weekend in review

I've just had one of those weekends where everything went right and it was just happy and relaxing and calm and just....nice. I couldn't have planned a better sixth anniversary weekend if I'd tried.

On Friday night, our friends Gail and Gayland came down from Bellingham to see a show in Seattle. Eric joined us afterwards for a cupcake and a beer. It was good to see them again -- I miss not seeing them more often!

Saturday, Eric and I met up with Matt for the U-District Farmers Market (our first visit of the year) and then we hauled all three dogs out to Marymor, where Finn suprised us all by out-swimming Micky! I of course, failed to bring my camera, but there were witnesses! Finn swam and swam and fetched his "bouy" out of the middle of the river several times! And he's fast!

Later on, Eric and I joined up with Matt again for a ciopinno dinner, served with salad fresh from the backyard. What a fantastic evening.

Sunday brought rain in the morning and a cozy, intimate day for Eric and I to go out for breakfast and tour the Alki neighborhood of Seattle, where neither of us had been before. Movie night in the evening was just pleasant.

On Monday (by some miracle, Eric had all three days off), we struck out early for a hike in the Cascades. We initially selected a hike from our Hiking with Dogs book (thanks mom!) , but when we missed the turn off near Stevens Pass, we shrugged and kept going to the next one (the pass was sopped in with clouds and 40 degrees anyway). So we pointed the car eastward and decended into eastern Washington. We both knew it would be warmer and sunnier on the east side, but I don't think either of us were prepared for just how fast the change was. I think I blinked and actually missed it. One second it was cloudy and grey, and the next we were under a bright blue sky and the thermometer jumped.

We drove through Leavenworth--a tourist trap of a place, all decked out in German/Swiss facades and gothic script. Oompah music could be heard and men were wearing bundhosen. We picked up some batteries for the GPS and got the heck out of there. Tschuss!

We turned south on Highway 97 and pulled off onto US Forest Service Road 9716. Last summer was the last time we took Finn on a rough dirt road, and he puked. He's fine on smooth roads now, but he looked pretty darn miserable after about 10 miles of the dirt road (some snowy patches to boot!), so we parked about a mile shy of the trailhead to keep from having to start off the hike with cleaning up the dog's breakfast. Upon stepping out of the car, we saw two female Roosevelt elk in the meadow across the road....





I hustled to put Finn's leash on, incase he decided to try to make friends and after I did, I realized that he had already seen them and was content to watch them from a distance (good boy). He was off-leash nearly the entire time and was very well behaved.



All told, we hiked about seven miles, but what it lacked in mileage, it made up for in pure sweetness. We started off looking for the Tronsen Ridge Trail, but it made itself scarce so we were actually on the Mount Lillian Trail most of the time. The only other footprints on ometimes muddy, snowy and dusty trail were of the elk, mountain lion and bear variety.



There were fallen trees all over the place from winter storms--including ones with trail signs--and there were sections of trail that were still covered in snow.



Finn tried "sledding" on one snowfield--he took a flying leap and then slid with his front feet out in front of him, pushing with his back feet.



Besides the pair of elk, we saw one grouse and lots of wildflowers...

We loved these little yellow lilies that were everywhere:


A long-time favorite--Shooting Star (Dodecatheon pulchellum):


Finn helped me check out some little yellow flowers:


I found these really neat little orange cup fungi.... this one was about the size of a penny:


And I really liked these little white flowers. The leaves and stems look like Heather, but the flowers tell a different story:

update: Miranda has informed me that this is called moss campion (Silene acaulis). Thanks, Miranda!



And the views were spectacular! They made me realize that I have much more map studying to do to know Washington very well. We could see snowy, jagged crags and low, flat farmland. This viewpoint had it all.



My favorite part was that we didn't see another person on the trail, and only two others in cars on the forest road. What a great time. We grabbed some ice cream in Cle Elum before joining the rest of the folks flocking back over the Snowqualmie Pass. Finn and I both napped in the car--thanks for driving, Eric!

We finished the evening with great big hamburgers at a place called The Jones near our house, as it was National Hamburger Day (it's true! ask the internet!). The summer diet starts today.


a family photo....

ten hours of sleep

I came home from class last night, having turned in my term paper, and crawled almost immediately into bed. That would have been about 8:30. Got up this morning when the alarm went off at 5:45, and I still didn't feel done. On the positive side, I didn't dream about the gridiron plan of Salt Lake City or Brigham Young first time in a week, but on the otherhand, my back is killing me.

Not sure yet how we'll celebrate our anniversary, but it'll probably include a trip to the Northwest Folklife Festival at Seattle Center and generally being outside. I have been indoors entirely too much lately.

is there life after term paper?

I have been eating, sleeping and breathing my term paper. I see the Plat of Zion in my sleep, and I woke up on Monday morning dreaming about MLA citation. I am exhausted and I have never looked forward to a Friday so much in my life. What's more, it's a three day weekend and my anniversary! Six years of perfectly happy urban design. I never knew I could be so gridiron plan with someone like Salt Lake City. Hm. I think I'd better go take a nap before I western migration....

Storage

I have amassed many, many articles for doing hair. An addiction if you will. A brilliant friend devised this clever way to store her hair articles. I just modified it for my own needs. I purchase an over-the-door shoe holder from Wally's (the cheap one, it is the only one that is see through) and then I separated my accessories by color. I then used two baggies, one for the clips and one for the ribbons. Depending on what I am doing with their hair that day, I just pull out the proper baggies and it makes putting them away easier as well.

Elastics posed another problem. I hated rummaging through a huge tote of elastics. So one night when I had nothing better to do, I sorted elastics. Now I buy them pre-sorted, but putting them into a sectioned tackle box did the trick.

High ponytails for the hair impaired

My baby has short hair and I keep it short until all of her layers grow together (I have issues with scraggly baby hair). I wanted to have two ponytails on the top of her head one day so this is what I came up with. Make sure her hair is VERY wet and use lots and lots of hairspray. But the result is so fun.

French braid across the front

I make my daughter lie on her side for this one. I part the hair and pull the bottom half into a ponytail to keep it out of the way. I start above one ear and go across the front of her head. This one takes a little patience. I do an under French braid because of all of her baby hairs in the front, but it looks really cute with a regular French braid.

Twist to a ribbon

I don't know how to explain twists. I am not very good at them myself. So just look and see if you can figure them out.

Cascading knots

Divide the hair in half. Pull into two ponytails and knot them. Then add that ponytail to the next section and knot again. Do the same thing one more time.

Dual French Braids to Crown

I think this one is so feminine. Part the hair into two and French braid to the crown. Secure with elastics and add a pretty ribbon. I love curling the ends with this one.

Smocking

This is the cutest using bright-colored elastics. Divide hair into ponytails at the front of the head. Separate the ponytails into two. Divide hair again. Slowly go down in number. I like to stop their hair at one or three ponytails. It is all personal preferance.

Soft and Sweet

For Easter I like their hair soft. Reminds me of fluffy chicks. So for this one I pulled her hair up into a ponytail from her ear opposite her part to her part. I put it in a ponytail in the center of the two points. I curled her hair with the flat-iron and fluffed the curl.

Ribbon Braids

Pull the hair 1/2 way up into two ponytails. At the base, tie a double long length of ribbon. Braid to the ends using the ribbon as one of your three sections. Secure at the ends with elastics. Tie the ribbons up and add more as you desire. Curl the ends and you have a beautiful princess.

Messy buns

I love a slanted part. Part the hair from the side where their hair parts naturally and part it to the center of the crown. Pull into two ponytails. Twist until the ends just poke out. Secure with bobby pins. I love putting ribbons at the base. Spike out the ends.

Dance Hair

I LOVE curls on my kids. LOVE them. Unfortunately we were blessed with stick-straight hair. Our perfect solution is a flat-iron and a small barrelled curling iron. I pulled her hair 1/2 way up and sprayed the heck out of her hair until it was rather stiff. I combed it out and then went to work. Alternating sections, I curled her hair with the curling iron and the flat iron. To curl with a flat iron, you clamp the hair at the base with the iron and wrap the hair around it like you are going to curl ribbon on a gift. Slowly pull all of the hair through the iron and you end up with beautiful curls that hold better than they do if you use a curling iron. Top with a fluffy ribbon and you have hair worthy of a dance recital.

Knots

Some call these topsy-turvy ponytails, we call them knots. Whatever you call them, they are great for vacations and swimming because they keep hair out of sweaty faces. Pull the hair into a ponytail. Use a rat-tail comb to divide under the ponytail in half. Take the elastic and pull it through the part you made. Clear as mud? Good.

Lots of ponytailsl with cute clippies

I think this one is cuter on thicker hair, but I tried it on my little girl when hers was thinner. I have done it many times since then, but this is the only picture I have.

Ponytails with zig-zag part

Using a rat-tail comb, part the hair in a zig-zag down the center. Pull into two ponytails. Add ribbons for a cute finishing touch.

Double twisted bun

Pull the hair into a low ponytail. Section into two pieces. Twist one piece and secure with bobby pins. Twist the second section and wrap the opposite way. Leave the ends out for flipping.

Two braid buns inter-twined with ribbon

Make two ponytails at the crown. Tie a long length of ribbon and section the ponys into two. Using the ribbon as the third piece, braid. Fasten at the ends with an elastic. Wrap the braid into buns securing with bobby pins. Tie a ribbon at the base.

Two-braids pulled together at the crown

Two ponytails tied in knots

This one was much cuter before she came home from school. I took the ponytails and twisted them and tied them in knots at the base. I secured the knots with bobby pins.

Lattice Ponytails

where in the world is eric?

On Friday, with about 20 hours notice, Eric got shipped off to Portal, North Dakota to test samples of wheat gluten coming into the US from Canada. So Finn and I spend a nice quiet weekend at home. Dog parks and a walk around Green Lake, and I got some work done on the old term paper. Got me a dress for Emily's wedding, though I'm having second thoughts (how blue is too blue?). Eric comes home on Thursday.... I can't wait.