Gasworks Park

Yesterday we headed out on the bikes for a picnic lunch at Gasworks Park. Except for Ryan, who had done the route to his office the day before and was having some issues with a sore knee. He drove over in the car and met up with us there. Our friends, the Redpaths, had invited us and chose the route we took. A little scary early on as you're riding in a very narrow bike lane (which cars often decide to partially park in) down a busy road, but once you get through that segment you're on the Burke-Gilman trail the rest of the way. We could've taken less busy roads down, but the trail is discontinuous over by us, which seemed like it'd be a little too nerve-wracking with so many younger ones along.

Gareth got to ride the "new" 20-inch bike he inherited from Redpath's youngest and I pulled Malcolm and the food/blankets in their trailer. The weather was a bit iffy, but rather nice for riding. Cool and sprinkles of rain here and there.

Malcolm enjoyed getting to eat lots of junk food (chips and cookies), which Gareth enjoyed as well but he also ate some healthy food. While we ate we sat and enjoyed watching the boats out on the lake. I forgot my camera, but snapped a couple pictures on the phone (which I hate doing because you can't see the screen and what you're actually getting the the picture very well outdoors):

And here's one stolen from their blog that shows our whole group, minus Ryan who hadn't joined us yet, and Redpath's oldest who was taking the picture:

It was rather nice that Ryan drove up because that meant I didn't have to haul Malcolm and the trailer back home. The ride to the park is mostly downhill (down the busy street), but you climb a little over 300 ft on the way home. Not a big deal without the trailer, but definitely more difficult with it. But this is a ride that I'll likely do again (almost 10 miles round trip) over the summer, so I'm sure I'll get plenty of chances to get the workout riding home with the trailer provides!

Afternoon at the Park

We've had such nice weather lately that we decided to head to the park with some friends after school today. It was a bit crazy trying to get there since we had another friend with us and had to get home from school and pack up water and snacks before heading out again in the car and then we ran into traffic from construction, but we made it. And were so glad we did! It was gorgeous weather and there was almost no one else at the park. If only we had discovered weeks ago how empty the park would be in the after-school hours!

We ended up with 6 boys in our little group and they all had a great time. They ran around the playground for a bit and Malcolm came across another 2 year old who he mostly tried to ignore and looked at rather warily when the other kid tried to interact with him. Apparently kids his own age are pretty threatening, while 7 and 8 year olds are totally awesome to hang out with.

One of my friends took some pictures while we were doing a short hike up the hill and of Malcolm sliding down the salmon slide (salmon are a big deal here). They're a bit dark on the shady hike, but here they are anyway:

Gorgeous day!

Malcolm loved the slides today. He's been in this weird mood with slides lately where he seems to want to do them and then gets up to them and is scared and won't do it anymore. But not today. He was incredibly sad when it was time to leave - as was I. It's hard to go home when we get beautiful days like this and the kids are having a great time. It definitely got me in the mood to plan some summer fun for once school is over in a couple of weeks.

Riding the Bike Again

I used to ride my bike semi-frequently. During my early college years I'd go on early-morning bike rides when I was home during the summer. After Ryan and I got married we often rode our bikes to class since we didn't have a car. But I haven't touched my bike since Gareth was born. Seven years.

Around here they have Bike-to-School/Work Month in May. I'm guessing other places have this as well? I'd never heard of it until living here, so maybe not. Gareth loves riding his bike to school and seeing many other friends biking a lot and having one friend in particular who is a bike enthusiast (bikes around Lake Washington while his kids are at school, things like that) had given me the itch to start riding again. Plus, I am really needing some kind of exercise in my life and riding seemed like something I could do once in a while even with all the other stuff I've got going on.

So I went out and bought a new helmet to replace the one I'd had since 5th grade and had my friend give the bike a once-over to make sure it was in working order. Today I went on my first effort-requiring ride. To celebrate the end of Bike-to-School Month, there was a bike party down on the "Main Street" of our neighborhood after school. So I borrowed our friend's trailer, stuck Malcolm in it (he LOVED the trailer), and we all rode down with several other school kids/parents. It's an easy ride down - all downhill. My hands were actually getting a bit tired from having to use the brakes constantly. The problem with an easy ride down is it means a harder ride back up.

We stayed at the party long enough for Gareth to get some free sample things and to watch a BMX jump show and then headed home. It wasn't too long before I was pedaling on my lowest gear and my legs were aching. Gareth did an awesome job and pedaled the whole way home - about 1.7 miles. Not bad considering we'd never done a ride like this before! I made it home too, though I felt nauseous and like I was going to fall over by the time we finished. I can't wait to see how badly my legs ache tomorrow.

My friend keeps trying to talk me into riding around Lake Washington with him. I think that'll be a good goal to work toward. But first I think I'd like to be able to ride a slight incline for a couple miles without it nearly killing me!

$13.50

Me: How was your bike ride home, Gareth?
Gareth: Good.
Ryan: Bad.
Gareth: No! Good!

...after a lot more bantering back and forth...

Ryan: Better than 50 million dollars?
Gareth: No!
Ryan: Better than 5 million dollars?
Gareth: No!

etc, until:

Ryan: Better than 5 dollars?
Gareth: Yes!
Ryan: Better than 15 dollars?
Gareth: No
Ryan: Better than 12 dollars?
Gareth: Yes
Ryan Better than 13 dollars?
Gareth: A tiny bit better.

Apparently riding his bike home from school with our friend is worth approximately $13.50.

Memorial Day Weekend

We took it pretty easy this weekend. I had a Chemistry exam on Thursday and had had to play first clarinet at orchestra rehearsal on Wednesday, so I let myself relax and ignore all things school for the entire weekend. I feel okay about this since I was recovering from a horrible cold (stupid cough is still lingering).

I still miss Somerville's Memorial Day. Maybe next year I'll have to try harder to find a parade or something for us to attend, because it feels weird to not do anything! Anyway, we mostly hung around the house this weekend. Folklife is always this weekend, but I think we had our fill of that a few years ago. I'm guessing there were lots of hippie wannabes, lots and lots of pot (not that this wasn't there before - pretty sure I remember smelling that 4 years ago, but I'd wager it was present in larger quantities now that it's legal), and a plethora of bad musicians playing throughout Seattle Center. I had a concert on Sunday, which went pretty well. I made some mistakes that I wish I hadn't. Luckily I'll get a second chance at the clarinet convention this summer.

We all slept in a bit this morning. Then we enjoyed a late breakfast of whole grain pancakes, canadian bacon, and hash. Ryan has this place downtown that he goes to for lunch sometimes and he buys the hash there. Gareth is too scared to try it, which is fine by us since that means more for us.

Then we got some yardwork done - Ryan trimmed the ivy and pampas grass (which may be dying, hooray!) and I did weeding with some help from Gareth while Malcolm wandered the yard. A little later in the afternoon Gareth and I went for a short bike ride to the park where we ran into friends and played for a bit. I finally got around to getting a new helmet and had a bike enthusiast friend take a look at my bike to make sure it was in working order and pump up the tires for me, so now I have no excuse not to go riding with Gareth or by myself. Though we don't have a way to carry Malcolm on our bikes, so that will make it more difficult to just get out and go. I'm going to be in for some saddle soreness this summer - the ride to the park is not very long and already my seat felt very hard and uncomfortable. Ryan is also attempting to ride his bike more, though he's doing so in the hopes of working up to riding to work. He's told me that if he makes it through a full winter riding every day then he'll consider letting himself save up for a good road bike. It'd be nice for him to not have to wait for the bus, not to mention it'd be great exercise in addition to his weightlifting.

It was a good weekend, and one that leaves me excited for Gareth and myself to be done with school in a few weeks.

Dash Point State Park

We went on our first camping trip this past weekend. I realized too late that it was a tad crazy for me to have planned a birthday party on Thursday afternoon followed by a camping trip on Friday. But I managed to squeeze all the preparations in, though everything else was a bit neglected last week as a result.

Anyway, we wanted somewhere not too far away for our first attempt. I looked through a book someone had lent me and found Dash Point State Park. It feels a bit silly to say you're camping there when reality is that you're 2 minutes from suburbia and maybe 10 from a large mall. But it is only about 45 minutes away from us, in Federal Way, and seemed like a good choice for our first attempt. I was rather nervous heading into the trip because it was forecast to rain through the weekend.

Luckily, the weather was lovely on Friday. I'd prepped some food Thursday evening and then we spent Friday morning packing. It was extremely tight fitting everything in our little car, but we managed to squeeze everything in this time around. We weren't supposed to arrive to check-in until after 2:30, so we left after Malcolm napped and arrived late in the afternoon. There wasn't anyone there to check-in with, so we just went to our reserved site and started getting set up. Things looked rather muddy, but otherwise okay. We realized we wouldn't need our camping table as there was a large picnic table on the site. Ryan got the tent set up mostly by himself while I kept Malcolm entertained. Someone had told me we'd almost certainly be able to buy firewood at the park, but upon arrival we could find no sign of being able to do so. So Ryan went to a store to try to find firewood while I went in the tent with the boys and worked on getting settled in. They were both very excited about being inside the tent. It was at this point that I realized we forgot to pack pillows. Not that we had room for them anyway.

Ryan got back, unable to find real wood at the store, but had gone ahead and purchased some of those fake ones. I got dinner heated up, a recipe that we normally wouldn't make again as it we could tell it was just "meh" when eating comfortably indoors, but it tasted quite good when eating outdoors, so we might hang onto it as a decent camping food recipe. Once we got dishes cleaned up we set to work starting a fire. The fake logs worked well enough if you just want a fire, but they didn't work at all for marshmallows. The marshmallows just turned an ashy grey color and weren't at all what Ryan and I remembered fire-toasted marshmallows being. So we didn't let the kids eat those, which was terribly disappointing for Gareth. To mollify him I made him a s'more with an un-toasted marshmallow and promised him next time we camp we'll be sure to get actual wood. Then Gareth and I played Connect 4 and let Malcolm join in on a couple games. By that point it was quite dark, and Malcolm was getting fussy and cold, so we got the boys ready for bed. We were worried about Malcolm getting cold, so we kept his socks on under his footie pjs, then put a sweater and his jacket on on top of the pjs and put him down with three blankets on top of him. Ryan and I stayed up until the fire died, and then put together some make-shift pillows for ourselves, which proved extremely inadequate and made for a poor night's sleep.

Excited to be camping

I was expecting to wake up to rain the next morning and wasn't sure how cooking breakfast was going to go if it was pouring rain. But it wasn't raining when I woke up, so I quickly got to work on whole grain pancakes for our breakfast. It took me a while to get it right - several were underdone in the center and many were burned on the outside, but by the end I think I had it down pretty well. I forgot butter, so just had to cook them in a little oil, but that seemed to work just fine. Ryan helped corral the kids while I finished breakfast clean-up and then I took Malcolm on a walk. There was a trail head just a few feet from our campsite that was supposedly a loop, so I decided Malcolm and I would explore that. We found a small stream with a bridge over it from which Malcolm enjoyed throwing rocks into the water. Unfortunately, the loop turned out to not be a small one and we reached a fork that didn't have clear signage as to how to continue on the loop, so I opted to have us turn around and head back. Good choice, because just as we got back it started to rain.

It wasn't easy keeping the boys entertained inside the tent. It was cold and rainy enough that it would be unpleasant to be outside, especially since Gareth was the only one with rain boots. We played many games of Connect 4 and Trouble. Malcolm took a small nap quite a bit earlier than usual, and we all read a bit. There was a lot of shrieking from Malcolm, which was particularly annoying inside the confines of the tent. Eventually it came around to lunch time. I'd planned on sandwiches for lunch, so I went out in the rain and set things up so that we could prep sandwiches and eat in the car, only to arrive back at the tent and see everyone had fallen asleep! Once Gareth woke up (thereby waking everyone else up) we ate lunch. Our campsite was getting muddier by the minute, so eating outside still wasn't a terribly appealing option. The boys seemed to enjoy eating in the car and we turned the car on for a bit to charge Ryan's phone and let us all get warm. By the time sandwiches and apples and Pirate Booty had been consumed, the boys were getting a little too excited and energetic for the car.

Thankfully the rain had let up and so I took the boys for a walk on the trail that Malcolm and I had explored earlier. Ryan tried to follow us later, but despite us moving slowly, he didn't catch up to us and we were past the fork in the trail before he got there and he ended up taking the opposite fork. Malcolm was a nightmare on the trail because he kept wanting to sit in the mud and eat the leaves of all the plants and run while holding my hand and then go dead weight on me, making me worry he'd pull out his shoulder or otherwise injure himself. We were both quite a muddy mess by the time we got back. When we got back I asked Gareth to keep an eye on Malcolm for a minute while I grabbed some wipes or something from the car. Apparently keeping an eye on his brother meant opening up the fire pit (which was a small pool of ash and water by this point) so that Malcolm could stick his foot into it. It had been sprinkling for a few minutes and was now starting to rain harder, so we retreated into the tent to get out of the rain and change Malcolm's clothes. There wasn't much we could do about his soaked shoes, however.

Exploring a mossy cave-like area, when the weather was nice and before the soaking of the shoes

It rained hard the rest of the afternoon, so we played more Connect 4 and Trouble, with only occasional trips out of the tent to use the bathroom or get an item from the car. The mud outside our tent was really wet and sticky by this point, which further discouraged many ventures out of the tent. We weren't sure what we'd do come dinner time if it was still raining, as Ryan doubted we'd want to stand out in the rain for the planned chili. But the rain stopped again around 7pm, so I worked quickly to heat up the chili. The site was far too muddy to set up the camp chairs around the fire pit or anywhere really, and I didn't want to feed Malcolm chili in the car (he's prone to spitting food out after chewing on it a bit), so I set up the boys' chairs on the asphalt next to the car and we ate dinner there. Malcolm was getting a bit whiny or unruly or something, so Ryan set him in the car and let Gareth in as well and they scarfed down the rest of the apples while I cleaned up dinner in the fast-approaching dark. It'd be too wet for a fire that night, plus it was likely going to rain again. Ryan and I decided that it was getting to be time for bed, so we got the boys settled as it started to rain and then worked to provide ourselves with more sufficient pillows, hoping for a better night's sleep, and hoping that our tent would continue to stay dry despite all the rain. Thankfully, the tent did stay dry, though a good night's sleep continued to elude us. We're both envious of Gareth and his youthful ability to sleep well anywhere.

Working on starting a fire Friday night

We were up probably no later than 7 Sunday morning. Ryan and I were both tired and, though it'd stopped raining, everything around us was still incredibly muddy and we were tired of having cold, wet feet, so we were ready to head home. We got the boys dressed and fed them bagels for breakfast. While they were eating I worked inside the tent to get everything packed up and ready to go. Ryan then helped me carry it all out of the tent to the car. Knowing we'd want to have the kids in the car while we dealt with taking down the tent, Ryan offered to take them for a walk while I packed the car. This worked perfectly as I had everything stuffed in place by the time they got back. I was glad I'd brought a couple large garbage bags as the tent, and especially the footprint, were far, far too muddy to just fold up and put away. So we folded everything rather loosely and stuffed them in the garbage bags so we could deal with them once home. We were packed and ready to go just after 9.

All said, Gareth had a great time, despite the rain. Ryan was miserable most of the time, but was a good sport about it and didn't complain. I keep finding myself telling people it was fun, though I have no idea why because most of Saturday was not much fun at all. I'm glad we went and that we stuck it out - if we're going to camp in the PNW we're going to have to be able to handle rain. And we really did luck out with the timing of the rain, which worked out so we could still have our planned hot meals on Saturday and even get in a couple of small outdoor explorations with the kids. Things we learned:

• We need a carrier for the top of the car.
• We need to all have appropriate footwear for the rain and mud.
• Make sure to figure out the firewood situation ahead of time so as to avoid disappointed children.
• We need to have whatever is necessary to make putting up a tarp over a food prep/eating area possible, even if trees aren't positioned such to make this easy.
• Ryan needs to work on stretching so he can be more flexible and sit comfortably in the tent if we're stuck inside during a hard rain.
• Forgetting pillows is a bad thing.
• If we go back to Dash Point, we want campsite 23, which did not turn into a giant mud pit, not site 20, which did.

Gareth Turns 7

Gareth requested Star Wars for his birthday this year. Unlike what feels like everyone and their dog these days, we don't go all out with a birthday theme. Last year we had the cake and some balloons and that was pretty much it. This year a Star Wars cake was not an option, unless we went with a light saber cake because it'd be super easy, but back when we were making decisions about this Gareth didn't seem very impressed by the idea of a light saber cake. So I found some Star Wars cookie cutters on Williams-Sonoma for a great price as well as some gluten-free sugar cookie mix (one of his friends eats gluten-free) and that's as far as our Star Wars theme went.

The kids got to decorate the cookies and scarfed them down. Gluten-free apparently works well for baked goods because rice flour is sweeter than wheat flour and so no one notices. The seven year olds at my house Thursday sure didn't. And the cookie cutters worked really well, so we'll definitely use them again. Are they $20 per set of four awesome? Uh, no. But less than half price awesome? Yes.

It was loud and noisy, but there were no tears. I don't plan parties well, so the kids just get to free play and they had a great time with that. They were playing some kind of ninja game together and managing to do so without any tears or destruction of our property. I was even able to be upstairs prepping cookie decorating while they were all downstairs, so this year's party actually felt much more relaxing than last year's since I wasn't in the same room as the constant shouting for two hours. I did remind them when they came up for cookies that they were all less than three feet away from each other so there was no need to shout. They were able to squash their excitement for about two minutes before the shouting returned. :)

They played, we decorated cookies, they played some more, and then we did ice cream and presents. They got in about ten more minutes of playing before parents started showing up. Gareth had a great time with all his friends and his friends seemed to enjoy it as well. Malcolm refused to nap, of course, so he was grumpy the rest of the afternoon. Legos were the popular gift this year (it's what we get all his friends for their birthdays as well), though he did get an ammonite fossil as well, which is pretty cool.

For dinner we had his favorite, pasta salad. Dessert was leftover cupcakes from his classroom birthday. We saved family presents for after dinner so Ryan could be part of the birthday celebration as well. It made a nice change from the Legos of the afternoon (though you can't really have too many Legos, I guess) as he got a lot of books and board games and a couple puzzles. We played all his new games together before he went to bed: Battleship, Connect4, and Trouble, and he carried all his books with him to bed.

Legos!

Explaining the Solar System to me

Excited about all the presents

Gareth at 7 is such a great kid. He's excited about so many things, loves reading and video games and is very energetic. He's a superb big brother and is usually more than happy to play with Malcolm. He's generally well-behaved and polite (at least at other people's homes!). It's fun to watch him grow and learn about the world around him.