Posts By Allison Krug
Mother’s Day
The start of a beautiful Mother’s Day hike with friends – this is at Point No Point Lighthouse. 11K walk through the Hansville Greenway. From L to R: Sam, Adam, Ben.
I had a wonderful day with my boys – only missing Dave due to work (inspection week). We went on a long hike with some friends up near the coast in Hansville. Since my friend was sick and had opted for an easier hike than originally planned, I thought we were doing a 2-3 mile jaunt. Poor Sam was sick with a sore throat this morning, so I figured that would work well. Turned out to be an 11K tour of the Hansville Greenway! But thankfully I brought snacks, water, and bought even more at the tiny grocery. Turned out the white powder donuts (who doesn’t want that sugar kick on a hike?!) were MOLDY! I proudly handed them out and Adam took a nice bit then Ben said “Hey Mom, what’s this hair stuff?” I thought it was ok at first (those things don’t look natural anyway), then we saw green hairy stuff further into the package! Ewww! Everyone had a nice laugh about that. The expiration date did not include a year, so who knows how long they’d hung out on the shelf next to the lonely looking bear claws?
The greenway is a place I’d visited with Sam when he was 9 months old. Kim had hiked there with baby Adam as well. It was fun to go back with our big “babies”.
Hiking the Hansville Greenway when Sam was 9 months old 🙂
Anyway – came home to clean the chicken coop and bury a chicken who unfortunately passed through the night. Sam now has 102.7 fever, poor guy! So – got to experience it all in just one day 😉 But who am I to bemoan a bit of work? The frontier ladies probably didn’t even have a Mother’s Day!
All three throwing nearly at once!
Some Scotch broom of a different variety. Pretty – but a weed on the “noxious” list. Poor weed!
Work Horse
Chickens are helping in the garden…NOT!
It’s been a busy couple weeks even though hockey season is over! Gramma and Richard came up for Easter and stayed for two weeks, although it feels like much longer given how much work got accomplished in that short time!
On Friday, 4 boys and 4 parents crammed into a minivan to attend a math competition in Seattle. Here’s a link to the story, and a photo below.
The Math is Cool 4th grade team competing in a regional contest – this is the exciting College Bowl where they collaborate then pull a cord to ring a buzzer when they have an answer!
On the ferry ride home, enjoying cookies and frosting, compliments of Coach van Schaick!
A sample of the questions… and this is only one portion of the 4 hour event!
Mommy has been dubbed the “Work Horse” of the family. I spread 30,000 pounds of material last week – 7 tons of gravel, and 4 tons each of dirt and bark.
Looks great around here! Thanks to Mom and Richard for buying!!! I am happy to spread the wealth around…literally 😉
Eating peanuts and playing Magic together. They are having a relaxing afternoon after a busy week with ice hockey, science fair and other stuff…
Yard work!
Sam doing some raking during a big yard work effort!
The boys expressed an interest in working for ACTUAL money, and Richard had a job in mind – sprucing up the living space on the property (not the woods – the area bounded by the fences and woods). He thought they could pick up pine cones and rake up piles of debris, then take them over to a dumping area off the side of the driveway. So – Richard spec-ed the job with the boys and offered $20 EACH! Ben listened to the job description and said “$20 for each piece?” That would be a good deal! Funny negotiator. They worked consistently for about 2 1/4 hours. I asked Richard to rate them on a scale of 1-10 for work ethic, attention to detail, and attitude – he gave them 8 out 10! I asked them to rate themselves as well and they tended to agree (although Ben gave himself a 10 initially, then regraded to a 9). They also earned a tip for going above and beyond. Lessons well learned. Thank you, Richard, very much for giving them a chance to work hard and earn a big reward! Sam is earning his way toward the fourth grade outdoor education field trip to IslandWood – $188. I think he’s nearly there after egg sales yesterday and work today!
His partner, Ben, hard at work!
Hmmm…some shenanigans as we finished up the job!
Mommy got stuck trying to get the wheelbarrow out!
Thank you, Richard, for hiring us! You are very generous!
Cream Soda Crew beset by epic hail storm
We were on a Cream Soda Crew job under what started out as a glorious, clear, sunny day. 30 min into the 1 hour job we found ourselves in the middle of a ferocious hail storm! The kids went wild and it was hard to regroup the cold, wet kids into a legit work crew after that, but we muddled through and finished the job, earning cream sodas all around!
Loud and happy 🙂 Good job, gang!
Happy Easter, everyone!
Gramma and Benji before church!
I just spent an hour going through 480 pictures and annotating the best ones for the album, which is now updated. Just click on “album” above and  you can go see Feb and March!
Dave waiting patiently at the truck, amazed that we were ready to go on time, actually 40 min early. 🙂
I’m an Easter egg!
Boys stuffing Easter eggs.
64 eggs ready to hide!
OK, ready, go! Find those eggs!
crazy parade!
My friend Ann is a great mom, runner, PTO treasurer, organizer of the charity fun run the Turkey Trot, and so much more. Well, we hatched a plan to do some fun runs with our kids over the summer. When we realized we’d both be around over break, we decided to hatch a plan to test it out sooner. I got my old jogging stroller fixed up (5,000 miles and lots of salt water had done it in – no brakes, flat tires, rust everywhere) to be our sag wagon for hoodies, Gatorade, phones, sunglasses, loot (rewards for after the jog), etc. We also thought it would be fun to allow the younger or slower ones to hitch a ride in the “stagecoach” now and again. The hare can push the tortoise 🙂 When we did rider swaps, we did it fast – like on John Butterfield’s first overland mail stagecoach run – go go go! Only time to change out horses every 15 miles…no rest for the driver! Sometimes two kids were stacked up. It was hilarious. As we loped around the 1.5 mile trail through the park on our first lap, we collected Ben’s friend Cole and his mom, Lisa. Into our second lap we collected a barefooted Finn and his mom, Brie! It was really a crazy parade then as Cole had a notepad and a pen (to document the silliness?), and Lisa was carrying an “official dodge ball”! Afterwards we enjoyed some ice cream drumsticks and a romp in the playground while the sun held. Enjoy the shots – it was a good time!
Evelyn is a smart girl! She was so sweet, waving to everyone like the Rose Queen in the Rose Parade!
We thought we were done because I forgot that we’d started in a different spot than usual. Sam reminded us that we were half a lap short – wow, talk about honesty! So we took off again and finished off our 5K!
And here they all are, wonderful joggers! That was fun!
Well deserved naughty treats!
Lisa joined in with a dodge ball in hand! Go Lisa!
Finn joined in, no shoes! Go, Hawaiian boy!
Will took everyone for a flight. He’s deep inside the plane in the cockpit.
This is seriously ominous sky behind us, but we really enjoyed hanging out together. Those ominous skies kept EVERYONE else out of the park. We were the only ones left to enjoy the narrow swath of sun over Bainbridge.
Hockey withdrawal!
I just noticed it’s been 6 weeks since I last posted! Since then we’ve had a very exciting conclusion to hockey season with making it through our division’s 3-game playoffs and winning the final game! Here is a link to our highlights reel created by one of our parents who works for Adobe. Ellen has a great eye and stitches these reels together right on her iPhone using an Adobe app called PremierClip.
Our progression through the playoffs (West Sound Warriors Black) and the little trophy icon 🙂
The semi-final was just about as miracle-on-ice as a parent could wish for – tied at the end so the kids went to a 5-round shootout (best of 5 would win). Sam was #3 in the shoot-out roster. The other team scored the first shot, then we went – no dice. Then they did, no dice. Then we went – Sam scored, tying us up again! The next two rounds no one scored, so it then went to sudden death and we proceeded through the rest of the roster – all 10 kids got a shot in! The home team scored in sudden death, and one of our guys scored his FIRST season goal to tie us up again (go Hap!)!!! A few more rounds – no scores, still tied. Finally our second shooter (Adam) went up again and scored the final goal to win the game! It was just unbelievable!
Sam beaming at the awards ceremony. I will have to get better shots of all the swag. I was pretty busy helping hand bags over and things. This is Coach Pike talking about Sam – “Mr. Persistence” who waits for the right shot or pass. He also got a medal, a shirt with his name and number, and you can’t see it but the best of all was a custom puck and stand with trading cards for each of his teammates made by the dad in the red sweatshirt in the back (Frank). You will NOT believe how cool they are, and how nice it is to thumb through all the buddies now that we don’t get to see them as much. The stories, personalities and locker-room shenanigans – not to mention the face-off shenanigans that I’m just learning about! – made for a wonderful season. Our team had the best morale and bond. We were very fortunate!
Ben’s basketball team wrapped up their season, too – UNDEFEATED! They had a couple really close games where they had to come from behind and won by 1 or 2 points. Nail biters! We have been so fortunate to have coaches for both boys who were just unparalleled in their dedication, professionalism, and commitment to helping each child grow no matter where they started in skills. Thank you Coach Pike, Coach Wilson (both hockey) and Coach Tomine (basketball). We are grateful! Enjoy your off time!
Ben showing his trophy while we are on our way to hockey playoffs! Ben’s team played their last game Sat morning, then we went for team lunch and awards, then hopped the ferry for Sam’s game. Can you believe it? Oh – notice he’s also proudly missing two front teeth!
So – life after hockey? We just ended Sunday. It’s taking a couple days to adjust. We’re all in a bit of withdrawal because we enjoyed the routine, the practices, the people and all the action. The kids are off school Wed-Fri this week for parent-teacher conferences so I served up breakfast outside this morning, just to mix it up a bit. The sun was magical coming through the woods. When I got back from riding, we hatched a plan to buy a card game which has taken the school by storm (Magic players, anyone?). We played at the same picnic table this evening. I got UNO for myself because I can’t stand learning tricky games. I have no patience for the learning process! Bad mommy. So UNO is for me!
Picnic breakfast with the crazies! Can you tell Daddy bought cereals? They don’t exactly match mommy’s desired protein:sugar ratio but they are GOOD!
Dear Sam,
Stick and puck party with the team – 14 kids! We drove a 15 passenger van down to the rink and grabbed kids along the way, then raced back through Kitsap County, dropping kids off, on our way home to catch SuperBowl kickoff. Just barely! It was SO fun to see the kids and coaches all skating around having a terrific time playing. Like “pond hockey” – relaxed and fun! Lots of goals and smiles!
“Dorito Ore” Found in Sam’s classroom on his birthday! How interesting that this unique ore contains his favorite chips! Sam took it around to his classmates and they each got to pick. He even gave away his favorite kind to a friend who wanted to trade. You are a very generous person, Sam.
Happy 10th birthday! That is such a big number, Sam. You are growing in size and maturity at lightning speed. Here are some things that I have noticed this year about you. Some are big, some are small. You might just appreciate hearing about them some day down the road when 10 seems like a long way off. First – you are a trailblazer who picks up new interests and pursues them with intensity. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I’d be the proud mother of an ice hockey player! You put a stick in your hands last year and immediately loved it. One of your great qualities is giving new things a try. Some stick, some don’t. That hockey stick DID stick, that’s for sure! Then you hone your skills with self-motivation, practicing and practicing, even after an hour of practice. You come home in your carpool with the guys (after a sushi stop at Central Market!) and practice some more, in the dark and rain, thumping against our garage door until we got a big goal to shoot on. We have to call you in to shower up and get ready for bed. Not too many people pursue their interests with such passion, but you demonstrate devotion to many interests, including learning how to mod Minecraft to make your own ores, biomes and armor sets. It is such an interesting thing to see you take a love of geology and figure out how to blend that with coding – you have made fluorite ore, malachite, amethyst, and 10 others that you really like.
This is the “ore wall” displaying all the custom ores – copper, sapphire, aquamarine, malachite…great way to blend geology and gaming! Good job, Sam!
Second, you are very generous. As noted in the picture above with the “Dorito Ore” you gave away your favorite snack on your birthday, to a friend who wanted to trade. Another friend remarked about your generosity when you allowed him to play with your new Minecraft mod (orespawn) for quite some time while you looked on. We had just figured out how to download and install it (no easy feat as we soon learned) and you were willing to let your friend have a go at it while you watched. You also let friends crack open geodes and keep their choice of the loot. Time and again I notice how generous you are.
Third, you are hilarious. Your class had so much fun asking questions about “what’s the most embarrassing thing Sam has done?” – the birthday tradition is to ask questions of the parent and birthday child and parent. We had fun telling the story about the sonic fart (fake but loud) at Battle Point which surprised some walkers! And then their eyes really went wide when you  told about the spaghetti sauce on the head incident! We are all loud and have a good sense of humor, and we love to play around physically. Most days on the way home from school you try to sneak by me – you often give me the slip! I’ll notice that I have Ben, but I never got to see Sam! You’ve been doing that from day 1. Our crossing guard, Mrs. Sanford, told me recently that as young as first grade you would see her walking down toward the intersection and you’d hide between parked cars, then pop up behind her and sneak down right on her heels, all the way out into the road. She’d look behind and suddenly spy you, much to her great surprise! If you’re not quietly sneaking by me, you’re checking me, full on, into something or someone. We are always making a scene, the three of us, walking home from school. Loud laughing, body checking, swinging backpacks, grabbing clothes and hurling people. It’s a zoo, just the three of us, but hey – it’s funny. Yesterday we were having a drag the trash can war – me with the recycle bin and you with the trash can. We found that makes a lot of noise as we raced down the driveway!
Fourth, you are persistent and curious. I don’t know too many kids who relish a challenge like you. I see it in your problem-solving – taking on math problems and competitions with no practice and excelling at them, and working on math that is at least two years ahead (you’re doing an online prealgebra course now). You don’t like to do the same stuff over and over. You want to learn something new, wrestle with it, and move on. It sure has been a challenge for me to keep up with you, without burning you out on school or work. I have been trying very hard to find just the right mix of challenge and investment of time. While you have a great gift for math, that is not your big “love” in life. You are a well-rounded, funny and athletic person with a wide variety of interests. You are intent on learning challenging new songs on your guitar, too. How many times has Randy said “Geez, Sam! That’s a doozy! I mean, we can learn that, but it’s a challenge!” You picked Stairway to Heaven over the summer, then “Over the Hills and Far Away” and now you’re working on some Eagles tunes. We love listening to “The Final Resort” on the way to hockey, and you’ve picked up “Hotel California” with just one introduction from Randy. I honestly have no idea how you do these things. You’ll hear a tune, then remember it and execute it. Just unbelievable. Your dad is quite good, too, but he won’t admit it. You are so lucky to have music as a friend.
These things are easy to spot – I see them daily – but they are not the sum and substance of who you are. Your character traits of honesty, generosity, strength, and peace-making serve you well among your friends and will help you navigate life. Over dinner a week ago you were asking about working for others in an office vs. working for yourself. It was so interesting to look at you, at 10, and try to project who you would be as an adult. I can see that your calm demeanor, thoughtful approach to problem solving, and generous spirit would make you an excellent manager if you find yourself in that situation. Still, you would have no trouble speaking up at a tedious meeting to make a point if necessary (I’m thinking of your loud Calvin and Hobbes-style humor at home!) but the vast majority of the time you’d find a quiet way to make your point loud and clear, and probably lead the way by example. But maybe you’ll be a freelance coder, setting your own hours and working into the wee hours to fix a problem. I can easily see that, too.
Sam, your mom and dad admire you so much and pray that we are serving our Lord well as your parents. We try to see ourselves as coaches, helping you to make the best choices for yourself that you can. We want to be like the great coaches you have for hockey, and every day I pray for the grace to be that person. We love you very much and hope this little run-down of the YOU we see at 10 is fun to read some day. It has taken me days to tackle the sweet job of writing this letter because of how much I care about you, and how much time that crazy Forge install took yesterday 😉
Love, mom
PS did you want your vital stats? You’re 5 ft tall and 97 lbs.
Sam – this is YOU holding your new “ultimate sword” that you designed yourself and modded into Minecraft! You are a modding nut now, even making custom armor for a friend for his birthday. Well done!
Video of the stick and puck party:
Happy chicken feet!
I spent hours shoveling the heaviest, wettest, smelliest muck you can imagine this morning. A winter of muck. Heavy, wet chicken manure. I cleaned about 2″ of muck – a whole layer of ick – and wheeled unwieldy wheelbarrows full to a dump spot. I nearly landed in the muck after heaving the wheelbarrow to dump it. Then I shoveled five wheelbarrows of wood chips (from trees felled over the summer) into the run. The chickens spread it all out for me. They look SO much happier, and it doesn’t stink anymore. AND – this is HUGE – I was able to walk into the run in my sneakers, not my knee-high muck boots, to deliver food.
Happy hen feet, scratching.
More hen feet. Barred Rock.
Big Gordon giving approval.
More young hen feet – these are the young pullets who are just about starting to lay.
Creative day
He added a sun and sky, then went on to create his own scene of Hawaii. So fun to see him work! And NO mess!
Sam was busy working on modding Minecraft through a course he received for Christmas (YouthDigital). He made his own biomes, ores, armor, blocks and other mods, then forged it (compiler) and imported the mod into Minecraft. All the code is in Java. Very cool!
The Fresh Paint app for Windows 8 is just awesome. Ben really enjoyed learning how to mix colors and paint!
Here’s Sam with his “Ultimate Sword”!
This is the “ore wall” displaying all the custom ores – copper, sapphire, aquamarine, malachite…great way to blend geology and gaming! Good job, Sam!
Family portrait fun!
Does your family love photo-taking as much as mine? 😉 We wear our Skene family tartans and try to get ONE, just ONE picture, where everyone is looking decent. However, Sam enjoys photo-bombing tremendously. Enjoy!
This is our BEST shot – wait ’til you see the out-takes! Click on this picture to go see…
Hoods in the Woods
Guten rutsch ins neue jahr! (A good slide into the New Year.)
This is how you say Happy New Year in German. I like the “slide” part!
We went for a nice walk, each in our favorite hoodies…
On a neighborhood walk before dinner!
The boys were loud and nuts, as usual!
But the sun was out, and it was a very refreshing 34 degrees!
They love it when I try to capture a family photo 😉
Trying again!
Finally gave up and did this…
More silly out-takes…
Walking home to lamb dinner supplied by Mom and Richard, and cooked beautifully by Dave. Happy New Year to all!
The chickens seem to line up just fine for chicken family portraits. What’s the big deal?
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas! The whole photo album is updated, and I tried to grab the favorite memories from the year in this slideshow (below – click on play) in case you missed them.
The slideshow below is set to Bruce Springsteen’s “If I Should Fall Behind.” Dave introduced me to it, and now it’s one of my favorite songs because it reminds me of all the times we’ve looked out for each other on the trail hiking or biking. Well, except for those times when Dave has tried to ditch me because I’m “INSANE!” or a “KOOOK-HEAD!” as the kids say!
Krug family holiday greetings – 2014 by Slidely Slideshow
Reflections on a great ride + photos in Album
This is from a few weeks ago when it didn’t warm above 32 degrees. Now it’s in the 50s! Crazy!
New photos and video have been uploaded to the album!!! Check the folders for Nov and Dec to see a hockey tournament, Sam trying out being goalie, Ben in basketball, and the cutest the Christmas elf you’ve ever seen…
As I was untacking and mucking the stall, the sunlight popped through the door and really caught my eye as it reflected off the stirrup iron. I enjoy thinking about a great ride for days after…until the next adventure! Then I get a little nervous again 😉
An early Christmas present
On a trail ride today – the first time with Emmy! I have been looking forward to getting her out on the trails for so long – I love trail running as well. And this is my instructor, Janet , for whom I am so thankful. I’ve learned a lot this year, and look forward to the promise of many more opportunities to learn! 🙂 Many thanks to Denika, who took this picture. Great fun!
After a good workout last week 🙂 She doesn’t much like selfies so I have a grand total of TWO in the year we’ve been working together 🙂