We camped at a campground near a state park on the Pacific Ocean, but only wound up staying one day because, in true Pacific Northwest fashion, it rained. Pretty hard. While we were trying to sleep in our tents. Joseph’s tent leaked. :-( Otherwise a fun trip though !

The boys at the entrance to Fort Clatsop

Fort Clatsop (Oregon)

Jack poking his head out of a room, about the size of his bedroom, shared by eight soldiers at Fort Clatsop

School Starts!

The day after Labor Day school starts again in the Bellevue school district! Joseph is at a new  school this year, Odle Middle School, and is taking seven classes in eighth grade, including Biology, Geometry, Debate, and Band (where he plays the clarinet). Jack (4^th grade) and Henry (2^nd grade) are both at Eastgate Elementary. Jack is in a mixed 4^th-and-5^th grade class, while Henry has two teachers who job share, each teaching 2.5 days a week. 

Our Summer – 2011

Well, we haven’t done such a good job posting this summer. I guess we were so busy seeing stuff in and around Seattle!

Here are five things we did this summer since our last post in early July:

1. In July, we took a trip down to Mount Saint Helens, which is about two hours south of Seattle. It’s a very impressive sight – as you get closer, you see the mountain in the distance, and it looks unlike any other mountain in the area – an entire side of it has been blown off. It’s amazing to think that this happened just a mere thirty years ago. We visited two visitors centers and did a very nice hike through a forest with views of the crater. Here are some photos!

2. Dad and the boys drove up to North Cascades National Park, about two hours north of Seattle. This was the sixth National Park we visited this year! There are some waterfalls and some beautiful overlooks. We did a great hike that started along an old riverbed, with rocks and boulders to climb over, and ended with some great views of a lake. 

3. In August, we all went camping at Mt. Rainier – the seventh (and final!) national park we visited this year. We stayed at Cougar Rock Campground; it was a lot of fun (except for the really big tree root that was right underneath Dad’s sleeping bag L). We had visited Mount Rainier before, but always as day trips, which meant we got to spend about 4-5 hours at the park (and about the same amount of time in the car!). Camping there lets us spend a lot more time there and ‘get to know’ the park a bit more. We did a hike to Snow Lake (there are still snow fields even though it’s August) and were able to visit both main visitors center – the one at Paradise (where we usually go) and the one at Sunrise (where we hadn’t been yet). On the way home we went to Crystal Mountain, which is a ski resort in the winter but stays open in the summer and runs the gondola up to the top of the mountain. We were able to see some amazing views of Rainier from the top. Here are some photos!

4. Also in August, we took a ferry to Orcas Island, an island in the Puget Sound between Washington and Canada. This is an amazing island and a pretty big tourist destination. We are able to drive up to the highest point and get some great views across the Sound into Canada, as well as of Mount Baker. We also hike down to a waterfall where we’re able to sit under the water as it comes down. The ferry is about 45 minutes each direction. It’s great to be out on the water; we pass by dozens of other smaller islands on the way.

5. Dad’s Birthday. We all go up to Snoqualmie Pass (where we go skiing in the winter) for a kayaking outing on a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains, and the older boys and Dad take a bike ride through a 2.5-mile tunnel. It used to be a railroad tunnel through the mountain, they’ve just re-opened it as a bike path. There are no lights at all in the tunnel; you have to use a head lamp or flash light to be able to see (once you’re about 50 yards into the tunnel if you don’t have a light it is absolutely pitch black).