Tulip Festival

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The Skagit River delta about an hour north of Seattle is a major tulip growing area. 25 years ago they realized people like to come up and see the tulips in bloom and they organized the Tulip Festival. It's usually in early April. This year we are having an unusually cool spring so the peak bloom period has been delayed a couple of weeks. I've driven by some of the fields in the past while going to other activities, but neither Carol or I had ever made a dedicated trip to see the flowers. Yesterday we decided that it sounded like a fun Sunday activity.

It turned out to be a fantastic thing to do with small kids. We knew it would be potentially wet and cold (it was 37 degrees when we left home) so we packed lots of warm clothes and the girls' waterproof boots and extra clothes in case they got soaked. That turned out to be excellent preparation, since the fields are pretty muddy. The other parents we encountered were envious of our kids' boots. We even stopped on the way to get Carol a pair of boots since she wanted some for gardening anyway.

Audrey and Charlotte liked the tulips, but for them the highlight of the day was miles of mud puddles. We visited one field for an hour or so and they splashed and stomped and waded and slipped and got their feet stuck and generally were delighted. Then it started to hail so we headed for the car and went to La Conner for a very pleasant lunch. After lunch we found another field that had a wider variety of colors. We started out intending to do a short walk around one plot, but we ended up wandering far afield and spent more than an hour at that location, too. Lots more splashing and stomping. Somehow we managed to get through the whole day without either girl falling into a puddle.

I can understand the popularity. It is wonderful to stand in the center of acres of brilliant color.

By the time we were done it was 2:30 and more than an hour late for Charlotte's normal nap time. She passed out about 1 minute after we started driving home. She was mid-bite in a graham cracker when she fell asleep and we got a photo of her sleeping with the cracker hanging out of her mouth.

A very fun family outing.

Great Wolf Lodge

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A few months ago the local news did a story on Great Wolf Lodge, which was opening about 75 miles south of Seattle. It sounded a little expensive for our tastes, but later we saw ads for special rates for the opening month of April and figured this was our chance to go. The central attraction is a 60,000 square foot water park, surrounded by a large hotel. There are several others elsewhere in the country, but this is the first in the northwest. I'm not sure if they are all tribal projects, but this one is a joint venture with the Chehalis Tribes. It has the feel of a tribal casino project (a large facility in the middle of nowhere), except aimed squarely at families.

At the next price level above the basic room they have several special rooms for kids. We chose the "wolf den". It was essentially a normal long rectangular hotel room, but an 8x8' section had been separated with a wall and the opening filled with a "cave wall" made to look like cartoon stone. The girls' favorite feature, though, was bunk beds. They must have crawled in and out of their beds a hundred times just because they were so novel. We've been planning to build the girls themed bunk beds (most likely a castle) this summer. Now we are even more motivated.

We were only there for 24 hours, but we had several sessions in the water park. The "room" is quite large and there is a lot of noise and reverberation. Charlotte found that overstimulating and spent most of the time clinging to Carol. Audrey had a lot of fun, but was still just a touch too young for it. The little kids' area was cool, but it had lots of jets and showers and overhead buckets that would spray, squirt or otherwise douse you without warning. At first Audrey thought it was fun, but after a while it started freaking her out. There is also a central structure in the water park that is several stories high and incorporates the stairs up to a couple of water slides. On top of the structure, probably 40-50' above the floor, is a 1000 gallon bucket that slowly fills, then tips over and dumps about every 8 minutes. It makes a huge roar (and a blast of cold air if you're near). If Audrey was anywhere in the vicinity when it dumped she would get pretty frightened. On the other hand, they have life jackets in a variety of sizes and Audrey loved wearing it and floating. She had a great time in the wave pool with either Carol or me, even in the deep end where the waves were taller than she is.

The worst part about going somewhere the kids love is leaving. Audrey in particular was very, very disappointed to leave. She was upset for several hours. I felt very bad for her and spent the rest of the day comforting her. We'll definitely go back if they have rate specials in the future.

Kubota Gardens

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The weather forecast for Sunday morning was favorable for getting outdoors and the fruit trees are all in full bloom. So we decided to go on another outing to Kubota Gardens in the south end of Seattle. The gardens were a commercial nursery for decades, owned by a Japanese family who were interned during WWII. But after the war they came back to their overgrown nursery and continued to build it into an amazing huge garden. It later fell into neglect and into the hands of the city, which almost built condos in the site. But citizens saved it and it is now a city park.

I love the overgrown nature of it. I'm always curious what it looked like when the family was tending it, but the half-wildness of it is different from any other park and makes it interesting.

The girls love it, as I would have when I was a boy. There are many small trails that wind through the vegetation with limited sightlines so you can feel lost even though you're in a fairly small space. And then you'll round a corner and come across a cool little stone bridge over a brook or an interesting bench. The entrance to the park is higher than the main part of the garden. On the main zig-zagging path into the garden I always feel like I'm descending into another world, and when we ascend back out I have a clear sense of leaving a dreamlike place and reentering the city. After a lifetime living in Seattle I finally visited Kubota Gardens for the first time last year. It has become one of my dearest places in the city.

Sunday Beach Walk

Sunday Beach Walk

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As I've written before, a favorite family activity when the weather permits is to walk down to Alki Beach from our house. We did so this morning during a few hours of dryness in the middle of a moist weekend.

You can see in the first photo where we live, near Schmitz Park Elementary School at the top of Schmitz Park. We can enter the park at the end of our street and walk downhill through the ravine. The trail eventually leads to an old road that has been closed to cars for decades. The road passes under a high bridge carrying Admiral Way, an arterial, and then leads to Alki Elementary School and playfield and Whale Tail Park.

Today the girls chose to walk right past the Whale Tail playground and continue on to the beach. They had a great time throwing rocks in the water, drawing in the sand, watching seagulls and running up and down their favorite grass embankment.

Then we wrapped up with a cup of cocoa and a bus ride back up the hill and finally a walk of a few blocks back to our house. Whenever we go on this outing Carol and I are grateful that we ended up choosing this house.

Portraits and Poses

Portraits & Poses

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Just a few new photos this week. Charlotte started walking around with her hands in her jeans pocket and looked very cute. And I came home from work to Audrey looking adorable wearing a bandanna on her head and she was kind enough to pose for some portraits.

We had a funny thing happen this past week. We had the windows open on one of the two nice days we had midweek. In the evening, I discovered water splashed around the toilet in the master bath, which is just below a ground level window. I looked around to see if any critter had come in through the window and hidden in a closet or something, but I didn't find anything.

In the morning, Audrey told Carol, "There was a puppy outside my bedroom door last night. I could see his paws." Carol chuckled and told Audrey she must have been dreaming (Audrey tells us every few days how much she wants a puppy - a pink one).

But that afternoon while Charlotte napped, Carol was downstairs with Audrey when they heard a "meow". They looked at each other, puzzled. Then they heard more, and upon investigation discovered a neighborhood cat under Carol and my bed. They were able to coax him out and he was very friendly. By now Charlotte was up from her nap and both girls got to pet the cat a bunch.

The cat seemed to be convinced that he could only leave the way he came in. But Carol coaxed him upstairs with some salmon and then gently encouraged him out the door.

So we got to tell Audrey that she really had seen paws under her door in the night! She was really happy that the cat thought her room was the way out.

Carol and I have been having a long-running conversation about pets because Audrey asks for a puppy all the time and Charlotte loves dogs. Carol had dogs growing up. My family had a cat. I've had cats most of my adult life, but not for the past 10 years. I don't consider myself much of a dog person. The licking, the shedding, the walking, the poop-scooping, etc. does not appeal to me. And it seems like dogs are much more problematic to arrange for when the family goes on vacation.

So we'll probably get a cat. That has it's own issues. My cats have always been indoor/outdoor. But we live right next to a large wooded park with raccoons and even coyotes. I'm concerned an outdoor cat may not last long here. But I'm no fan of litter boxes. And I'm also not a fan of de-clawing a purely indoor cat.

A good friend with two daughters advises that it might be a little early for us. Her daughters didn't react well to being scratched by a playing kitten.

So we'll see. We're not going to do anything right away. But when we see kittens up for adoption on the news or something we're always very tempted.

In other news, Charlotte is really starting to discover the magic of speech. She says at least one new word every day. Last night it was "rice". The day before that: "broccoli". The other night when I was reading her a bedtime book and it featured a cat, she told me a long story about the cat that was in our house and how she petted it and how Mommy gave it some food. A lot of it was even comprehensible.