Maison du Giffin, épisode trois et la fin

Our third and final set of guests for the summer were the Griegos: Kim, Ryan, and Dan (pictured below). Dan is a childhood friend of Pete’s and Pete is Ryan’s Godfather. Pete only made mention of kissing his ring 20 times or so but we were very lucky no horses were injured during the Griegos visit.

Kate was so excited for and during this visit because Ryan is just 6 months younger than Kate so she had a very willing and present play mate for the whole visit. That and the Griegos were here for Seafair weekend so we made our second annual jaunt to Madrona Park to watch the Blue Angels. 

 

It was a great show, with the little kids and big kids alike enjoying the daredevil stunts. Even though Pete hates my camera, he was able to get a couple of decent shots of the show.

Tricia and Grandma Roo also joined us again this year for the fun in the sun. Here is Jake saying hello to Grandma Roo.

Kate saying hello to Aunt Tricia.

Kate giving Daddy some much deserved loves.

And Jake getting excited about seeing the Blue Angels–which he somehow managed to sleep through again this year.

Requisite family photo coming up, feel free to skip if you’ve already had your fill.

Maison du Giffin, épisode deux

Our second guest for the season at Hotel Giffin was Josh Heitzman, a very good friend who moved to Vegas last fall (we visited them this spring for Candice’s birthday). No photos were taken during Josh’s stay as the activities in question involved mostly unphotogenic topic matter: relaxing, drinking some beer, watching movies, and all in all helping Pete relax a bit. Kate and Jake thoroughly enjoyed their Uncle Josh time and still miss him.

But since our blog is very photo friendly, here is a photo of Josh and Pete from Josh and Leah’s wedding. It’s a few years old but it shows the boys doing what they love to do.

Maison du Giffin, épisode un

For those of you who weren’t in the know, Pete and I have opened a hotel.

This summer, due to a wonderful confluence of events, Pete and I will spend the next 3 weekends hosting guests in our home. My family from California kicked off the summer season for us (and helped us work out all the bugs). Troy, Michelle, Karli, Sierra, and Kim arrived on July 19th to enjoy the wonderful Seattle climate. Amazingly the weather did not disappoint and we spent some time outside enjoying the sun in the cooler clime in addition to doing all those fun things that we rarely get around to–acting like tourists in our own city.

Much of the first day was the family hanging out and catching up. Although we did go out to run some errands including getting a bicycle for Sierra. Here is Troy giving Sierra her first lesson.

And then here’s Pete showing her how it’s done.

The next day included the Space Needle.

Pike Street Market–the First Starbucks.

The Butterfly House at Pacific Science Center. We still don’t know why all the butterflies were attracted to Troy–they do love the smell of rotting fruit but I am not saying anything…

And ended with Dinner at Salty’s where we were able to get some beautiful photos of the family with the Seattle skyline as the backdrop. Here are the Huttons with a partial Jester contingent (clockwise from top left): Troy, Karli, Tricia, Michelle, Grandma Roo, Kate, and Sierra.

Then we have the Huttons on their own: Troy, Karli, Michelle, and Sierra.

Last but not least, the Giffin/Jester contingent: Jacob, Candice, Peter, Kate, Tricia, and Grandma Roo.

Kate’s Pre-school class

The end of the school year for Kate was bittersweet. She adores school and all her classmates but she also gets to spend the summer with Tim, Lisa, and Jake which just made her ecstatic. I was so pleased with her school though as they decided to do class photos so that Kate can see all her school buddies until she is back with them in September. So without further ado, Miss Reidy’s class from the 2007-2008 school year.

Top Row left to right: Kate, Kyle, Sanjitha, Nicholas, Manasa.

Middle Row left to right: Brian, Kendal, Minjae, Deepeka, Arvindh.

Bottom Row left to right: Saanvi, Orion, Summer, Sahana, Xixi, Robert.

New Portraits of the Kids and an update from Dr. Schiebel

The kids just went in today for their check-ups–Kate for her 5 year and Jake for his 15 month. They both are in excellent health and are growing like weeds. Pertinent stats:

Kate — Height = 44.5 inches (90%); Weight = 43.4 lbs (50%)

Jake — Height = 33 inches (97%); Weight = 24 lbs 10 oz (50%)

And we have photos taken of the kids every year around this time so I wanted to take a moment to share the new crop.

 

Happy Birthday Gma R

Great Gma Rockhold has a birthday towards the end of our clan’s birthday insanity (Pete and Gpa David on 6/23, Gma Roo on 7/2, Kate on 7/3, Great Gma Rockhold on 7/6, Grammie on 7/25) and so we all went to her place for cake this year. Happy Birthday Gma R!

From left: Jacob, Peter, Bill, Karen, Gma R, Amy, Kate.

4th of July, 2008

4th of July always turns out to be quite the extravaganza at the Giffin residence since we have so many birthdays immediately surrounding the event. This year the celebration started outside since it was actually sunny in Washington… Don’t know what strings we pulled but we’ll take it. Here’s Jake riding his rocking horse.

Jake,  Mom, and Kate snugging in the sun.

Kate blowing bubbles to entertain the crowd.

More bubbles… And more bubbles…

 Jake and Gma Roo trying to catch Kate’s bubbles.

“Squeal!!!”

Bapa and Jake hanging on the porch.

Then the party moved inside. Here’s Pete opening one of his presents, aptly accompanied by a Baby Stewie card.

Gma Roo opening her presents.

And Kate, the present expert, practicing her moves.

Happy 4th of July!

Kate’s 5th Birthday

Kate will end up having five birthday celebrations this year, the 5th anniversary of her birth, with the last one winding up in early August. So far we have completed four of the five: cupcakes at school, cupcakes at Tim and Lisa’s, birthday girls’ lunch with Gma Roo, and a family birthday fest on the 4th of July with Gma Roo, Daddy, and Grammie.

Here are a few photos from her party at Tim and Lisa’s.

Jake’s “Risky Business”

As we have noted in the blog before, Jake is into absolutely everything these days. Proof of concept–Jake adores my sunglasses. So here we have Jake in his “Risky Business” look.

Eagle Lake Redux

The original plan was to go tackle Mount Adams this weekend, but mother nature was not being co-operative in all possible ways.  The weather was beautiful, but apparently we haven’t had enough good weather to melt the snow, so we couldn’t even get within 4 miles of the trailhead at Adams.  The group we were going to go with kept shrinking, and the inability to get to the trail has forced us to postpone the adventure.

I was still ready to go somewhere, so Joe and I decided we’d return to our nemesis Eagle Lake.  Eagle Lake may sound familiar, and that’s because Joe and I tried to get there before and failed due to the weather and lack of trail, and I lost my watch.  Well…we still didn’t find the trail going up to Eagle Lake, we stuck close to the water that was coming down, and after a grueling three and a half hours of bushwhacking, bouldering, scrambling and hiking through snow, we arrived at our destination!  We set up camp and slept on the snow.  The next day we did some hiking around the Lake in the beautiful sunshine.  Our goal completed, we packed it all up, came back down the mountain (using the actual trail!) and it only took us an hour and twenty minutes.  It’s amazing how much a trail can make a difference.

We stopped at Barclay Lake and grabbed a few quick photos.  It was much more beautiful than the last time we were here in the rain.

 

You’ll notice that there is no trail around here, but there were a bunch of waterfalls as we hiked alongside the water in our attempt to find Eagle Lake.

Once again, no sign of a trail, though I will admit the views were spectacular.

When we finally reached Eagle Lake we were greeted with this beautiful view.  Almost the entire lake was iced over, but there was just enough visible to get my favorite photo from the trip of the reflection of Merchant Peak.

This is where we called home for the night.

On our trek up towards Mount Townsend, I stopped and snapped a shot of Eagle Lake below us.  You can see the outline of the lake where the edges are starting to melt.

I really liked the contrast of this photo, with the snow on the left side, and the bare scrub and rocks on the right.

Here is the path we ended up hiking back down from Mount Townsend.  I’ll leave it up to you to figure out where we walked…since I’m not sure myself.  It was steep, snowy, I punched through a couple different times, took a few unwanted slides down, but eventually I made it with only minor scratches.