The first Day of School

After a long wait the day is finally here: Today was the first day of school. Marlene started 4th grade and Amelia is finally in Kindergarten. We had quite a bit of rain this morning and so the kids went directly inside and did not get to blow of steam on the playground. This was the first time in 32 years it rained (hard) on the first day of school here in Seattle.

Marlene was excited to see her friends again and headed straight off to her classroom. Amelia was a little apprehensive but the orientation yesterday helped to ease everyone into this new situation. She new where to put her backpack and where to sit. So the fun has begun!

Washington is beautiful

When driving around Washington I am always amazed how beautiful our state is. Here are a few pictures from day trips we took. You probably all recognize Mt. Rainer. Then there is Puget sound. I love the Sound since you get the ocean without having to deal with the wind and the waves; and yes, it is a lot closer. Close as well are the forests. The Cascades and the foothills give us such great opportunities for hiking. Towards the end of summer we took a drive to the east side of the mountains and went hiking along the Natchez. Eastern Washington has its own charm with its desert like landscape with the pockets of fertile land.

The garden pays off

As you might expect my garden has started producing. We had a ton of raspberries which I made into jam. By now the second harvest of raspberries has come around. This is a bit earlier than other years where the second harvest has happened very late and only produced moldy and sour fruit. Right now we are having some humongous raspberries.

I have been harvesting a lot of zucchini and squash. It has been fun to try out different recipes for zucchini muffins, cookies and bread. I even found a good recipe for "Vanishing zucchini casserole" that is being eaten by my family. We have been having beans if they are not eaten by slugs and I dug up a lot of potatoes. The tomatoes grew into huge plants this year and have a lot of green fruit, but we are still waiting for them to turn red; and I hope we are not running out of time. I have been drying herbs for winter storage and used the hot days to do it in the car. Nothing like free energy.

On the tree side it has been meager so far. The cherry tree only had a few pieces of fruit that got eaten by birds. The peach tree had one beautiful big peach. But before we picked it the squirrels had gotten to it and pulled it off the tree. The apples, pears and quince are still in the ripening process. So I will keep you updated on those.

The rest of summer

After returning from Germany there was still a lot of summer left. During the last few years we had always been able to avoid the extra hot days by being on vacation but this year we definitely experienced some of them. Since the girls have outgrown the wading pool stage and there are no pools by German standards to speak of we tried out various beaches. We went to Greenlake twice - once on each side - and we swam at Mathews Beach by out house. Luckily the heat did not last forever and we got to do other things, too.

Jay and the girls did some back yard camping. As our tent only sleeps three people I sacrificed myself and stayed in the house. But before the actual sleeping we had a campfire with stick bread and roasted marshmallows.

One day we went to the Northwest Trek a wild animal park were most of the animals roam free. I realized the last time we had been there was the day before Marlene started Kindergarten. Then it seemed quite stressful to keep one-year old Amelia contend during the 50 minute tram ride, but this time the girls were both fascinated to see all these animals just a few feet away. There were bison, deer, Roosevelt deer, elk, moose, mountain goats, and capricorn.

Another day we went hiking in eastern Washington along the Natchez river. It was a beautiful late summer day with perfect temperatures. We even got to see a snake on the path that had just recently eaten a mouse or something.

One weekend Jay took the girls to California to visit his family. The girls had fun seeing their cousins and swim in the pool at the grandparent's house. They are lobbying for a pool in our yard; our argument that we could only use it 1 week of the year seems not to convince them.