It was a cold, but luckily not rainy day, when Tricia, Kate, Grandma Roo, Jacob, and I all went on our merry way to the zoo. It’s been a while since we made the trip and the kids really needed to spend some time outside the house, so we decided to brave the possible weather for huge upside we’d get for our trouble.

Here’s Jake enjoying the puddles left by the last few days of torrential downpour we’ve experienced.

And here’s Jake when I asked him to stop his complete and utter exuberance in jumping ecstatically in the puddles.

We have Kate searching for the penguins who decided that swimming in the water wasn’t in their best interest today.

And the kids riding the bronze hippo after the real ones just kept sleeping.

The finale to the day — the fresh air and all the running around we did ended with the hoped for result, a completely exhausted Jakey-Jake crashing out in his seat on the way home.

Halloween rolled around and not only was it not raining, we had sunshine. What a concept for the great PNW. We tried to stay mellow through the morning, to save up our energy for the evening’s Trick or Treating, and to let Daddy rest up and recover from H1N1.

Grandma Roo joined us for the afternoon to carve Kate’s pumpkin and to cover the house for visiting Trick or Treaters while Kate, Jake, and I were out in the neighborhood with Uncle Allen. Here are Kate and Roo busy at work on their creation — The Bats.

Then, after Jake was up from his nap, we got the kids in their costumes. The first time the full skeleton crew was together.

Jake and Kate hanging out with their friends along the front walk, they’ve taken quite a liking to the skeletons.

Showing of their life-sized jack-o-lantern otherwise known as Grandma Roo.

And finally Kate, Jake, and Uncle Allen out Trick or Treating in the neighborhood.

Happy Halloween to everyone!

I’m trying to decide if I like Halloween on the weekend or not. It’s definitely less stressful with regards to trying to coordinate the travel logistics of getting the kids to each destination (school, Microsoft, neighborhood trick or treating, etc.) but then it becomes multiple days of celebration. Kate had her school party and her afterschool care (YMCA) party both today. Sugar, sugar, sugar, more sugar, a bit of candy, some cookies, punch, more sugar, and some… can you guess??? oh yeah, sugar. She had an excellent time and can’t wait for pumpkin carving and trick or treating in the neighborhood tomorrow.

Here’s Kate as a Jack Skellington skeleton mouseketeer (her costume kept expanding over the course of the day).

And she really wanted to show of her brethren from the front walk.

Plus, we had to get a close up of the mouse face painting she received at the Y from Meg.

I didn’t let Jake wear his skeleton costume today because I was worried his couldn’t last 2 days of wear, so I went the cheap route and dressed Jake as a PC.

He had a great day at Tim and Lisa’s hanging out with his friends. But he is very much looking forward to dressing up tomorrow night and going out Trick or Treating with Uncle Allen. Here’s Jake’s demonstration of the opposite of how the skeletons look.

Just wanted to give you all a couple more recent photos of the kids. Here’s Jake showing off his flexibility.

And Kate showing off her Thriller dance moves before meeting all the zombies at Thrill the World.

Not sure if you’ve all heard us talk about J4 in the past but we have some lovely friends we met through Aaron and Kim Stebner–Jerry, Judy, Julia, and Jillian (joined the clan a mere 6 weeks ago)–who brilliantly put out a call for friends to join them in some pumpkin hunting. So 5 kids, ranging in age from 6 weeks to 6 years, and 8 various guardians and consorts all joined up at South 47 Farm for some pumpkin-y, doughnut-y, corn maze-y, muddy, muddy, muddy fun!

We were lucky enough to hit a break in the rain so that we weren’t in a deluge as we were hunting, but the rain that was falling all week made for a near 4 wheel drive only experience in the parking lot and pumpkin fields. Here are Kim, Aaron, and Zach.

The kids found hay bales to run and jump on in addition to pumpkins everywhere!

Then we trekked out to the fields with our wheel barrow to find the “perfect” pumpkin… Kate bit of a bit more than she could chew (or at least than she could carry).

And Jake found his kindred pumpkin spirit with great efficiency.

Finally it was time for some doughnut refueling, courtesy of Uncle Aaron. Kate, Jake, and Julia all figured out the drill very easily.

While we’ve had the most amazing summer I can recall, fall is holding it’s own as well. There are the most beautiful maple trees lining our street that have turned that gorgeous crimson color whose depth and tone is next to impossible to copy. The photos don’t quite do them justice but I can’t resist trying to capture them for those bleak, gray, leafless days of February.

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With the NFL season under way, it was time for another Seahawk party at the house.  Unfortunately, the Blue Thunder turned out to be more like a pitiful drizzle with the final score being closer than the game actually was.  The good thing was we got to hang out with our friends and had a great time seeing everyone (and many finally got to see my haircut in person).  Aaron & Kim brought baby Zach with them, and Scott & Helen showed up in the fourth quarter with baby Brian so everyone got their baby fix.

Before everyone arrived, the kids were helping clean up.  We snapped a quick photo of everyone showing their support for the Hawks.

We’ve had a lot of focus on hair in the family recently, what with Pete’s “decennary” haircut just happening, but then Kate’s school sent home word of its first pep day of the year and the theme continues… Crazy Hair Day. Kate fully planned out the effect the night before.  The morning of she was a trooper in getting up early so that I could assist her in the plan. Which basically boiled down to “How many hair clips can you get on someone’s head?”

We determined the limit at a little over 30 hair clips–when we ran out.

She had a lovely time at her first school pep day and can’t wait for the next.

I hooked up with my buddy Joe for our annual hiking trip.  He had a plan that would take us up to Remmel Mountain, near the Canadian border north of Winthrop.  The plan was for a three day trip with the second day being the exhausting one where we hike to camp, then summit the mountain, and back to camp.

We left early on Friday so we could make the 4-5 hour trip to Winthrop, check in with the ranger station, and make our way to the trail head at Thirty Mile (which oddly enough is thirty miles north of Winthrop).  We hiked in about five miles through the devastation of the forest fires from previous years and found a great flat spot for a campground (obviously other people had used it many times before since there was also a fire pit).  Got our camp set up and had dinner under the stars.  It’s always amazing how beautiful the night sky is so far out from the big cities, when you can actually see the Milky Way.

The five miles we hiked was a bit much for Joe’s ankle, which he’d hurt earlier in the season.  He wasn’t sure how it was going to hold up, but we’d check it out in the morning.  When he got up in the morning and hobbled out of the tent, I had a feeling we weren’t going to make our original goal.  After some breakfast we decided that it would be unwise to push forward, but we’d still do a bit of exploring of the valley we were in before turning back around.  Below are a few of the photos I took on the trip, you can see the rest here.

The typical scenery from our trip.  Lots of burned out trees, and new underbrush alongside the river.

Our campsite after a warm dinner in our bellies.

The view up the hill from our campsite.

During our exploration we crossed over the river on the slick rocks, luckily the hiking poles really help.

Further upstream in our exploration of the valley, past the burned out forest and into the green.

On our way back out, I noticed this tree which apparently burned from the inside out.

My New Year’s Resolution this year was to cut my hair.  On the 16th of September, 2009 I have completed my resolution.  I had a great hair stylist, Maribel, down at Gene Juarez (yes, I went the professional, and foofy route).  She took great care of me, and taught me how to take care of this new do.  After having my last “real” haircut about 12 years ago, I guess I was due.  When she swept up all the hair, the pile looked like a sleeping dog, it was huge.

Kate and I before the big event.

Jacob and I, afterwards.