Oh Deer!

We are so excited! We finally have a real deer head mounted on the wall in our cabin. Thanks to our friends Mike and Dena who knew how much we wanted one. Mike had shot the deer this past hunting season near our property, they thought it would be great to mount it for us, and surprise us! We were so surprised and thankful that they think enough of us to do something so nice. Mike had his B-day party at the property which was very cool, we had steaks and a birthday cake that was half german chocolate and have regular chocolate, way to go Dena. Here are some pics of the deer it is absolutely beautiful.

Cutting Wood

This past weekend was unseasonable warm. We decided to cut up 4 trees that had been waiting around since Labor Day. Floyd did all the cutting and I chopped all the wood and stacked it for later. It was a tiring prospect but we had a good time doing it. It was so warm, we were all in our T-shirts. We even got a beautiful sunset out of the deal.

Ride to Mt. St. Helens

Saturday, September 13th. Floyd and I had decided to trailer our Harleys down to our property and ride out from there heading toward Mt. St. Helens. It had been in the high 70's all week, but the morning started out foggy and a little on the cold side. We decided to take back roads along the Cowlitz River,then connect to the Jackson Highway through Toledo, after which we would head up toward the Johnson Ridge side of St. Helens. We came out of the fog outside Toledo into such beautiful scenery! Following the river past big farms, woods and as we got closer toward the Mountain, sheer rock faces. We stopped at a gift shop sporting a huge sasquach made out of concrete that had to be 20 ft. high. After laughing and teasing each other about which one of us looked more like the sasquach, we snapped a picture (not digital) I forgot my camera... so we had to buy a disposable one. Riding on we had the sun on our faces and it made the ride so much fun. We stopped at the Hoffstad Ridge store/gift shop. This is a classic timber-frame structure with a beautiful view of the Toutle River destruction zone where Mt. St. Helens sent it's huge mudflows pouring down the Toutle River, wiping out homes, farms everything in its path in 1980. We saw an "A" frame home that had just been completed in 1980 when the mud buried it up to it's 2nd Floor. What an amazing site. It took me back so many years to when the mountain erupted. I was 13, about the same age as my son is now. I remembered so much about it just reading the old newspapers at the Hoftstad Ridge observatory. We ended up turning around before reaching the actual end of the road, and rode back to Salkum in the sunshine, stopping here an there to look at things. What a great day.

A Day at the Seattle Waterfront

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Well, we could not have picked a HOTTER day this sumer to take the Bremerton ferry to Seattle. The forcast was in the mid to high 90's and it turned out that way!
When Ian and I got to Lydia's at about 11:00 it was already into the 80's. We almost missed the ferry because of the road construction around the terminal, and not really knowing where to park... BUT we strolled onto the 12:30 ferry with mintues to spare, no sweat right?

Getting off the ferry in Seattle, we saw a "bomb squad" unit parked next to our gate, wow, not an encouraging sight. Although we never did know what it was about, of course Lydia had to stop and take photos of it. I had forgotten how crowded the waterfront and the market are due to not having been there for almost 20 years. It was quite an adventure, Lydia and I never did find the perfect beer garden, alas. But the kids had a good time in the market, and Lydia got kicked out of one of the shops because she called it a "head shop" and the kid working behind the counter took offense and got irritated. So then she decided to mess with him a little more and of course got herself kicked out of the store. What fun!

My Friends

My friends are few, Lydia who I went to high school with is one of my closest friends. She never fails to make me laugh when I am down, thanks for being there for me!

Camping Trip

We went on a camping trip to Dosewallups State Park in Brinnon, WA.

The river was beautiful, we can't wait to go back. This picture is when my best friends' Daughter and I were rafting down the Dosewallups River.