we are still alive

I have been neglecting the blog far too much, thanks to all who told me they were reading the blog and encouraged me to post more ... before I start moaning and looking for excuses, wasting even more time, I rather start right away with a brief summary of late spring and early summer.

All grandparents visited their grandchildren - oh yes and visited Katrin and me as well. We had a great time with both visits, each time exploring different parts of the Olympic peninsula. The ocean photos from the previous post show a glimpse of the nature there - more will follow at the end of this post.
The Olympic peninsula is mainly a national park with a few small towns around it, in general dominated by astonishing nature: Pacific beaches, alpine mountains, moss mossier mossiest rain forest. A place to explore for many many days, time permitting. During our first visit we experienced a very rainy end of May and June, thus avoided the higher altitudes that were still snow capped during that time of the season anyway. Our second visit in July greeted us with nice summer weather, not to hot, not to cold - perfect for any outdoor activity.
During each visit we saw several bold eagles - well I see them during lunch-break at work sometimes - but seeing them in this wild nature is more appropriate, than at the 'Seattle City Lake' (Lake Washington) and the office buildings. For the eagles - and later again for the two black bears we saw - our camera, or rather the zoom lens was not big enough to get really good shots. All right, on both photos you can see that it is an bold eagle and you can see it is a black bear - but they are more proof of the sighting snapshots than a 'nice animal photo' you would want to print. ... oh well, next time maybe - anyone got a spare 300mm or even 400mm lens you don't need anymore? ;-) ... I see, until then you will have to cope with 'proof' pictures rather than beautiful, or even amazing ones. - At least the camera is good enough to capture forests and nature structures. Here is a small collection of pictures: Olympic Pictures, - more pictures with us within will follow here in this blog tomorrow!

Now here I am, writing all about the Olympic Peninsula and the nature there, well there was more to talk about. With the beginning of summer the preschool year did end, until September the kids are at home with Katrin and our guests, participating in some summer events around town. In September the new pre-school starts and even Narne will go once a week with Katrin into toddler class. We changed the pre-school, following the majority of the class they were in. Several kids outgrew preschool and will start Kindergarten next year, but the majority that stays in pre-school changed school, thus we followed. Oh yes here in the USA it is first pre-school, then Kindergarten, then school, while in Germany you would do Kindergarten, then pre-school, then school.
Kindergarten here is rather the first year at school than the German version of a Kindergarten, they start to learn reading and writing in there Kindergarten - just the naming is confusing for a German.

Summer started here, though we don't get the East coast and Europe heat waves - it is -just right- here. It was the 304th consecutive month on earth with higher than 19th century monthly average temperature - the last month with below-average temperature was February 1985. This June was the hottest on record so far ... though I personally doubt that record will last until December this year ....
To not use too much 'freshwater', we started to capture kitchen water that has no soap or salt in it to water our vegetables, though I doubt we can maintain our 92 gallon a day (for a family of five) consumption in summer - With kids being outside more, needing a cool down, wanting to play with water in the sandbox, explore the flow and feeling of mud ... and the bathtub regularly afterward! Splashing is just so much fun! (pictures to come!)

More? Sure! Though I doubt you want to hear me ranting and talking about the politics in Germany? Well I try to keep informed and no more comment ;-) .. concerning the news I certainly followed the oil spill and whoever still wants to know more about oil spills globally in history and the scientific impact in a short summary can continue reading on this informative oceanography site: http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/oilspills.htm

Alright enough for the day - over the weekend I will find some more spare time to finally post kids pictures, family pictures and add all the information you are interested in that I left out today! We will try that the kids make another video of our house, thus Emilia and other kids following us see more!
Have a great weekend!

World Oceans Day

Today is world oceans day - I thought I share a few links:

Live streaming of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico:



A nice overview what is happening with the oil after it leaves the well:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37517080/ns/disaster_in_the_gulf


And here are some pictures from our last trip around the Olympic peninsula:

Unfortunately not colorful stones, but shredded plastic debris, illegally to discharge in the oceans since 1988, other debris may be discharged in certain shredded sizes further offshore. How many ships do separate garbage and obey this law?

Clams, a living filter! I should look up how many liters per day they filter, I forgot, but it is a huge amount.

Since most surface water drains into the ocean: The ocean starts at your front door! We should think more about what we drain or want to drain into the oceans.

The Snake

Today I finally found this picture of Theda holding a real snake on the playground of their preschool. A neighbor kid brought it. (I had written about this earlier.)

Mother's Day and more

No time to write much, but wanted to share these pictures with you. We had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday. The weather was beautiful. So after a nice breakfast, we headed to the islands northwest of Seattle and ended up going to Deception Pass State Park (a 90 minute drive). We had a beautiful hike and spent about three hours in this little bay, collecting shells, climbing, enjoying the view, snacking ... and coincidently meeting some friends from Seattle with whom we spent the rest of the afternoon.

And here are some more pictures taken during the past weeks:

Beginning of April - Theda and Jonte (and Narne) decided it is time 

to take their first bath in Lake Washington

Easter egg hunt - fun with German chocolate bunnies

Jonte harvested our first carrot last week

Sunke checking our vegetables

What else do you need than a stick and some water?

One of our favourite birds: a "Stellar's Jay", but the kids call it a "Blue Jay".

Our tree in front of the house in blossom (called "dogwood")

dogwood blossoms

Happy Spring to everyone!

Busy

I can't believe, it was March when we last wrote in this blog. So sorry. I guess, we are busy. Sunke is almost every weekend at least one of the days gone to climb up some mountain, learn about first aid in the mountains etc. while I am entertaining our kids which has been exciting (of course, it always is). But since around Easter they are riding bikes and have been very excited about it. There were days where they got up in the morning and the first thing was: getting dressed and bike around our house. So I have spent a lot of time in Seattle's parks, loading bikes and stroller into the car, unloading, biking, loading everything up again - it has become a routine. This morning we went biking on the Burke Gilman Trail - one long and popular bike trail through North Seattle. 

Since it is our last month of preschool, there are a lot of activities, field trips (e.g. bug hunt with a naturalist, ferry boat ride, visit to a fire station) and social events (e.g. pizza party). By the way this week is Teacher Appreciation Week. It is an American Tradition that every day, week, month is dedicated to something special. This week the work of teachers is honored by giving gifts, bringing cookies and cakes etc. I guess German teachers would love such a week!?!

Last weekend a good friend from High School in Wisconsin visited us and we had a lot of fun. Since it was raining in Seattle, we drove across the Cascade Mountains and found pure sunshine in Leavenworth, an imitation of a Bavarian town. We had a Bratwurst im Biergarten, but I guess it made us long even more for the real stuff. The setting of the town was picturesque, though, as you can see the surroundings of the family pic taken below.

Sunday we spent in our favourite park at the Puget Sound - Carkeek Park. On the pictures you can see Jonte in front of his favourite slide going through a salmon as well as Theda.

Narne is doing fine as well. Practicing how to kiss, how to blow and taking his first couragous steps, but wouldn't call it "walking" yet.

Other than that we are expecting our next visitors at the end of May. We are excited!

Uploaded pictures and Kelsey Creek Farm

I tried to keep my promise - I inserted some pictures in the last blog I wrote - see the blog "Pyjama Day and more"!

Today we went on a preschool field trip to Kelsey Creek Farm - a farm in the middle of urban Seattle. We had beautiful weather and had a good time. Narne enjoyed the animals while Theda and Jonte went on a guided tour with the group.

Narne watching some chicken

Theda as "Superstar"

At the end of the field trip they had circle time outside. Theda brought "Pueppi" (her beloved doll) today and showed it to the kids since it is her "superstar" week at preschool.