NYC

We spent Labor Day weekend up in NYC, where we spent much needed time with friends we don't get to see nearly enough. Sean and Hallie were so wonderful in opening their darling Hoboken home to us, and we also got to hang out with Kari and Ryan who were visiting from Utah.

On our bus ride home Jeff asked me what my favorite part of the trip was. I couldn't choose between the 15 times we ate pizza and the amazing grilled cheesed sandwich I had at Carnegie Deli...it was a toss up. Then I asked Jeff what his favorite part was, and he said it was getting to see our friends.

So then I felt like a greedy glutton. Jeff is always trying to out-do me in human goodness (and succeeding.)

A lot of our trip was spent like this, as Ryan and Jeff attempted to navigate the city:


Another common sight on our trip was us continually stuffing our faces:

And there was also a little bit of this going on:

But we also did a fair amount of sight seeing:

Here is some of that great friend love that was going on. Notice I'm not in the photo. That means either I was taking it or I was off enjoying pizza somewhere instead. It's a toss up.
   

We bought a tent.

I grew up in a family of day-hikers. We like to go out on adventures, with a pack full what my dad calls 'soggy sandwiches' to some beautiful hike - a lake, a waterfall, the largest tree of its kind in the US (a lot of those are in WA.) Then we'd return to our cabin and sleep on real beds.

We never camped overnight.

Well, we camped overnight once. I was about 5. We went to a place called Trial Lake.

If you don't really know how you feel about camping, why would you go a place called Trial Lake? That seems to just be asking for trouble. Of course, I had a great time, but that could have also been mostly due to my awesome sweatpantsuit and suspenders:



Anyhow, we never camped as a family again. Not for lack of enthusiasm on some people's part - Anders raised his hand and pleaded, "I want to go camping!" every Monday during the Family Beeswax portion of Family Home Evening until he was 18. He even slept in an Ikea tent on the floor of his bedroom every night for about 4 years. My parents were unmoved by his desperation...such was the impact of Trial Lake. As a result Girls camp, Scout camps, Youth Conferences - they were all delightful novelties for my siblings and I. Camping! Real camping!

 Jeff and I have camped here and there since being married, but I wouldn't have really considered us campers. We got a little tent when we were first married - a tiny two-man tent. We went to a ward campout, and as we drove through the site we pointed at one tiny little tent and snickered at it's puniness. We regretted this immediately when we put our tent up for the first time and discovered it was about half the size of the one we were mocking. In fact, I think the tent Anders had in his room was larger than the one we tried to sleep in that night.  Luckily we weren't camping at Trial Lake, so we recovered from that embarrassment and just borrowed my parents tent for any subsequent camping (they obviously weren't using it.)

Anyhow, last month we bought a tent.

Our friend James profoundly reflected the other night that you're never exactly the person you think you are when you buy a tent. I mean, really you're never exactly the person you think you are while shopping at REI or Cabela's at all - but it's nice to envision yourself as a mountain man for the duration of the hike around the store, though.

However, I am happy to report that in the first month of tent ownership Jeff and I have ventured out into the wilderness not just once, but twice!

First we explored Shenandoah with some good friends:



Wildlife report: saw a black bear. He crossed the road right in front of us and hurried into the trees. This was exciting because I really love bears.
Best camping moment: Making s'mores with Reese's peanut butter cups. Amazing.
What we can learn from: Shenandoah doesn't allow outside firewood, we got there too late to purchase any. Firewood, it turns out, is fairly crucial to having a decent fire.





Then a few weekends ago we drove out to Tuckahoe State Park:



Wildlife report: Saw turtles (I also have always had a deep love for turtles) while canoeing. They were sitting out sunning themselves all over the place. Also saw a great blue heron, and a few red winged black birds.
Best camping moment: Canoeing! Tuckahoe State Park has canoes to rent and the lake is so fun to go around on. Also, Peter and Kate brought hammocks and Jeff and I are now convinced that we need our own.
What we can learn from: Trying to build on our s'mores experience of the time before, Jeff attempted to melt the peanut butter cups on the graham crackers over the fire while I painstakingly roasted our marshmallows to a golden brown. Then he put it all together and promptly dropped both s'mores into the dirt. Next time I will handle my own s'more (with care.)



Canoeing pictures courtesy of Jason and Savannah:




Every time we leave we say, "Next time we go camping we'll have to remember to bring ___________" and every time I try to remember what it was we said all I come up with is a giant blank, just like that.



Also, I'm looking for a sweatpant suit with suspenders in my size now, to make these trips really complete.

Down by the Sea

One last set of pictures from our trip. We spent a few wonderfully relaxing days out at the coast, staying at the family cabin on the Quinault Indian Reservation. We seriously had some of the prettiest days at the coast that I've ever seen. It was amazing.

I love our family cabin. It smells like the sea and hotdogs over a fire. We went down to Ocean Shores, out on the jetty, on a hike to Irely Lake (just up past Lake Quinault) to Roosevelt Beach to fly kites - and so Jeff could get in the ocean, and ate most meals outside. So basically a few days of everything amazing.

My parents gave me a copy of Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh for my birthday, and I'd been saving it until I could read it by the ocean. I really enjoyed it, and it was really the perfect seaside read (read it near the ocean, if you possibly can.) There were so many beautiful thoughts and passages, but I'll just leave you with one for now:

"Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach-living: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid."

little Jeff, big world

Snoqualmie Falls

Continuing our trip of Seattle-that-Jeff-hasn't-seen took us to Snoqualmie Falls. We were lucky enough to be there in there Spring, when the water is cascading around the rocks at an amazing volume and rate.

A magnificent waterfall is one of those things that makes you just stop and stare at it. It's hypnotizing, in a way. We stood and watched it for a while, thinking both deep thoughts and also no thoughts at all. It rained a little. That was okay, we didn't care. We were too busy staring at a waterfall.

East, West, I like this house best

I've mentioned having a soft spot for my grandparents home before, but it's worth talking about again.

There is something special about their place. Each summer we'd drive up as a family, not arriving until around midnight, when with a surge of energy I'd run up to whichever room I was assigned to and breathing in deeply. It was the moisture in the air, the open window that I would stick my head out and try to make out the outlines of the lake in the darkness.

I now realize that this magical air was actually a wonderful phenomena called humidity, something that now plagues my life out during the summer. Turns out it wasn't something unique or special, but to a little girl from dry, dry Utah it sure seemed that way.

Sometimes even now there are mornings when we walk to the metro and I take a deep breath, turn to Jeff and smile, "It smells like the Morf's house."

 

When I was growing up the Morfs had a red canoe. Apparently one night someone snuck in and took their canoe, and left this yellow one in its place. They told me this with a little shrug and smile. They still have a canoe, and this one is actually heavier and sturdier (though a little older) so you know. It's fine. I looked nervous here. This is not because we are canoeing. It's because Morfar+my camera+the dock makes me nervous. We enjoyed a nice canoe ride until we saw the enormous dark cloud moving in - moving in fast. We frantically paddled back to the house as fast as we could, ran up to the house where we found my Mormor reading her newpaper out on the deck, and Morfar weeding the garden. They calmly looked up at the cloud when we pointed it out and then resumed their activities. It didn't rain. Foiled by the Washington weather!! Running through the newly-cleaned-out path down to the fire pit by the water.

Downtown Seattle

In keeping with the plan to do all the things Jeff has never experienced in Seattle, we spent a day downtown. We hit up all the typical tourist traps - Pike Place Market, the Space Needle.
 

We had lunch at Sky City, the restaurant up in the Space Needle.

  Enormous and delicious meal I had.

We spent a bulk of the afternoon in the Pacific Science Center, which was one of my favorite places when I was little. I was slightly concerned that my memories of how cool it was were colored by the fact that I was a kid, but it did not disappoint (perhaps because Jeff is basically just a big kid.) They have so many neat interactive exhibits.
  The mirrors were a lot of fun, especially the anti-gravity mirror -

Disgusting.

 They had a great butterfly house. We had one butterfly hitchhiker who was determined to come with us - he tried to travel out on me, then flew from me to Jeff and the butterfly experts had to finally come remove him with special tongs.




So now Jeff has really seen Seattle.