Posts in Category: events
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
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 🙂
Portland hockey tournament over Thanksgiving
Ben and his buddy making W signs before a game (for Warriors – or maybe WIN?).
We were in Portland over the Thanksgiving weekend for a hockey tournament. It was a lot of fun! Not so great driving back on Sunday, but we managed just fine and even squeezed in a trip to some outlets to get the kids new shoes. They go through them about every three months.
Here is the video of the first game, including the first goal of the tournament which I happened to grab! Enjoy! (Dave wasn’t able to come so I did film quite a bit of Sam’s ice time so he could see some of it at least.) You might want to turn your volume down…
Faces
Enjoy this Sam creation – I especially loved the captions. He was doing faces while texting with a friend on the way home from Portland yesterday (hockey tournament) and must have enjoyed it enough to start this on a Google docs file. I sneaked in and snipped it to share 🙂 He knows I did, don’t worry!
Is it almost Thanksgiving???
Seriously – how can this BE!? Last night I asked Dave if he wouldn’t mind doing a chore for me “So it won’t feel as much like greyhound day for me.”
We’ve both been on a whirlwind schedule the last few weeks with long work hours for both of us and many commitments for the kids. In the last 24 hours we’d gone to hockey practice, helped run a raffle fundraiser, gone to a Warriors hockey game, went to KFC afterwards (because our new German au pair friend, Lena, likes both hockey AND fast food, so of course we went at 10pm on the way home!), then to a math competition in the morning, to get a money order with the funds raised from the raffle, then to Sam’s hockey game. When we finally got back home, I was wiped. I asked for this chore, and Dave looked at me, shook his head, then said “Greyhound day?” He goes – “Do you mean groundhog day?”
Today Dave said “You wouldn’t feel so much like greyhound day if you didn’t do everything you feel like you should do.” But I feel badly not helping when I’m asked or an opportunity crosses my path. So this afternoon we went with a friend and her kids to ACE to buy axes and then chopped wood in her backyard. It was a great time, fresh air, wood cooperating under my 8 lb maul, and the kids worked hard for an hour chopping, and got 1/2 cord all split and stacked.  Always glad to do it but I will admit, I do need to find a bit more down time. I’m especially proud of the kids. Sam really wanted down time at home, too, but not only did he turn his preference around 180 degrees, he worked hard, never complained, and split wood into the dark. Ben is often the first to volunteer, so he is much appreciated as well. But I was especially proud of Sam. It takes a lot to overcome one’s own preferences and do a favor.
We were offered a chance to enjoy wine and cake after dinner as a thank you, but I said we really needed some family time together on Sunday nights. We really value Sunday dinner together. Ben said in his LOUD, hoarse, whisper: “MOM, we can go back out after dinner for cake! We’re FRONTIER!”
Ben’s last soccer game of the season ended with a bang! They won AND Ben scored a goal from a corner kick! Their coach, John, is a really nice and relaxed guy. He teaches them skills, but he doesn’t get all worked up. Bravo, John!
German Stammtisch with new facilitator Nathan! The kids are loving the exercises and snacks 🙂 We have 8 kids participating!
At a hockey game, Ben found this on the floor. “Mom! It’s a W for Warriors!”
Time for a little parkour!
Out on a walk today – our first unscheduled day in 6 weeks! So nice to be together as a family with no commitments.
I got a little messy hanging on to bushes and dirt, clawing with my fingernails!
Mustache Monday
I decided to decorate Sam today after school. Then I offered for him to return the favor on me. Just as we finished the power went out with a big bang. ..and at the same time I spotted three middle school neighborhood boys sneaking down the driveway to spook me so I got them instead forgetting about the stache! THEN we saw power company and fire truck on the road so we jogged down to see what had caused the huge explosion. Again forgetting about the stache!
I wonder what the neighbors think? And all the cars driving by!
Regrouping before the week
We made one with toppings the boys picked out – ham and pineapple. This is the first one off the grill 🙂
We had a pretty quiet weekend, mostly hanging around home and gardening interspersed with a soccer game and a night out with friends to see a concert (gypsy jazz music by Ranger and the Rearrangers). It was very good! So a late night but fun. Sunday we closed out the weekend with some laundry, chicken happy hour, and wood chopping followed by fire and homemade pizzas.
Looks good! That’s dough I made, too. It behaved well despite not having much time to proof.
On to the second pie.
Toppings from the garden – kale, yellow tomatoes, onion and leftover bacon from breakfast. Nice combo! So tasty.
This was REALLY good! Nice job, Dave!
First day of school!
Here they are after their first day of school! Handsome guys getting very tall! Sam is an inch from 5 ft tall and Ben is 4 ft 2 in.
At home we had fun hanging out with our neighbors and friends as the kids trickled off the bus and walked home. The middle school kids get home about an hour after the elementary kids. I might possibly have hid in the salmonberry and jumped out to scare two such boys 😉
This is Sam’s robot who doesn’t have a name, actually, just a slogan: “Meant to Dent!”
It was the first day of school! A great day and a great start to the year. We are thrilled to be a part of the Wilkes family again.
Regarding the robot pictured above…Sam came up with that slogan himself. He’s developing a great wit.  This robot has an ultrasonic sensor in the front. When it senses your hand or foot there (or another robot because the boys battle them with neighbors), it comes SMASHING down! It dents the wood floors! Our friends are surprised we let this go on, but I am thinking it’s just a floor, and there are many scratches already. When I’m 65 and still living here (IF I am), then I will see those dents and fondly recall Sam’s crazy robot! I will miss these boys horribly! If we have to sell the house, well, there are several big projects. We will also need a bulldozer to fill in the large mine in the back…so it really is no big deal.
Sam is reading Sherlock Holmes now. Yesterday I was trying to piece together something that had happened, talking about a few little signs. I forget what it was. But Sam said “Way to put together the evidence, Sherlock.” It was so funny!
OK – summer keywords – these are the things that remind me of summer with the boys, in no particular order:
- JavaScript code
- Roller hockey, and now ice hockey – vigorous street hockey on our cement pad, hockey balls in the gutters, the sound of hockey balls smacking the garage door
- Mountain biking
- Robot battles with friends
- Khan Academy for learning in astronomy, biology, cryptography, and more
- Rock hounding, Rock Candy Mine road trip
- Stairway to Heaven (Sam is learning this)
- Endurance (Shackleton’s incredible voyage, which Sam read)
- Cream Soda Crew jobs and service projects with friends!
- Soccer – Ben kicks the ball constantly up against the garage door (how that garage door isn’t peeling or dented I don’t know!)
- Slack line – they use it to balance AND bounced up and down, trying to shake each other off the “roost”
Rockhound Roadtrip!
Second digging site of the three-day trip – in central Washington. Looking for dessicated opal! We hauled in a BIG one…check the album for all the pictures.
Chiseling out fluorite geodes at the Rock Candy Mine in British Columbia, owned by our guide, Bob Jackson. He led an awesome trip! Boys were so excited the whole time despite long days and drives.
Ben loved digging up big fluorite crystals.
Both boys in a vug looking for rare barite crystals!
In a little vug working together for a long time!
Sam captured a great fluorite octahedron with Bob as mentor!
900 miles, 70 pounds of rocks, tubing on the Methow River, and beautiful scenery listening to a rockin’ mix of Led Zep, Stones, Beatles, Cream, Creedence and more made by Daddy. What could be better? (Not much, but perhaps if Daddy could have come along as well!)
Cream Soda Crew strikes again!
Last weekend I noticed a flyer up in town regarding Project Backpack. We support the charity, which provides school supplies for families in need, through donations ($) but I thought they MUST be doing a lot of sorting right about now to get all those supplies handed out. It occurred to me it would be a great job for the Cream Soda Crew! A way to help other students and continue working together as a crew. I called Helpline House and left a message, something like…I have a crew of young boys who are experts at demolishing odd jobs. I explained the inception of the crew as a charitable endeavor in support of their school auction – they got their start doing spring yard cleanup. I hung up and wondered if I would hear back. I did!! While initially they were a little doubtful about 5-6 boys coming down and sorting/labeling supplies, they decided to give us a chance. (I understand – most of the jobs are outside, but I know they can handle inside work, too, thanks to Sara putting them to work at the courthouse!) Well, after we got the ok, more kids joined the crew. In the end we had 9 kids – 6 boys and 3 girls – grades 1 through 5! What a team! Take a look at what they did in just one hour! The teenagers volunteering today don’t need to do all the sorting – they just hand out supplies! Way to go, Cream Soda Crew! We had a good time at the after-party at our house.
This was my crew – we worked on bundling up glue sticks into groups of 4. We also sorted pens, pencils and other supplies.
Backpack unpacking, sorting and stacking crew!
Pencil crew! When you get 12 pencils bundled up, it makes a distinct pattern, so you know you have 12. (The boys noticed this.)
They were so awesome!
I think these were among the youngest kids to volunteer down at Helpline House! (Kai’s dad is making bunny ears over my head!)
Cream soda rewards afterwards – look what this bottle cap says!
Robot combat!
Six boys and two robots = very exciting match up! Boys took turns driving and repairing. It was awesome. I had the good fortune of having a friend pop over just as I was unloading 42 bags of groceries from the truck. She helped me carry them then helped finish of a few drops of wine. Then neighbor and baby popped in to see what all the commotion was! Then more boys and another mom!  Blackberry cobbler in the over from picking adventure this morning. Fun afternoon! This is summer 🙂
Olympic walkabouts
In August we popped out to the Olympic Peninsula several times to check out adventures we hadn’t gotten to yet. We were very fortunate to grab a room both at Kalaloch Lodge on the coast and Lake Crescent one weekend. We also made it to Rainier for PEAK WILDFLOWER VIEWING! Can you believe it? That was an epic day – 7 hrs of driving and 3.5 hrs of hiking! We sure did have fun! Please check the album link above for August pictures.
Dave at the Dosewallups River on a peaceful afternoon following a great hike on the Steam Donkey trail.
More mountain biking at Grand Forest! Ben is certified by Dave as a competent mountain biker, handling all of the trails, including steep, gravelly slopes and single track, with skill. Good for you, Ben!
Blackberry bear! He stops for berries of all kinds!
Some impromptu climbing that reminds me of Hawaii adventures. You don’t go far, but you go deep and explore things at the micro level that you never would have thought to stop by and check out otherwise. Sometimes we mainlanders feel like we have to strike out ambitiously to have a good time. We don’t.
Olympic Discovery Trail from Port Townsend. You bike 7.5 each way through many great trails and farms. Hard to decide which of these bike trails I like the most!
Hurricane Ridge rest stop on our way to Kalaloch.
Rialto Beach walk to Hole-in-the-Wall.
Lake Crescent!
I love the lodge at night. We are listening to a very funny and informative ranger presentation on the porch.
Wild sweet peas on our little lawn overlooking the lake.
Mount Rainier hike!
Wildflowers!! And marmots! OH MY! Check the album!
July adventures!
I can’t believe July few by! There are so many great July pictures to share with you here. Here is a selection. July was spent with sports during the week (roller hockey and STEM camp for Sam and soccer/basketball for Ben) and adventuring on the weekends. It is a blur now, but fun every day. I hope you enjoy these shots. Click on the link above to explore the rest of the album.
Mountain biking in Gazzam Preserve.
Roller Hockey rocks!
The Cream Soda Crew hard at work removing rocks from pastures!
Not worn out by rock removal…the Crew continues with wood chopping!
Mountain biking in Port Gamble. These were some great single-track trails. Just exhilarating! Sam did great – he’s been doing this for a while. But he has a bigger bike so I’m happy to see he can manage an adult-size bike on the more technical trails. Ben was surprisingly adept, but then again – it’s Ben. Fearless, unwitting of the danger. That’s all you need to barrel over roots. There will come a time when he begins to question his powers over gravity!
Sign Spinner
Ben helping recruit customers to buy eggs donated to a roller hockey team fundraiser!
Here they are talking to a neighbor and team mate, and the car behind them is one of the coaches! Wow – pretty good publicity!
This seemed like a decent way to offload a huge pile-up of eggs in our fridge (since I finally went to the market and needed some real estate back!). Turns out Ben is an amazing sales person! He helped pull in the customers, while Sam did the math checking (one person said how much are they and Ben said “Five cents!” – Sam jumped in and corrected that one!). A friend came down in his gear and helped out, too. They were awesome together. Ben was so enthusiastic that one customer turned around and came back. He said “I turned around because of YOU (Ben) and your enthusiasm.” He tipped Ben an extra $2. Isn’t that so nice? He is a science teacher in the district. Another lady bought two dozen but gave the kids $40 – essentially donating $30!!! I wish I could have thanked her but I was inside washing up another two dozen! I was watching Ben from the shadows to be sure his enthusiasm didn’t propel him into the road…we set up a hockey stick on the ground so he wouldn’t get too close. Needless to say…I did not get the office time today that I needed. Oh well. They raised $74!
Enjoy this video 🙂
A lovely chicken liver lemonade, please
Today I took two boys for a 4.5 mile jog. We had a wonderful time – it’s awesome here in the Northwest in the summer. And how lucky am I to be a work-from-home mom who can jog with boys? They talk about the oddest things while jogging. Sam thought it would be funny to set up a chicken liver lemonade stand. Hmmm…sounds a bit like what is on offer for dinner around here.
Anyone for soy wasabi almonds and marshmallows for dinner?
It was time for a commissary run. After a two hour hockey practice. Which was after a 3 hour soccer camp (while Sam and I were out running). A tasty high-salt Taco Bell dinner followed by an hour in the air conditioning made sense. So we enjoyed ourselves immensely. Sam got chatty with the guys at the fish counter. Ben asked “Are there any flying fish here?” (I guess he was thinking of Pike Market?) Sam got a taste of smoked salmon belly strips and pronounced them DELICIOUS and so he got some. $386 later we were out the door and loading the car. Which was full of stinking hot hockey gear.
Have you ever smelled the elbow pads of a hockey player? Dave enjoyed helping us unpack!
Here are a few pictures of my lovies from today. I can’t figure out if camps are helpful or a pain in the arse. My head is spinning from the logistics of planning out the moving parts (along with my neighbors and friends – we are all helping each other with the logistics but we need a flight control expert to train us in managing all this!). Today I cancelled a camp. It’s TOO MUCH! I just want my kids with me!!!
The guys out jogging.
Telling an incredible story which lasted a whole 5K!!!
And the reward 🙂 We found that soda is healthier than ice cream. We’ll testify under oath, too, that it’s healthier.
Sam at hockey in the blazing sun. What I would give for an ice rink anywhere near Bainbridge. Sam LOVES roller hockey, though, and has gotten so good at skating it’s unreal. The league is fantastic! Such nice people.