Pajama-rama!

Here’s the trio of pajamas that I just finished sewing up for E-boy.  When asked which was his favorite pair, he chose the doggies.  Hopefully, when I put these into his closet, I can also remove the much-loved and now-too-small Christmas Tree pajamas from last year without any complaints.

I also made some nightgowns for my girlies.  This is the pattern from the latest Ottobre.   The girls have decided that they like long nightgowns, they’d never had any before these ones.  I still need to put some labels in to tell whose is whose, but all in good time…

One More Camping Trip

Last weekend our family headed up to the lake for one last camping trip of the summer.  It almost feels like we’re cheating when we go camping in September, eeking out an extra bit of Summer.  The weather around here is gorgeous in September, and since most of the tourists have gone back home, the lake is quiet at this time of year.

When we got in on Friday we set up our campsite.  The weather report predicted that there could be rain showers on Saturday morning, so Hubby and I strung up a tarp over our picnic table, just in case.  It turned out we didn’t get any rain, but we had a monster windstorm on Saturday night.   The tarp didn’t blow away, though, and neither did we.

Saturday morning was cool, so we started out by taking a little hike above our camp.

Here’s my attempt at getting a candid shot of the family hiking.  I don’t think the kids know the meaning of the word “candid”.

 After our hike, the weather had warmed up a bit, so the kids had fun paddling this raft around.  Hubby took E-boy for a ride.  Me, I sat in my camp chair on the dock and knitted on a sock.

Do you see that nice rock wall around the fire pit?  We built that!  By the afternoon on Saturday the wind was starting to blow, so we needed to make a little wind break for our fire.  Here’s Hubby building up a fire for me to bake a birthday cake for E., who turned seven on Saturday.  The plan was to bake a chocolate-raspberry cake in the cast iron dutch oven.  It was a good plan, but next time we’re going to use a different recipe.  Luckily, the birthday girl enjoyed her cake.

 Here’s the finished cake, complete with pink candles.  I didn’t keep track of how many were blown out by the wind before the birthday girl started blowing.  Inside the pretty pink box was a new webkinz unicorn, which E. thought was a pretty good gift.  This picture makes it look like the unicorn is whispering a secret in E’s ear.

E-boy still has a thing for throwing rocks in the water.  I don’t think there are any more rocks near the beach that are throwable by a three and a half year old boy.  You can see here how the wind is starting to whip up the water.  It kept blowing all night long, and didn’t die down unitl late the following morning.  It was a pretty crazy night, lying in the tent wondering if it was going to blow away in the wind.  The kids didn’t seem to have trouble sleeping, but Hubby and I didn’t get much rest.  Luckily, we’d battened down the hatches and were prepared to wait out the storm.

This last picture is of our dinner on Sunday, beef stew cooked over the campfire.  Seriously, this was yummy!  I precut most of the veggies at home and brought them in a ziplock.  The beef was leftover from the last dinner cooked at home.  At camp, all I had to do was put the meat and veggies in the pot, and cut the potatoes.  Then I tossed in a packet of seasoning and some water.  It only took about half an hour over the fire to cook the carrots and potatoes.  I’d brought along a loaf of homemade bread which we sliced, buttered and garlicked, then wrapped in foil to heat over the fire.  It made a delicious dinner served at a lake-view picnic table.

Date Night

We live in a small town.  Okay, it’s not teeny-tiny, but it’s small.  The restaurant choices are limited, as are the options for entertainment.  For us, date night consisted of driving through the local burger joint on our way to watch a junior league hockey game.  Hey, at least I didn’t need to get all dressed up fancy, right?

It was an exciting game against our division rivals.  The game was tied up going into overtime, and our team ended up winning in a shootout.  My voice is still hoarse from cheering on the team.  I brought along the camera and took about 150 pictures trying to figure out how to shoot fast-moving hockey players through the glass.  Here are some of the highlights of the game.

Yes, I said the teams were rivals, it wasn’t long before a fight broke out.  I think this is Hubby’s favorite part of the hockey games.  I think both the players involved were ejected from the game after this fight.

Here’s a nice shot of the other team attacking our goal.  Unfortunately, they made the shot.  Fortunately, we won anyway.

And, the winning goal in the shootout.  Thanks to Hubby for these perfectly timed shots.  Can you see the puck in the back of the net in the second one?  Cool, huh?

The Official Summer Wrap-Up Post.

This weekend, the weather has taken a turn for the worse.  Yesterday, the kids and I headed for the waterslide park for our last trip of the season, and ended up swimming in the rain.  We had fun, though.  We soaked in the hot tub for a while, then headed home early.  Reality set in that summer is at its end.

School started last week.  When I was a kid, I remember always going back to school after Labor Day.  Around here, the kids start the Wednesday before Labor Day.  It kind of crept up on us.  We did the back-to-school shopping, and stocked the girls’ backpacks with folders and pencils, then sent them off on the bus.  The kids were more than ready to return to school, to see their old friends and play on the new playground equipment that was built at their school over the summer.

But before we get to all of that…we did have a lot of fun this summer that I haven’t shared.  A. turned 9, and had a sleepover birthday party with a few of her friends.  Not a lot of sleeping happened, but the kids had fun.

Hubby played softball again this year, so we spent a fair amount of time hanging out at the ball park.  Luckily, the ball park has a playground and a swimming area.  The best part (at least according to my kids) was the concession stand, which sold Laffy Taffy three for twenty-five cents.

Here are the girls helping me make cookies.  Yum!

Here’s E-Boy, flying in the air while mommy tries to figure out her new camera.  He’s quite a daredevil, don’t know where he gets that (cough…daddy…cough).  I promise Daddy didn’t drop him, and E-Boy loved it.  The camera thing is still a work-in-progress, obviously.

Another proof that it’s Fall: football season is here.  Hubby took me for a date to one of the pre-season games.  We enjoyed a night out on the town while the kids spent the day and night with their favorite babysitter.

So it’s Salmon Season!

I guess it’s fair to say Hubby got “hooked” on salmon fishing.  He even went out and bought himself a fishing boat so he’s all geared up to catch the big one.  Yes, we now have a “big boat” to take the family out skiing and camping, and a “little boat” for fishing.  Being that we’re a one car family, I find it kind of ironic to own two boats.  Hubby says it’s just a matter of having the right tools for the job, kind of like I own several sewing machines to accomplish the tasks I want in the sewing room.

Here’s my father-in-law with the 15 pound, 32 inch King Salmon he caught on the Columbia:

Lake Wenatchee Sockeye Fishing

When Lake Wenatchee opens for sockeye fishing, anglers from all over the state come to try their luck for the best-eating salmon around.  This is the second year in a row it has opened, but it had been years prior to that.  Hubby woke up at 1:30 in the morning to drive out and brave the crowds waiting to launch at the single ramp on the lake.  The line was already forming and eventually backed-up out of the park.  A couple hundred boats turned out opening day.  It wasn’t even light out when they put the boat in the water and headed out to their spot.  At an hour before sunrise, they dropped their lines on the downriggers and sat back to wait for that elusive bite.  Hubbby caught his limit in the first two hours and he felt that it was well worth the hassle. 

The next day, he convinced our oldest to head back out to the lake with him.  She got up at 2:00 am, like a real fisherman, and had her first bite at about 6am.  Hubby set the hook and A. battled the fish.  After nearly losing the rod and A. overboard, she was able to reel in her first sockeye.  Hubby netted the fish and A. was smiling ear to ear.   When we ate her fish for dinner that night, she was beaming with pride!  This truly was the best tasting Salmon we’ve had.

Here are Hubby and his dad just back from fishing for Sockeye:

And here are Hubby and A., who caught her first Sockeye this week. 

We will be enjoying salmon for months to come.

How About a Fish Story?

Today was opening day for Salmon fishing in the Columbia River, so Hubby and a neighbor made plans to go out and do some fishing.  They left home at 3:00 am.  Around 11:00, Hubby called me on the phone to let me know they were on their way home.  When he told me he’d caught an 19 pound King Salmon that measured 36 inches long, I didn’t quite believe him.  Turns out, it was the truth.

Hubby cleaned the fish and cut it into steaks.  We froze enough for four more dinners, and grilled some up tonight.

It was delicious!  The salmon on the left was marinated with an orange-honey glaze, the other was marinated with lemon pepper.  I baked some french bread to go with it, and sauteed some of the veggies from our CSA box.  Talk about eating fresh, that salmon went from swimming in the river this morning to our dinner table tonight.

Summer Fun: Slip and Slide

I have to admit that this slip and slide was worth the $10.99 we paid for it.  The kids tried it out and all had a blast, as did half the neighborhood yesterday.  I had fun playing with my new camera trying to get pictures of the water splashing.  Here are my three monsters.

A:

E:

And E-boy:

Summer Fun: Hitting the Trail.

Here are some pictures from a hike our family took last week.  It was a 6.6 mile round trip hike, up a creek to a lovely little alpine lake.  We came prepared to have lunch on the trail, and brought our water shoes to splash about in the lake when we got there.  Let me tell you, that water was COLD!  The kids had fun, though, and handled the hike really well.  We weren’t sure how long they could go without whining, but we didn’t hear a single complaint until a thunderstorm came up on our way back down about a half mile from the trail-head.  Luckily we made it back to the car before the real downpour hit us.

Here we are along the trail.  Yes, E-boy rode most of the way.

Here are the kids at the little lake, which we came to about half a mile before reaching the bigger lake.

And this was our destination:

Here are the kids splashing around in that cold, cold water:

An Unwelcome Visitor

So, do you want to see who was practically ringing my doorbell last week?

We found this rattlesnake in the rocks right next to our front porch.  It was actually the kids who spotted it earlier in the day.  A. told me she heard a rattle and E. said she saw the snake, and described it to me, saying its head was bigger than its body and it had a diamond pattern on its back.  I believed they had seen a snake, but told them it was probably not a rattlesnake, since we’d never seen one before in our neighborhood.  When hubby got home from work, we were telling him about our day, and he began questioning E. about what she’d seen.  He asked her to show him where the snake was, and when we all went outside to see, A. spotted it in the rocks flicking its tongue at us.  Then the hunt was on.  It took hubby and a couple of neighbors, all armed with shovels and rakes to kill the snake and remove it.  Sure enough, it was a rattlesnake, with four and a half rattles on its tail.  Needless to say, the neighborhood kids no longer play rock-hopping in my front yard.

SWAP Sewing: The Wardrobe

Here it is, my whole SWAP wardrobe in one place:

And, guess what!?!?!  I won!  You can click on the badge to see my entry on sewingmamas.com.  Click here to see all of the fabulous contest entries.

This sewing contest was so much fun to participate in.  It really gave me the motivation to try some new things, and I found they really aren’t that hard after all.  I now have a wardrobe of handmade clothing that fits my style, and pieces that mix and match well.  It is fun to look in my closet each morning and choose what to wear.  Not that I’m wearing 100% handmade, I’m not giving up my favorite blue jeans, but most days I choose one of my SWAP pieces.  And I’m super proud of the accomplishment.