A day on the beach

Saturday was our day on the beach - perfect spring weather. Katrin went dancing and shopping and we collected precious stones and pieces of wood. I just asked Jonte what to write about the day on the beach; he came up with the following:
"I shared all my sand toys, there was a girl that stumped on our sand castle and the boy that did bite me, though it did not hurt much" - Now here is the full story:
Jonte shared his sand toys with other (smaller) kids on the playground, negotiating everything in English. He seems to stay much much calmer with his temper when he is in 'English mode': one girl stumped over and over again on their sand hill and Jonte just kept telling her 'don't do it', 'no, don't do it' - she never stopped but luckily lost interest in the sand soon and moved on.
Another boy did bite Jonte in the hand in the moment we wanted to leave the playground to head for the beach, since he did not want to give the bucket back. He stayed calm and just said 'NO'. I guess he was too surprised about the boy to really get angry at him. At home he regularly gets angry on me and needs my hands - I have to hold out my hands and he tries to clap them as strong as possible to get rid of his agressions, until we both crack up laughing because our hands hurt a little bit.
Anyway there was not much trace of a bite on Jonte's hand, thus I expect it wasn't really strong. Down on the beach we were just by our self, the kids digged some channels and had a lot of fun with a stream running, or rather dripping across the stones. We had lunch between piles of driftwood and enjoyed the cloudless sky until Narne got really tired and we headed home.
And here are the corresponding images:

 

Jonte with Olympic Peninsula in background.

Narne tired already.

Theda collecting stones.

Narne digging.

Watching seagulls.

Always plenty to do and see on a beach!!

Lucky we did enjoy that perfect day - back to Seattle winter weather tomorrow, a couple degrees above freezing and rain, rain showers and drizzle are the forecast for the next 4 days.

Spring and the last weeks

We don't want to deny it, spring did start in Seattle a couple of weeks ago. At first and then for some time we gazed with disbelieve to north Germany, Kiel, and all the other places that got huge amounts of snow. Even the East Coast got covered again and again and again. Well we accepted our fate of warm wet weather and withstood the rain. Slowly temperature did rise, reaching 14°C daily, the sun is peaking through the clouds more and more and the forecast for the rest of the week is marvelous, thus we don't want your snow from Europe and East Coast any more, we regard this winter to be over!
 (I wrote that 2 weeks ago and it got better and better over here ;-) ! )

To share our love for spring here are a few pictures from our back and front yard, how it looked in the last few weeks.

 Veggies!

 

 

A few of many crocus, tulips sprouting next to them!

 

Many trees and bushes in blossom - showing off two of them!

 

 The kids enjoy the warmer temperatures!

But now more about the more important, or at least more interesting things in life that did happen over the last weeks we did not write about so far. (Is there anything more important than weather? Climate?!! - oh right and family)
Theda and Jonte bubble along in English as if they have done so for years. Their vocabulary is amazing, growing daily, and the fact that puzzles me most is that they use mostly correct adverbs and conjugations not only nouns and verbs (or at least correct to the point that my English knowledge allows me to rule on correct and incorrect).  By now they talk among each other nearly as much English as German - crazy! I wonder if their main peer language eventually will switch to English or stay in German ... or rather when it will be that way.

I really was looking forward to and then enjoyed the Ocean Sciences meeting in Portland last week - meeting many people I haven't seen for ages - interesting new up-to-date science talks - catching up on Labrador Sea research I did not focus on for about 2 years and getting more into the current SubAntarctic Mode Water stuff and also Oxygen Minimum Zone and tropical pacific oceanography (I won't go into detail about these here and now). Overall a great motivating but very exhausting week!
Unfortunately due to the conference I missed Narnes first birthday. Katrin has had help with the kids by her sister Anne, who was our first Europe visitor. And from what I heard they had a week full of highlights and sightseeing but also demanding kids - I guess Katrin will soon have recovered and write more about that experience and great visit.

Still note worthy is the fact that I signed up for an alpine scrambling class with the Seattle Mountaineers. Katrin talked me into that, and I really enjoy it. It all started with friends we made through the kids in preschool. In short: the women got talking and kind of decided that the dads should take this class together that probably is great fun. Well after 2 evening classes (equipment recommendations / requirements and mountain navigation theory) as well as one field class and 2 hikes I am quite enthusiastic. To be honest I am really looking forward to the next weeks of more scrambles, snow and rock, coming up. Getting into areas I normally would not go, never see - getting to know people with similar interest, thus you always find fellows for day hikes or short weekend hikes.
Especially Jonte would like to join me right away. He is really into it, seeing all my gear, ice axe, helmet, backpack, compass - he is very determined that he is going to be a mountaineer and for a few days constantly was one around the house.
Many pictures from all kind of hikes to come - pretty sure about that!

American birthday

Thanks for all your emails, calls, skypes and good thoughts! I had a wonderful day!

 

  

 

Spring skiing

It is one of the warmest if not the warmest January in Seattle. Never the less, skiing conditions at Snoqualmie Pass Nordic Center were wet but acceptable. Still about a meter snow - at a height of less than 1000m at a latitude similar to the northern France  (47°N). The warm weather though does not mean less rain, actually we are getting more precipitation than usual (This is opposite to conditions Seattle has in general during a year with an El Nino phenomena in the tropical pacific ... I could start talking about Arctic Oscillation, jet stream and other meteorological atmospheric patterns but I guess this blog is the wrong platform for that).

So here are some morning and afternoon pictures we took today:
A gray morning with snow/rain showers in the mountains followed by a sunny afternoon in Seattle.

Jonte going through the archs.

Theda going downhill

Ski class cannot happen often enough for Jonte.

And the afternoon:

Our winter vegetables - broccoli, radish, carrots, salad, spinach ... all growing good.

Perfect conditions, above average warm and humid.

 Many spring bulbs pushing out the first greens - I wonder when they will start to flower.

And one croccus next to the front door already about to start to flower - unbelievable, Germany is covered in snow and faces a new cold wave from the east while here the spring flowers start in mid/end January.

In the last weeks the kids had again a go at the camera ... here are a few of the photos they took. We actually planned to make a photo album with only pictures they took so far, but never got around to do so. 

First spring days

Doors are open. Kids playing outside for hours without jackets. Narne just had his two hour nap outside as well. Spring flowers are coming through the ground. Will leave in a second to go down to Magnuson Park to play at the beach with some of our friends. Feels nice, but strange - it is January - we will be skiing again on Saturday :-) - hope we will have enough snow yet.

Skiing and sliding

Just 2 videos from our day out in the mountains having fun in the snow.

(For all facebook users if you cannot see the videos, see them at: http://schmidtko.blogspot.com )

All you need is a piece of plasitc:


First time on skis:





Well, actually it was their 2nd time on skis, but the first very short time at -12degCwas only a quarter of an hour or so. Though it did feel like ages due to the strong wind and high humidity. This time we spend several hours out there.