The Hazard Chronicles

It’s just before 5:00am right now and I have been up for over two hours already. I wasn’t doing nothing though. Earlier this morning I helped Evelyn pack her bags into the car and we made the trip together down to the airport. She will spend the next week touring Washington DC and New York City with a group from her school. I think it will be a formative experience for her, and I am proud of her for earning half of the money for herself to go on this trip. Hopefully she takes enough photos and I can convince her to do a brief write-up for the blog when she gets back.

As for our family, we just got off a wonderful weekend of camping and climbing. It was a pretty last-minute thing for us. I just remember sitting at work on Thursday, and it had been raining all week, and I thought that it sounded nice to get into some better weather for the weekend. There really isn’t much more to say about that. We went to Banks Lake, which is new for us, and I’m pretty sure that everyone had a great time. I’ll include a bunch of photos below, but that isn’t where I want the focus of this post to be.

Instead, I’d like to introduce a guest blogger onto The Hazard Chronicles. In the last post we did, I told all about a trip that Rach and I went on. Well, while we were away doing our thing, Rachel’s mom, Wendy, was here with the kids. Here is her account:

*****

Grandma Wendy Time.

Staying with the grandchildren while Rachel and Logan were gone used to be a lot more work. Not this time. They got themselves ready for school in the morning. Instead of having daily jobs assigned to each child I would ask Jack to sweep the kitchen or Addy to vacuum an area. They did it and that was that. If something needed attention I asked a specific person to clean upstairs, downstairs or bathrooms and it was magically done right then! It is a great system. I did the dishes and counters. Easy Peasy.

In Spokane at the Arts and Science Museum we saw the Dreamworks Animation Exhibition. We saw the original sketches of a more ogre looking Shrek and all agreed that this one was scarier and we were glad they changed the look to a more friendly character.

They loved the model of the island of Berk from How to Train Your Dragon. The story was created from the author’s childhood memories of summer weeks living with her family on a Scottish island with caves and no utilities or internet connection. Imagination took over as she pretended about Vikings and dragons.

They all played for a long time on the computers that morphed the eyes and mouths of characters. We saw Shrek character boards with Lord Farquaad in a scene with each step of animation narrated, and then in an instant they were colorized and played at regular speed. Penciled animations were projected on the walls of their favorite characters and shows.

This is Lindsey digging through her purse so she can give a "tip" to the helper. One shiny penny could have been the best thing that happened to that person that day!

We saw Native Americans carving canoes and watched a video about how the local tribes recently each carved out their own canoe and paddled them to the dam where they used to all meet before there was much of a settlement in the area. We learned how important the Salmon are to their identity, and how this trip with everyone was the first in 72 years and was very emotional. The largest log was 800 years old and weighed 37,000 lbs!

We toured the Campbell Mansion and Maren was ready to move into this home today.

We watched one of my very favorite Nova programs on Youtube. Earth From Space is about the knowledge we learned from satellites circling the planet. We watched some of it with the kids and finished watching with Rachel and Logan. Addy especially liked it, and we had a good discussion about it.

On one beautiful day we had a picnic by the water at Falls Park. Twenty geese and their babies were within ten feet of us the entire time. A couple of hungry adults wanted our food, so we sat facing them instead of the table and Evelyn was ready to rattle her skate board to protect us. Then the kids roamed the hills and I read my book on a bench in the shade.

One time we had a brief stop at Riverside Park where everyone roamed free on boards and scooters, played in the park, or just had a nice walk over the bridge.

Maren made waffles with chocolate chips for everyone on her tiny waffle maker. I think it is the cutest appliance I have ever seen. Maren and Addy randomly made chocolate chip cookies, twice, and Lindsey cooked up great scrambled eggs and cheese to help me with breakfast. No one needed help. It was a fun surprise every time.

Lindsey wrapped her Elsa dress sleeves around her waist so the dress would be longer. Then she turned on the music, sang and dramatically acted out her own choreography to “Let it go.” Later in life she will definitely be in Drama.

Jack loves chickens so much he has not eaten chicken for over a year. I have to say that I am impressed with his commitment. He has a big fluffy stuffed chicken and loves to play with Legos.

Over the last couple of years Jack has created a beautiful garden area behind the garage. He is planting vegetables, and Maren is in charge of the flowers this year.

I was thrilled to watch Addy and Jack play in the 6^th Grade Band. They were fantastic. I loved watching Evelyn play the drums with skill and enthusiasm. During the performances, the percussion players with the wood block or tambourine would walk quickly through the crowd and play their instruments. It was fun to watch Evelyn do this. Then, I learned that walking around to get the crowd engaged was actually Evelyn’s idea and it made it even better.

I enjoyed watching some episodes of Evelyn’s shows with her. She was thoughtful enough to explain the story lines for me.

I had the pleasure of riding bikes for 15 miles along the beautiful Spokane River with Rachel. It was a personal best time record for me. High puffy clouds gave us shade and the scenery was breathtaking. (This is Rachel. I just have to insert a quick blurb about our ride together. This is almost double the distance of my mom's longest ride yet, it had triple the elevation gain, and she rocked her time by a long shot! This ride reminded me of why I love biking.)

I had a wonderful time.

*****

Hey- it’s me again. When Rach and I got home, we went to the band concert that Wendy mentioned. We also went out as a family to see the musical “Matilda,” and we took Wendy up to Arbor Crest for a nice evening out. It really was a great visit, and we are so thankful that she was able and willing to come hang out for a while.

Arbor Crest

There was a party and cornhole tournament at church on Sunday. Out of about a dozen teams, Grandma and Maren took the bronze, and Rachel and Bruce took home silver.

Matilda, the musical

Ev got a gurgle pot. I'm pretty sure that she doesn't need anything else in life to be happy.

Well, that’s about all I have for you. Take a look below as some photos of our weekend, and have a good week!

Camp set up was a breeze! The kids jumped out ready to help, and everything was up and running in less than 15 minutes. We have officially arrived as a family!