Rounding out the weekend weather

The end of an extreme weather weekend: sun, rain, hail, snow, warm, cold, clear, cloudy, rain, drizzle, fog, mist but no high winds.
This was from the front yard this afternoon as another system moved down from the North.

Professor Snow Sentry

Another day, more snow and another snow-person. This one couldn't decided whether to be professor snowman or snowman sentry.
The trauma of the indecision must have been too much, 'cause he's gone now L

Snow Gear

 

F all togged up for a spot of outdoor fun in the snow.

Either that or some boxing.

Earth Hour

http://www.earthhourus.org/

More Weather

After the snow the skies cleared...

...in time for a short, sharp, hail storm.

We now have low stratus and drizzle.

Spring Snow

Excitement with some early spring snow overnight, led to small snow-person building in the garden.

"An inch? That's nothing" said Gran "we had two last weekend!"

Clearing Evening Storm

Snow forecast and hail storms for Fay to dodge while out walking this evening.
It just cleared as the sun was going down.

Day out

F took Fay out for the day to Woodland Park Zoo.

Office View

The view from my office today...
actually, you need to turn left out of my office
and climb two flights of stairs to get this view ;-)

That's, I think, Mount Index or there-abouts. Approx. 27 miles and two valleys away.

Cake hunting

  

Word spread like wildfire about the cake, soon the squirrels were combing the garden for the leftovers.
I'm trying to train them to find hidden eggs...

Egg Hunting at Easter

A small egg hunt in the garden yesterday. Matt and I lost count of the number of eggs hidden, I suspect we'll be finding them for months to come.

With ~20 kids running around, I was surprised to realize that nearly all the mums had vanished...

...they had succumbed to the temptations of cake.
Cake, they like cake.
Fay assures me that people left with cake, lots of cake; but I still think it was all eaten.

Thanks to everyone for bringing such lovely cake, puddings, deserts, pastries, more cake etc.
More next time?

Mart's Bike

Way cool. Circa. 1940 Harley.

Foot warming

When I was a lad we used to wear socks.
Now feet are kept warm on chilly mornings by standing on the heating vent.

Last of the Sycamore seeds

There's a big American Sycamore tree in the garden.
In the summer it shades the sand pit and soccer pitch.
In the autumn it dumps huge leaves all over the garden.
In the winter it lets the sunsets sneak into the family room.
In the spring, actually I can't remember what it does in the spring.

Getting Technical

H is still a tad young for Lego Technic, but Dad needs to get him moving up to some Mindstorm stuff ASAP so we have an excuse to play with the robotics SDK in time to challenge KZ and Anish at work :-)

Moon

Tonight's moon through a gap in the cloud.
(Handheld shot, with breath held :-)

Parklife

Time (again) to burn off some energy, so the usual plan down at Cottage Lake Park:
cycle the circuit; play in the playground; beat dad at basket ball

Fay caught us up in time to get a quick basket or two.

Sports Captain

Fay demonstrates what a
former school house (More) sports captain can still do...

H

Cranes

When we moved H could find his way around by the number of cranes. "Lots" was Seattle; "a few" meant we were in Bellevue; and "one" was probably Redmond. There's a few more in Redmond at the moment, the office is expanding again and this is what you see from the 545 bus stop.

Idyl in Idylwood

The boys had a sleep-over
so we burnt off some energy at Idylwood park.
H spotted one of the Eagles while swinging.

Gear

Hat and poles.

Gaiters and boots, with all terrain drive attached.

(A proper walk)

Slog

A plan to summit Mount Pilchuck turned into a workout slog up forest service road 2124.

What would have been a nice 2 hr hike to the starting point at the trail head with snow shoes... wasn't.

Lessons learnt:
1. In winter, check trail head accessibility as well as planned route.
2. Long hikes to trail heads are easier with snow shoes and/or x-country ski's (when there's snow around that is).
3. Snow cover on the ground is very dependent on tree coverage.
4. When a nice alternative like Heather Lake presents itself, go for it.

West Point Lighthouse, Seattle.

West Point Lighthouse, Seattle by Canon SD 1000.

Family Pic

Proper Walk

View previous proper walk.

View all feet = proper walk on flickr.

Rock Wood

H as the look out at West Point...

...while F played in the drift wood.

Discovery Park & the Beach

When we got down to the beach there
was lots of big sky to gaze at...

...rock pools to investigate...

...and drift wood to play beneath...

...and balance on.

Oh, and various combinations of the above.

As we walked slowly down to West Point
and West Point lighthouse.

Discovery Park

The boys demonstrated the quickest way down a flight of steps with various jumping styles. But, I wasn't quick enough with the camera to capture the double back flip with 720 twist.

Spring is here (it remembered the date) with buds opening all over the forest.

H snapped us with the green bee on the bridge. You won't remember the bridge because I didn't post that pic ;-)

Two up

What to do when friends can't agree on which star wars story to read while waiting for Mac N' Cheese to arrive?

Mart demonstrates the solution: reading two books at once.