Tacomawa: Tacoma Summer + Simon Seattle

Simon Visits + Seattle

Simon and his friends David and George have been traveling the country this summer on a research grant. Geographies of Logistics: Organization and Culture in the New Company Town. Their first stop was Seattle, so we had a great day seeing the city with them. (Next was San Francisco, then Las Vegas, then home to NYC.)

 

Simon's high school friend Ben also joined us, talking a weekend off from his PhD studies at WSU. Our first pilgrimage was to the Seattle Public Library, a Koolhaus design.

Stephen, Simon, George, Ben, David

Other exciting places to visit- Freeway Park is begging for parkour, and the Olympic Sculpture Park (part of Seattle Art Museum.)

The next day, the guys made a trek on a Mt. Ranier trail. Their goal was Camp Muir, a base camp for mountain climbers planning to reach the summit. They made it 2/3rds of the way, and enjoyed views and snow at 8,000 ft.

Tacoma WA

Back in Tacoma, Brock and Jill adopted an adorable Wire haired Pointing Griffon named Sprocket. He and Clementine made instant friends, and added to summer bbq fun.

Julie and Jason, with their sons Issac and Seth showed us around Sequim, WA. On the beach, our cells phones texted us, "Welcome to Canada!" and informed us of new rates. (We could see the Canadian shoreline across the water, but not sure why we were connecting with their towers.)

Sequim is home to the Olympic Game Farm, a drive-through petting zoo where feeding the animals is encouraged. The animals think it's a great idea and do their best to join you in the car.

Stephen made friends with a baby bison.

Summer camping has a new outlet- we bought kayaks this summer! There are many places to get out on the water here, so we're trying to find the best. American Lake, Lake Steilacoom, Alder Lake, or in the Puget Sound: Owen's Beach, and Titlow Park. Kayaking in the ocean is a bit more intense- we spent most of an evening trying to reach the Tacoma Narrow's bridge. After resting for two minutes, the current carried Ginger backward a distance that had taken an hour's paddling to achieve. So, we gave up for that day. Maybe by this time next summer we'll have stronger arms.

Ginger spent many happy hours this summer painting and redecorating the Stem Coaching Center, where she tutors Math and Reading. The center was formerly painted white and red, but after several coats Ginger changed it to a Spring green. She added two trees, which will be covered with origami cranes made by the students over time.

Other projects- a world map where readers can pin the locations of the stories we read, a giant ruler to measure their height, and a rubick's cube.

Adventures: Springfield MA + Storrs CT

Snowstorm Nemo visited Rhode Island in early February. It snowed all night, and we woke up with no power and several hours of digging to free the cars.

There was a travel ban in RI and parts of Massachusetts. We huddled around the fireplace until about 4 PM when the travel ban was lifted, then hopped in Tim's car and drove to his fiance's house in Springfield MA. They hadn't lost power, and after a night warming up, we were ready to go back out in the snow!

We got to attend Jess' "Valentine Caberet" community theater production. It had songs, skits, and lots of fun!

At home in Newport, we took an acrylics painting class for five weeks at the Newport Art Museum. Stephen painted an old accordian camera from his book "500 Cameras." Ginger painted a lady in a mardi gras scene from an art magazine. 

After finishing our main paintings, we had one day left for a quick painting of Clementine and a colorful depiction of sky and trees found in a local artist's work.

 Ginger got to practice photography with her new camera by doing engagement photos for Tim and Jess-

 Then driving to CT to do photos for Steve and Amy. They wanted nature scenes, so we went to the state park where Steve had proposed, and had fun on the frozen lake.