More Ayla Mae

For those of you anxiously awaiting more pics of baby girl, here are a few. These are the ones taken by the professional photographers (Bella Baby) at the hospital.

oh, how sad!

sorry, couldn't help myself with the prop. ;)

The Halo of Light Around the Moon

Ayla Mae ('Ayla' means the halo of light around the moon) was born on 8/16/2015, healthy and cute. Due to her position, she had to be delivered via c-section but momma and baby are recovering just fine. 

As far as babies go, she seems pretty easy going...so far. She eats, poops (a lot), pees on daddy when he changes her diaper (every time), and cries occasionally. She makes a lot of noises and we are trying to decide if she sounds more like a chipmunk, mouse, dinosaur, or pig. Big brother votes 'pig' and he might be right.

Big brother is making the adjustment, slowly but surely. He is going to be the best big brother ever! Speaking of big brothers, my brother and I are three years and four days apart (July) and so are Kye and Ayla. Weird coincidence!

A bunch of pics won't upload to blogger so you get only a few here. Technical difficulties!

Summer Starts...

June has been an uncharacteristically warm and sunny month. I'm sure we are due for a few weeks or perhaps a month of rain before we actually get a consistent summer.

We enjoyed the warm days of June, however.

Kye and Nason wade in stump lake (aka Keechelus)

Kye with his friend 'Dafe' playing ball

He now loves the water park...

I signed up for a trail run somewhat near Mt. St. Helens, my first (maybe only) 25K. The run was pretty great, actually. It began with six miles of roly-poly wooded trail, past a beautiful waterfall and through wildflowers. Then it steeply climbed for four miles, the wildflowers becoming much more alpine, and I enjoyed views of St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. Adams as I ran along a ridge line. Back up another ridge line, the views continued, and we even ran through a rock archway. Pretty cool and definitely interesting the whole time. We finished mile 12 at the top of Silver Star peak and then headed down to beer and a nice gathering of interesting folks. 

 After the race...

We camped out that night and then Brandon had a chance to run the trail the next day. Kye and I went for a hike. He yammered on about flowers and rocks and airplanes and birds and then promptly asked to be held and fell asleep in my arms for an early nap. It was sweet.

A budding trail runner.

Then we headed to the Hood Canal area to visit a friend. A short but nice visit, enjoyed a cookout dinner, good conversation, and some banjo/fiddle/tin whistle music.

Kye, trying to catch the rain

At the nearby beach

A ferry ride home from Bainbridge

And tonight, after hanging out with Grandma all day, K got spoiled with some ice cream. I think this picture says we are ready for summer, even though it was 60 and rainy all weekend. We are in the summer mind-set, at least. 

Almost Perfect

This weekend was literally almost perfect. The only thing that would've made it better was if B and I were together a bit more. Well, actually, what would make it perfect is if it wouldn't end...my summer break is soooo close!!!

B concocted a plan at the last minute to do a ski tour on Mt. Baker called the Watson Traverse. We'll do a separate post on that. In his absence, K and I enjoyed a trip to the beach in the sunny & 70 degree weather.

Sunday, we met up with several Betties and Babies (toddlers) at a local climbing crag. We got a bit of climbing in, the kiddos played with trucks in the dirt, and a couple of them bouldered a bit. A good time was had by all and we managed to get the kiddos in the packs by nap time.

While K napped, I went for my long training run of the week. I hit the trail at Summit West, thinking I'd run to Rockdale Lake and then up the nordic trails and home. However, I got a bit turned around at Rockdale. Instead of turning onto the nordic trails, I ended up continuing all the way to Silver Peak. By the time I realized my mistake, I decided it would be harder to retrace my steps (there were several fast stream crossings at Rockdale) than it would be to continue on home down the forest service road. So, what was probably going to be 8-9 miles ended up more like 10-12...not sure. It was a beautiful run in the mountains, sunshine, and not a soul to be seen past the first couple of miles.

Being Responsible, continued

We enjoyed a sunny ferry ride over to Orcas Island. Kye thought the ferry was really cool and ran around the deck looking at seagulls flying over the 'big puddle', as he called it.

On the island, we camped at Moran State Park on Cascade Lake. It was pretty and very quiet camping. We were lucky to have good weather for most of the time, only one day of rain. Kye enjoyed throwing rocks in the lake and running around on the trails with sticks.

One day, we hiked the short walk to Cascade Falls, in the background here.

Then we took another short hike to a secluded beach called Obstruction Point Beach. Kye fell asleep in the pack on the way in and remained napping on the beach for a little while. It must've been a great setting for a nap: water lapping up on a pebble beach and warm sun.

Brandon did one bike ride out of camp up Mt. Constitution on one of our first days there but wasn't that impressed. He thought he must've missed the proper trail. So, on another day, he decided to park at the top of Mt. Constitution and ride down (hoping to find the best way down), and then back up again. 

[Kye and I from the top of Mt. Constitution]

[B enjoyed this ride a bit more, but it was short.]

Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling that well the whole trip and so opted not to ride my bike. It sounds like I didn't miss incredible riding so that's okay.

We ate two amazing meals while on the island, worth mentioning. If you go to Orcas Island, be sure to enjoy a meal at The Kitchen, described as 'fast, asian food'. It was fast and high quality, with super fresh ingredients and amazing flavors. We heard there was a pizza and open mic night at Doe Bay, so we went there and had some of the best pizza I've ever had in an incredibly beautiful setting.

 [Kale pesto with crimini mushrooms and asiago cheese; pickled onions and gruyere cheese; 

Manny's  Pale Ale and milk on tap :)]

Being Responsible

We deliberated about going to Moab or Fruita for spring break, but in the end, decided we needed to stay closer to home and save the money we'd spend on fuel. It was the 'responsible' thing to do...we're not really all that into being responsible but figured we should try it.

So, for the first weekend of spring break, we headed to Vantage for some climbing and camping with friends. It was warm and sunny, which was nice. The wind and blowing dirt, however, were not so nice. We arranged to meet with Isabel and her family, and then we invited some other people to join, so it was really cool to have a group of friends together climbing and watching the kiddos.

 [Kye and Isaac throwing dirt on themselves...]

[Aunty Carly reading to Kye at the crag]

[Anne in blue, climbing; Isabel on belay]

The most convenient crag in Washington for climbing with kiddos is the Feathers. While not my favorite (see the crowds above), it was quite easy to climb two or three routes and then head back to camp within a 2-minute walk.

After a couple of days in the desert sun, we packed up and headed for home. A night at home and then we loaded the truck and camper to go to Orcas Island for a few days of camping and biking.

Dragon on Skis!

It was the last night of Little Locals ski club and it was pouring rain, but we went anyway, because that's what you do in the Pacific Northwest. To celebrate the last night, we were supposed to dress our little ones up. Here is the crew, all dressed up and ready to ski in the rain!

Kye, with Tiffany

Eating a snowball/skiing

Dawn and Anne help Kye ski!

Swish-Swish-Swish

By now, we are accustomed to having walls of snow around our house and plenty of skiing days already. But our ski hill is covered in shrubs and rocks and creeks still, not enough snow for skiing.

We both had time off for the holidays and, while we would have preferred to have spent the time skiing, we got out for some hikes up the ski hill instead.

A couple days after this evening hike, we were blessed to receive a few inches of snow. We got out for a couple ski runs up Hyak that weekend. It was sunny and gorgeous on Sunday, so I loaded Kye up in the pack for a little walk. I wasn't planning on him taking a nap, but he zonked out within a few minutes.

(drool)

Before Kye, I shared a million moments of outdoor adventure with Brandon. Now, I get to experience it all with this little guy. There's something pretty amazing about hiking along in the twilight, with Kye pointing to the moon and trying his new word (which sounds a bit more like 'mom'). And on the day pictured above, he woke up for the ski down and made the sound effect for skiing (swish-swish-swish). It was horrible skiing but he didn't care. It was fun and exciting to him. 

Brandon and I get to enjoy all the same activities we did before, but with a renewed sense of adventure, watching this little guy discover the world around him. Thanks God.