I think it’s been awhile since I’ve had a real post on my website, so here goes (to accompany the most recent photos uploaded to the gallery)…

Saturday, Stephen, Heather, Tobin and I rented double kayaks and paddled around Lake Union. Our original intent was to paddle to the Arboretum by 520, however it quickly became apparent that that wasn’t going to happen! First off the wind was making the water a bit choppy, and there was TONS of boat traffic! Also it was a LONG WAYS to get to the arboretum!!! So much to Tobin’s disappointment, we hightailed it to Gasworks park (without getting run over by any yachts), and walked around the park a bit, sat on the lawn and visited, then made the trek back to the place we rented the kayaks (Northwest Outdoor Center).

The kayaks were $17/hr, and I think it ended up costing us just under $40 for the two kayaks. Not a bad price. I suppose we would’ve been out longer had we had wet skirts (we didn’t have any, and we were a little wet by the end) AND if I hadn’t taken my camera (I was stressing the whole time that it was going to get wet). But it was definitely an experience! lol

After that adventure, we drove the Bomber (yes we drove that instead of the Bimmer lol) over to the Ballard locks. We were getting hungry, so we stopped by a fish and chips place and ate dinner. That was fun, ‘cause Tobin and I had eaten there when we were dating. After eating, we explored the Locks. The Salmon were running, so we got to see them in the fish ladder. It was pretty cool. I didn’t get any pics of the fish ladder though, ‘cause my polarizing filter is stuck on my camera, and it was doing some pretty funky things with the glass.

After the fish ladder, we walked down the South(?) side of the locks. There were hardly any people, and it was really peaceful. The day was gorgeous too. It was really relaxing and really fun.

Oh and one final thing, did you know that Jones Soda is now making green apple pop – in cans? Yes it’s true. Stephen and Heather found some at Target, and we brought them with us in the kayaks. I think I have a new favorite pop (since I haven’t been able to find the Green Apple Fanta we enjoyed in China anywhere in the US!). lol

Have a great week. Oh, and make sure you check out those kayaking pics.

I’ve just finished uploading a plethora of new photos for your viewing enjoyment. You really need to check out the pics of us sailing this weekend, and us walking along the waterfront in Tacoma…

What a fun weekend! You may have noticed that it has been awhile since I’ve blogged, that’s because life has been super hectic lately (and I thought that summer was supposed to be relaxing!). lol Work has kept me really busy (I worked overtime all last week), and by the time I get home, the last thing I feel like doing is firing up the laptop. Anyways, it was really fun to get away from our hectic schedule, and have a nice fun weekend.

We’ve been planning on going to a rodeo (the Omak Stampede) with Dusty and Kristen for several months now. Well the rodeo was this weekend, so Tobin and I drove to Ephrata on Friday and then Saturday afternoon drove the hour and a half to Omak where we met up with Dusty and Kristen. Did you know they are expecting? Yep. Hard to believe! I can guarantee you that we’re taking notes on those two so that by the time we get pregnant, we’ll know what to expect (oh and that’s still a long while off – to those of you who have been asking).

Omak is so pretty, I do have to backtrack and say that Tobin and I really enjoyed the drive up. It was just really pretty. Especially around the Columbia River (like by Brewster). I could definitely handle living there someday. Though I do think the forest fires would be a drag. There are some forest fires going on right now in Northern Central Washington, and we could smell/see it in Omak. Our black car (yeah we drove the Bimmer) had ash all over it whenever we parked it for any length of time.

So anyways, the Rodeo was a lot of fun. We had pretty good seats. I took lots of pictures. I do think that my pictures at Coulee City turned out better though (as that rodeo was during the day AND we were closer as it was a small rodeo). I liked the broncos the best. Kristen liked the “mutton busting” (where kids rode sheep), and Tobin and Dusty liked the bulls (as well as the broncos).

We got to see the suicide race too (we could watch from our grandstand seating). That was pretty crazy. I’m glad no one got hurt! I didn’t realize that they do that 4 times. Yep every day that they have the rodeo going on (Thursday – Sunday), they also do a Suicide Race. We ended up leaving Omak around 11 – we got home at around 12:30.

Sunday, we went to church and then decided to drive to Leavenworth for the day. We drove via Waterville where we picked up ML’s friend, Rhys. Then we ate Chinese in Wenatchee (thank you Daddy, the food was great!). From there we drove to Leavenworth where we had lots of fun trying on hats in the hat shop (check out all the pics). We also walked along the water, but not before we all bought ice cream cones or milk shakes. It was pretty hot (in the 90’s I think). The walk was fun – we even waded out in the water (it was super shallow where we went out), and I took my camera and got a bunch of shots.

We ended up leaving from Leavenworth at around 7:30. We made it home to Seattle by about 9:30. It was a fun weekend for us. I hope you had a good weekend too. Leave me a comment and let me know how it went for you!

Oh and in case you’re wondering about the title of this week’s blog, Horses is in reference to the Omak Stampede, and Hats is in reference to the fun hat shop we visited in Leavenworth. Don’t forget to check out the photos from this weekend!

Tammie

I apologize for taking such a long time to post anything on the website. It’s been an especially busy last couple of weeks, and weekend before last we stayed in town and didn’t do anything really interesting (at least interesting enough to write about!).

So what have we been up to? Well life in general is the same – I’ve been busy doing school work for my Masters classes. Tobin has now finished out Summer School, so now he has a few weeks of summer. Of course I’m still working (always am). Nice though, ‘cause work just hired someone to help me, so now I can get back to managing the websites more rather than working with the emails.

Last weekend we went to Ephrata – or tried to go anyways. Have you ever had a trip or a vacation – or a time that was scheduled to be relaxing – that just ended up not being as relaxing as you were hoping for? Or a trip that just maybe shouldn’t have happened? Well last weekend was starting to feel that way. On Thursday before last weekend, the sunroof in the Bimmer decided to stop working. I figured it hopped the track, so I decided we’d see if Daddy could fix it in Ephrata, since we were headed that way anyways. Well to make a very long story short, on Friday, we made it to the summit before we had to turn around due to the engine & transmission lights coming on (the car’s scheduled at Seattle BMW this Friday). I hope they can fix that car – I really do like that car and don’t want to be forced to sell.

Stephen and Heather were headed to Ephrata as well last weekend, so while all this was going down with the Bimmer, we called and pleaded with them to take us (they did). After initially leaving Seattle at 2:30 pm, we finally made it to Ephrata by about 11:45…

Saturday we wanted to take the boats out, so we took both (Big Red and the Cat) to Moses. It was super windy so we knew from the start we wouldn’t be doing much but tubing behind Big Red. But the guys were super excited for the wind – Stephen had brought along his GPS so they’d be able to see how fast they were going. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Cat setup time is not small in calm conditions – and the wind certainly didn’t help. Partway into the process we broke a bolt, that Daddy had to run into town to buy. So maybe it took us 2½-3 hours to set that thing up. You have to understand too, that our experience with boating has been to pull up, take the cover off, throw the ice chest in the boat, and back it in. This Cat is a lesion in patience for all of us!

We FINALLY got the boats in the water – and then things got a lot better. Stephen ran a Pirate flag up to the top of the Cat and then he, Tobin and Daddy played the part of pirates whenever they were within earshot of Big Red (all the ladies stayed in the ski boat for most of the day). Believe it or not, they got that Cat going 11 mph with the three of them on it. When Tobin jumped off, they got up to 13 mph. That’s pretty fast! Everyone got to ride on the Cat ‘cept Mommy & Heather (though Heather rode it a bunch 2 weeks before). It was pretty sweet. Stephen got the diapers figured out (they’re basically super uncomfortable harnesses that you wear to suspend yourself over the water), and so that was pretty cool. The unfortunate thing was that the trampoline tore out (we knew it would only be a matter of time). I think that a new one is already on order though.

So all in all, the day on the water was fun. We didn’t do any skiing – I think we did pull Tobin on the tube just a little bit. I took a bunch of pictures, but they didn’t turn out as well as the ones turned out 2 weekends before – as it was a bit of a blustery day. Not all calm and glassy like before!

Fast forward to Sunday. We went to church, ate lunch, hung out and then picked up Daddy’s OTHER Catamaran (yes he has two). I should mention that Stephen and Heather were driving Heather’s parent’s suburban, pulling a Catamaran trailer they bought off Craigslist a few days ago. It took a little longer than expected to get the Cat all situated on the trailer (we went in and visited with Grandpa who wasn’t feeling too well). Then we finally left around 5:30 or so. It was windy which isn’t too much fun to pull a trailer in. Vantage was super bad. In fact it was super windy from Ephrata to about Cle Elum. When we got to about Easton it started to rain and when Stephen went to turn on the windshield wipers, they moved about an inch and stopped. Not cool. We ended up driving to the summit (what is it about our luck with the Summit?), without windshield wipers (and pulling a trailer), where we gassed up the Suburban (again), and Stephen fiddled around with the wipers ‘till they worked. Well the wipers stopped a few times after that, but we got smart and left them going constantly to give them less chance of binding (or whatever was happening). What an adventure!!! We made it to Stephen and Heathers at around 10 I think, and then Tobin and I drove home in the Brown Bomber.

What a weekend!!! It had its fun elements but unfortunately a lot of stress made it’s way in too. To compound everything that I’ve just mentioned, I had a pretty large amount of homework that was due at the beginning of this week. Come on! Summer’s supposed to be relaxing! :-) Oh well. We’ve had an awesome summer so far – in a way I’m glad that all the things that seemed to go wrong this weekend happened on one weekend rather than spacing themselves out over the summer!

Well anyways, now Stephen has a Cat. He’s got some work to do on it – but at least he’s got a working Pirate flag! Oh and he’s got several Pirate hats on order. Now we just need to buy a ski boat and a truck (hey we’re looking!). Speaking of Pirates, I’ll leave you with this shirt ML found that I’m thinking we might have to buy for sailing. And if you really want to you can buy a similar one here.

Bye for now, Tammie