June 10th, 2020

 Oliver was excited to find ants eating some type of larve or worm.

June 9th 2020

Sleeping in the Happy Camper has mostly been fun.  Mosquitoes still find a way in and this is Bits's blanket helmet defense against them.  I am not sure how affect it is but it looks hillarious.

Getting the kids started on typing!

June 8th, 2020

Deer sighting by the cars this morning, I have seen them up on the hill towards the tree fort but not down by the cars.  I wonder if they are getting comfortable with us?

June 7th, 2020

Today was a good fun day, here Oliver on our way up to the shop was trying to find the dandlion with the most flowers on it running back and forth and all over the place.  I think the winner had 18.

Bits has been doing some serious gardening and exploring sq foot gardening and seed tape gardening.

The play fort is coming along, the floor and guard rails are in, just need the bug protection now.  Swing/Climbing set is in the ground with cement.  Now some finishing touches.

Katherine, Bits and I went for an early evening stroll around Leake Betty, at the beginning of the hike K grabbed Bits's phone out of her back pocket and was sneakly taking photos on it.

Busted!

June 6th, 2020

Sleepy Time!

Grilling Time!

Whiskey Time!

Green Thumb Time!?

June 5th, 2020

Day started out great with a bit of a tirm for the Birddog Minnesotan Hairdo.  No one was harmed!

Ended with a buitiful moonrise over Lake Betty!

June 4th, 2020

Some evening Dock fishing!

Finished the railings on the tree fort.

This moring we had quite the gaggle of geese visit us!

June 3rd, 2020

Oliver has been pretty intersted in rv's and trailers and I saw this one on my way to the daily po box run.  It was over 8,000 for that little thing.  WOW!

Mount Erie Rock Climbing

It has been raining so far during our spring break trip to Molly's Cabin but today was an exception.  Beautiful sunny day!  We took advantage and went rock climbing on Mount Erie.  I led three routes and the kids top roped two different routes.  Also Oliver with a Betsy back up belayed me for the first time.  He was pretty excited about that.  We drove to the summit and then hiked down, down, down for about 10 minutes of steep Washington climber's trail to get to the crag we were going to climb for the day.  We were at Friction Slab - Skyline Arete Group and Climbed Wake up Call, Prime Time, Home Free and Wacko. Finished the day on the deck with Bits some beers and wild turkey!

 

Mount Erie Hike

Climbed to the top of Mount Erie today via the Sunset trail.  Yes you can drive to the top but the hike is so much better. Mount Erie is in the Anacortes Community Forest Lands which is a network of public lands around the city of Anacortes, WA.  Check it out.  Hiking, climbing, biking galore.  We have used them well over the years of visiting Molly's Cabin.  Kids did awesome and we even had to pass two rock bands that were a few moves of low fifth Class.  We are hoping to get back soon with ropes and harnesses and do some steep rock!

Lake Campbell

Mid Hike Break.

Adventures in Pizza Making

One of our favorite cooking activities is making pizza.  This is what happens when you forget to check the crust.  Turned out fine!

Lazy Day today, catching with some rest from a busy last few days.  While cleaning I came across this note that my best guess is Oliver's attempt at this last name, so close.

Granite Mountain

This was a busy week that ended on a high note with a great Cascade hike, Granite Mountain.  On Wednesday I went to climb the tooth with Joe and I noticed a fire lookout to the south and asked Joe if he knew which one it was.  He was right and it was Granite Mountain.  The hike up to the fire lookout is used as a local training hike and the trail is about 4 miles and 4000 feet of elevation gain.  We choose to attempt the scrambling route on the Southeast ridge.

The ridge route is a bit more challenging class 2 climb off the beaten path, we ended up going up a bit too high on the normal trail and had to do an "awesome" traverse bushwhack back to the avalanche gully we were supposed to head up to gain the ridge.  We left the normal trail around 2.5 miles then it was pretty much straight up.  The weather was interesting, as the clouds came in and out one minute obscuring our views and our route and then next giving us fantastic views down the I-90 Corridor. 

Once on the Southeast ridge it was a classic rocky scramble to the fire lookout.  It was cold up there and the wind cut through our jackets.  We had a few shots of Scotch ate our sandwiches and headed back down.  We decided to take the trail down and I am really glad that we did.  The upper section of the hike winds through high rocky meadows with flowers and trees and just a beautiful area.

Ended the day by grabbing some beers and a new t shirt from Holy Mountain. Dropped Kris at his house and went to say goodbye to Joe and Kelsey who were leaving Monday for their three month adventure to Europe.

Another send off

Helping Joe Pack up the bikes for their three month tour of Europe.  I hope the bikes make it!

After that I headed down to the 20th Annual Dead Baby Downhill and the greatest party known to man.

T-Shirt Art

The Start of the downhill race.

One of the main Dead Baby Bikes.

The first of too many of too many things!

Goodbye

Today I took the morning off from work to take the family to the airport for their annual trip back to the Midwest.  And off they go.

Work was somewhat uneventful and then I was off for a night of biking, eating pizza, drinking, and a fire gathering sending a kitten off before they leave for Paris for at least a few years.

The Tooth

A quick afternoon climb with Joe before his European adventure. We tackled the Tooth a easy 5.6 ish cascade classic. Have climbed it many times over but this was nice as we had the place to ourselves until we started our descent which is extremely rare on this peak.