Andrew turned ten today. Michelle and I are a little wigged (OK, maybe a lot wigged) about having a ten year old kid. How many ways can you say old?

Here's another attempt to blog from my T-Mobile Dash. I'm trying FlickR's post-to-blog functionality. Could be cool.



This picture is from today. Andrew (9) and I were power washing fiends. It's an impotant skill to pass down from father to son. Andrew decided to write his initials in the dirty chair. Bit gross really.

Yesterday I took the boys over the Blake Island for our regular adventure outing. Blake Island a small island a few miles away from downtown Seattle in the middle of Puget Sound (map). It used to be a private estate owned by William Pitt Trimble, until his wife died of an accident, after which the heartbroken Trimble abandoned the estate. It's now a state park with a Native American arts and culture center called Tillicum Village (complete with salmon dinner and dancing show - not bad actually). It's only reachable by private boat or tour boat (the Argosy cruise line runs back and forth).

 

We've been to Blake Island once before a few years back on the sailboat we owned, and Andrew (9) went recently on a field trip. The guys have both been badgering me to go back since they like the driftwood covered beach, so I relented. We hopped on the 11:30 boat (the only one that runs this time of year) and spent two hours playing on the beach. Andrew, predictably, started building a huge house of driftwood, aided by a pretty girl who was camping nearby (lots of camping on Blake Island). Michael (6), equally predictably, enlisted my help sending driftwood "battleships" out into the water and trying to hit them with rocks. The weather was pleasant enough and everyone had a good time. We got a bit of lunch from the snack bar at Tillicum Village (I had a salmon salad - the salmon here is good since they pin the salmon on cedar stakes and cook it over an alder fire as part of their dinner show) and then caught the 2:30 boat back (again, the only one they run during May.)

It was a bit expensive - normally $40/adult, $12/kid minus a AAA discount for the round trip boat rides - plus the crazy Seattle parking rates (I paid $22 for parking across the street from Pier 55 where the Argosy departs.) Add to that the cost of snacks on the hour-long boat ride each way. On top of that, with the single boat sailing each way, you really only get two hours on the island. I think the next time we go back, we'll camp for a few days. The island has great views of Seattle and Mount Rainier, a fun beach for kids, and miles of wooded hiking trails. There are good facilities (bathrooms/showers, water, fire rings, and the snack bar with firewood/charcoal, lattes, and ice cream), and it's easy to get to.

In any case, it was a fun outing, and any day that I get to ride on a boat is a good one in my book.

More on Blake Island (Wikipedia)

Michael (6) lost his first tooth today. He's been hoping for this for some time now, looking forward to the cash the Tooth Fairy will bring. He had considered ways to rip out more of his teeth so he could get more money. Definitely a results oriented kid.

Apparently, the going rate for teeth in his school is a video game! I think this might just be for the first tooth; regardless, the Tooth Fairy is significantly more stingy around these parts. Michael left a note under his pillow for the Tooth Fairy asking for the new Pokemon Silver game; the buck or two the Tooth Fairy leaves will have to suffice.

Someone made a surprising observation the other day. Now that Andrew is nine (almost ten really), we've already passed the halfway point of the time he'll likely be living at home. We have less time together ahead of us than behind us.

This made me a little sad, really. It was a big wake-up call that we need to really spend more time together as a family during these next few years. It's even more important given that he's less likely to want to hang out with his parents as a teenager.

I guess I better think of something fun to do together for tomorrow...

The other day, Michelle took a look at Michael (6) and said, "You're very cute."

Michael, without batting an eye replied, "I'm not as cute as a chicken in a dress."

Not sure where that came from.

Last weekend, Andrew (9), Michael (6), and I had a grand ol' time geocaching in a park in Renton (a suburb on the south end of Lake Washington). We even found the cache this time (not always the case, unfortunately).

First, a little about geocaching for the uninitiated. Geocaching is a game where people hide caches and then list the coordinates on Geocaching.com. More often, there are multiple sets of coordinates, each leading to a clue that plays into a subsequent set of coordinates. Seekers then use their GPS' to work through the coordinates/clues until they find the cache. The caches vary, but they're usually some container with a logbook and some trinkets (the boys each picked up a small toy in this last one.) The guys (and I) love geocaching because it's a treasure hunt; it adds a lot of dimension to our hikes. It's a good excuse to play with gadgets too...

Anyway, the park where we geocached is the Black River Riparian Forest; the unique thing about this park (other than the fact the Black River has been gone for the almost ninety years since the Montlake Cut lowered the water level of Lake Washington) is that it's home to a huge heron colony, one of the biggest in Washington. As you can see from the photo, the trees are filled with heron nests. I understand they've laid their eggs already; the ones that survive predation from the bald eagles that have taken up residence very near by (we could easily the eagles' nest) will hatch in a few weeks. I want to come back then and see the hatchlings learn to fly. It was pretty cool even now.

A few tips if you go:

• Bring binoculars. The viewing area is across a creek, so you need magnification if you want to see anything.
• Bring a loooong lens. If you're planning on taking photos, you'll need a lot of reach. I had my 70-200 2.8 with a 1.4x tele and didn't have nearly enough reach to get a good shot. I don't think 500mm with an extender would be crazy. Compounding the difficulty, the birds move quickly and its often overcast here. High ISO, fast shutters, and stabilization are key. I was shooting on my monopod, which was good. There was a guy using a tripod next to me, but he seemed to be having problems tracking flying birds. Much easier on the monopod.
• <spoiler warning>The geocaching clue tells you to count the number of nests and work that into the equation. While I was busy getting frustrated counting the nests through the binoculars, Andrew noticed the value canceled out in the clue (you added it at the beginning and subtracted it back out at the end). Good thing one of us can do math.

If you're interested in trying to find this cache, it's GC5602 on Geocaching.com.

These past few days have passed in blur as sick Michael (6) and I watched a season and a half of Avatar: The Last Airbender (which, coincidentally, is the featured article on Wikipedia today - what are the odds?) As you know, we don't have TV (well, really, we don't have a TV signal), so we downloaded the show from Xbox Live and watched it via our Xbox 360. Pretty slick. Unfortunately, this left me dreaming about the characters last night in my feverish sweat. Ugh.

The show is actually pretty good and does a lot to be somewhat accurate in its use of Asian language (unlike cartoons I grew up with like Hong Kong Phooey); there are even little jokes and insider stuff in the Chinese they use for names, and the martial arts forms they use are distinct and pretty good.

That said, I couldn't let my life be destroyed by this cartoon, so today, I read the episode summaries for the rest of season 2 on Wikipedia. I feel much less compelled to power through the rest of the episodes now and feel some small measure of control coming back into my life. (Once again, Wikipedia proves the world is full of people with too much time, but I'm grateful...)

Still, it's a good show if your kids absolutely must watch something on TV. (Of course, you could just kill your TV...)

I've been home the last two days with a sick Michael (6) as well as for a day and a half last week. I sent back him to school on Friday after he was out Thursday. He seemed OK and wasn't very convincing telling me wasn't feeling well. I figured he just wanted another day of Xbox and no school. By noon however, his teacher had called saying he wasn't feeling well and had a fever. (I'm a bad daddy.)

He had came down with the tracheitis that Andrew (9) had the week before. He had a deep, barking cough and was generally miserable. When he's sick, he gets clingy. On the one hand, it feels good to be wanted, but it sure makes it hard to get anything done at home when he's like that.

I started getting sick too after hanging out with the Typhoid Brothers, although so far my symptoms are not the same. I had a pretty high fever and was a bit delirious yesterday. My body is achy too, although I'm honestly not sure if that's related to my illness or the ten miles I ran last weekend.

Michael seems well enough to go back to school tomorrow; I'm dying of cabin fever and am ready to go back too.

I went in to wake Michael (6) up just now and kissed his cheek. He turned to me with a mean look and said, "Stop sucking on my cheek" and then pulled the covers up.

Cheeky kid.