Dragon Kite at Ocean Shores

This is one of my favorite photos from our day at Ocean Shores. We've been wanting to go do something before the kids go back to school, and since Doug was officially no longer on call for jury duty, we decided to make the drive out to the coast. Usually when we go to the beach it's on Puget Sound, which is much more sheltered. This is the real ocean.

It's about a two-hour drive. We've had a very rainy week and we were expecting some cloud cover, but when we got out there it was sunny. Surprise! I was the only one who got sunburned.



We brought along our kites. Doug picked up a big dragon kite just a couple of weeks ago, and we hadn't been able to really fly it yet.  (We took it out to the Chambers Creek Properties on Monday, but weren't able to get it to stay up for more than thirty seconds or so.)



We got the little ladybug kite up in the air first. That one's easy.



Going up...



Success! It's a heavy kite and takes a good steady wind. (We've never tried to fly anything bigger than this--we saw some really cool kites out there!)



Kate has named the dragon Breeze Cutter.



Kite high in the sky, with the string payed all the way out.



Ocean Shores is one of the few places where you can drive on the beach. People do get stuck.



We spotted this behemoth kite wallowing through the sky in the distance and decided to walk down the beach and check it out.



Walking down the beach involved walking next to the water. And then in the water. We put the kite in the car and got the kids' water shoes.



Each wave was topped with a line of this brown foamy scum. It was really kind of gross. I don't know if it's always like that or if we were just there on a particularly scummy day. I told Kate I was proud of her for getting in it at all. Her disgust threshold is normally pretty low. (She was jumping in and out of the water, hollering, "It's so gross! It's so gross!")



Andy seemed to really enjoy the sensation of the waves moving past, and the sand shifting under his feet.



In spite of brown scum, Kate had a great time. At one point she ran over and hugged me and said, "Thanks for bringing us here!"



Windy!



We finally made it down to where the big kite was. It was anchored to the bumper of an RV. The thing was enormous. It looked longer than the RV. (It's advertising premierkites.com)



Shirts!



Both kids ended up looking like this. We did bring dry clothes, just in case! Pants were needed.



We made it back over to where we were parked, and then the kids and I took a detour through the dunes to the public restrooms while Doug brought the car around. Kate thought the dunes were very cool.



It turns out a shutter speed of 125 is not fast enough to capture active kids!

There was no foot-washing station, that we could see, but we managed to get everyone de-scummed and de-sanded by filling up a water bottle repeatedly in the bathroom and pouring it over people's feet. Beach logistics can be complicated.

We made it back to Tacoma at about 6:00, and went to El Sabor for dinner. Yum!

Kid Shirts!

I made shirts yesterday!  It was a spur-of-the moment thing.  I thought they turned out really cute.  The kids were, perhaps, somewhat less enthused, but they were willing to pose for me. (Conveniently, both of our kids have four-letter names!  Isn't that lucky?)



The idea popped into my head in the morning while I was puttering around, and  I got to work on the stamps right away.  I cut the letters out of craft foam and glued them to another layer of foam. (That's the 5mm Silly Winks from Hobby Lobby--last time I was there they didn't have white so I got pink.)  I think it took me about an hour to do both Kate's and Andy's names. 



I got some Versatex Printing Ink that I have plans for. This was a good dry run. I started out rolling the ink out in a tray and pressing the stamp in it, but then realized that I could get better coverage by brayering it right onto the stamp.



Yes, I'm living dangerously here--didn't put down the drop cloth. No mishaps!



The stamping part was super easy. The hardest part was running downstairs between each color to wash out the brayer in the "work" sink. The orange is a bit brighter than I was thinking.  All the colors are really bright.  It works well here, but I might try to mix them and tone them down a bit for other projects.

That was fun!  What else can I stamp?

Tomato Time

August has just flown by.  I was out of commission for a while because I came down with a bronchial pneumonia thing right at the beginning of the month. (It was the day after our annual neighborhood potluck.  Note to self:  Do not attempt to make four dozen pretzels when not feeling well.)  I spent a lot of time in bed.  During this time the tomatoes started ripening in full force, but nothing was tasting good.  It was so sad to watch those beauties pile up and have no desire to eat them. 

So now I'm up and about, functioning more or less normally, and enjoying those lovely home-grown tomatoes.  The pile is a bit larger than we can tackle on our own.  We've eaten a lot, given a lot away, and I've starting cutting some up and freezing them.  We'll use them for cooking.  (Looking at this picture is making me hungry.  I shall have to run out and grab a couple of those Chadwick Cherries.)

Doug had two classes for summer quarter (which doesn't usually happen, so we're glad to have the extra money).  The quarter is over, but now he has jury duty.  We were hoping to maybe go out to the coast before the kids go back to school, but this may or may not happen.   (We also have an anniversary coming up... I suppose we'll manage to do something!)

Josh and Heather

I got to take pictures for Ross and Cathryn's older son's wedding reception. Josh and Heather were recently married in Utah.  (They met at BYU, and I understand a mutual fondness for Batman may have been involved.) 



We got some pictures at the house before heading over to the reception. Here's Josh surrounded by a bevy of beauties.



The reception was at this gorgeous house on the water, looking across to Raft Island. The sun was going down and the lighting was excitingly dramatic.



Oldest sister Brittany's kids.



The kids kept wanting to help carry the train. So cute!



The family! Dad Ross had to be away for work, and younger son Seth is serving a mission in Florida.  (It's rather shocking to see everyone so grown up--I remember them like this.)



Cathryn with the newest grandbaby (Brittany's fourth), Ellie Jane. Awww!



Gorgeous sunset!



Newlyweds on the dock.



I ran up onto the lanai for a bird's-eye perspective while they went all the way out to the end. (Heather was so cute, holding her dress up and skipping down the dock.)



It was a really lovely evening.  I got only slightly lost finding my way back through Gig Harbor (in the dark!)  Congratulations to the happy couple!

Sequalitchew Creek Trail

The Sequalitchew creek runs through DuPont down to Puget Sound through a beautiful gorge.  I just found out about the trail a few weeks ago, and we had to go check it out.  It starts just behind the DuPont City Hall.

It was supposed to get up to 90° so we wanted to get an early start.  We got to DuPont just before 9:00.  (We arranged to meet some friends, but they were a little behind, so we started walking.)  Kate spotted a little snake that went by too quickly to get a picture of.



This deer checked us out for a while and then ambled casually across the trail. 



The gorge was just beautiful--lush and green (a lot more deciduous than I'd been expecting).  The trail is paved for part of the way and then goes back to gravel again.  




At the end of the forest there's a tunnel that goes under the train tracks, heading out to the beach. Actually a pair of tunnels--one has old tracks running through it. The kids had to go through that side, of course.



Looking back (through the other tunnel). Love the light!



Kristi Timme and her girls caught up with us right before we hit the tunnel. We headed down to the beach together.



The tide was out pretty far. There were lots of creatures to find.




Crab!



The girls tipped over some rocks and found some sea stars, and these strange green creatures which on closer inspection appear to be some kind of isopod. (We made sure to turn the rocks back over afterwards.)






The view! There's also a shipwreck (an old cement ship grounded on a sandbar), in the other direction, that I hear you can walk to when the tide is completely out, but it was pretty far away from where we were. Perhaps we'll do that some day.



On the way back we had to stop and get a family picture in this gorgeous lighting. This one cracked me up--Andy gazing off into the distance and Kate making goofy faces--yep, that's our life. (This was really the best of the lot--the others were all blurry or had Kate doing some sort of pained zombie impression.)

We made it back up to the top of the trail right around noon.  It was getting hot by then, and it is uphill all the way--not terribly steep, but still tiring.  (Kate ended up riding the last half or so in the Timmes' amazing double-seater all-terrain stroller while the littles were carried.  We parents got a workout!)



We went through Lakewood on the way home and stopped at House of Pho.  This was planned in advance--we brought along Kate's training chopsticks.



Kate communes with the fish.   She and the big one were making some funny faces at each other.

A successful outing!  We'll have to do it again sometime.

Portrait Attempt (Acrylic)

Dawn, who got two pencil drawings last year, asked if I could paint her. I told her I wasn't sure how it would come out, but I was willing to give it a shot. I've been doing pencil drawings for years, and I've painted a few things (giraffes, Hogwarts....) but my non-pencil portrait experience has been pretty limited.

I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out. I'd say the hardest thing was trying to match the skin tones. And then just deciding how much attention to pay to the background. (I do like the flowers on the left. Those came out nicely.) Also, no one should ever have to paint teeth on their first attempt. So, all in all, not fabulous, but I'm not completely put off portrait painting for eternity. I'd like to give it a try again sometime, with a better photo. Something with higher resolution and more interesting lighting. After all those other projects on my list.