The last week at work was pretty quiet, many colleagues were at the OceanObs meeting in Venice. I tried to use that time to do some re-calculations of dissolved oxygen changes in the ocean, new mapping, different error calculation and a lot of literature research on geostatistics, mainly variogramms and correlelograms - brrr, but finally they do make some sense, hey I think I might be able to use that with a few of my other projects. We will see. In general literature research weeks always makes me feel like I did not really achieve much, but I think it was worth it this time. In no time it was Friday, my day to work at preschool.
Katrin called me at work in the morning and told me that Theda and Jonte are sick - thus I went to preschool to work by myself. It is great to work there, really different to every day science and the projects the kids are supposed to do are interesting. Well, the boys would rather fight with pillows, use hammers and such than having to draw, glue or paint the next number, letter, shape, their name. But in general the opportunities they have are multiple and since here in the US preschool for 3-5 year old ones actually is some kind of 'school', I guess it is desired to be this way. This Friday they did bake cookies, they analyzed old sunflowers with magnifying glasses the other day, ... many great activities.. . I worked in the writing area, - always some kind of project is prepared for each area, which is sad in my eyes. Since many different parents do help out at pre-school, I think the different ideas of anyone would constantly enrich that system more and the person in charge would be more enthusiastic about it than just helping the kids. On the other hand that certainly would require more preparation time, time most, including me, hardly have or don't want to spend. - During outdoor time we started to play chasing - the kids at Victory Heights had great fun chasing me - it was great fun but I was physically pretty exhausted. Running 35 minutes nearly non-stop being chased by 4-9 kids aged 3-5 - back and forth, up and down, under and over obstacles. These little ones actually are already pretty fast. Lucky me the outside play did not last longer.
After preschool I went to home depot to buy some wood as well as a saw to build a raised bed for the vegetables. Arriving home we immediately started to saw, hammer and screw the frame together, leaving filling the bed for Saturday. And this is what we did. After home made fresh buns on Saturday morning we went out to enjoy a warm late summer day and moved the compost into the raised bed. Really enjoying the sun we felt bad about missing maybe the last nice warm weekend of the year, not being out in nature. In the afternoon we went to the BBQ and came back just in time to get the kids into bed. A little later we followed, after deciding to stand up early and drive down to the big volcano that dominates the southern horizon on any clear day.
That was our Sunday - hiking the 'Naches Peak Loop' situated on the eastern border of the Mount Rainier National Park. It was 100miles and took us two hours to get there - same on the way back. The drive was worth it. We really hoped the kids would catch some sleep on the way there, since we have the feeling they are overtired since long (I guess learning English AND all our activities just take their toll). Unfortunately they did not, thus in the end we had two every tired kids on the last miles of the trail. They had a lot of fun and looked covered in dust after half the round already. Due to the dry season the trail was very dusty, resulting in the fact that the kids slid several times and sat down unwillingly - to a large degree this originated certainly in their tiredness. We analyzed some ice crystals, saw something that Katrin states was a chipmonk and turned many many rocks. (Why? I don't know, you have to ask the kids they were looking at them ;-) We had perfect weather, great views onto Mount Rainier and a nearly flat hike of about 3.5 miles around Naches Peak. An ideal hike for kids, 2 lakes many rocks and always changing land side and views along this hike. The only surprising and to a degree annoying thing were the many hikers with dogs, half of them even roaming free, on a hike you are officially not allowed to take any pet. Annoying to that degree that Theda and Jonte are quite scared if an unknown dog about the same size they are comes running up to sniff in their faces ... I certainly would be! Overall I think it is definitely a hike we will do again and is definitely worth the drive of two hours!
(Theda doesn't wear any glases, she just 'borrowed' Katrins driving glasses.)
The next worth mention experience I had was Costco. Costco is similar to the German Metro I guess. Everthing in boxes sized XXL for a better per pound/unit/liter deal than elsewhere, ideal for a family of five. I filled our supplys: one packet of 36 rounds toilet paper, 1 box of 4kg of oats, 12kg bag of rice ... I think rice and toilet paper will last for a while, but most other items soon will be used up and we will head there again. In general it will cut down our grocery costs quite a bit I guess.
Again it is Saturday night and today was quiet, just some shopping of plants, new power cord for the dryer and a ball to play soccer for the kids. Same is planned for tomorrow - our first real quiet weekend since we have got the car. ;-)
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