Well hi!

Well, it's officially been a long time since I wrote a post.  Actually I think it was officially a long time about 2 months ago. But here I am again.  :)

As you can see I finished my garden fence quite a while ago now.  It's very rustic but is very sturdy and fulfills its purpose very well...keeping the deer and rabbits out!  I built it so the gate to my chicken yard is inside my garden so you have to go into the garden to get into the chicken yard.  I designed it this way so that I can open up the chicken gate and let them roam around in my garden in the winter, eating bugs and fertilizing while they do it.  Eventually I will have their chicken yard stretch all the way around the perimeter of my garden so they can eat some of the pests and slugs that are making their way into my garden.  At the moment I have two Golden Sexlinks and two Barred Plymouth Rocks. My two Blue Wheaton Ameraucanas died suddenly, we think it was some kind of genetic defect and not a virus since my mother-in-law had some from the same group and hers did the same thing.  We had our first egg yesterday!!!  It was very soft as first eggs tend to be.  We think it was the larger of the two Goldens since she was up in the nesting loft a lot yesterday acting like she nesting and laying more eggs. 

The past couple of weeks have been filled with lots of celebrations! Daisy turned 18 AND graduated from high school!  Her plans are to head down to Portland on July 1st, get a job and share an apartment with her childhood friend Victoria.  

And Daniel turned FIVE!!  Where does the time go??!! 

He got his first big boy bike for his birthday.  Can't wait to take it camping with us so he can ride around the campgrounds like we did when we were kids! 

Homeschooling has been going really good and I will have another post about that up later on this week.  :) 

Have a lovely Tuesday everyone! 

Thanksgiving...

Dad and I working in the kitchen.  His main job is carving the turkey and he always does an amazing job.  I was back there making the gravy.

Add frozen cranberries to sparkling cider and you get a very festive effect.  :)

My father-in-law is never without his camera.  

My mother-in-law Bonita.

My handsome hubby.  They watched America's Funniest Home Video re-runs while they were waiting for the food.

My little sweety pie is sick so he enjoyed lots of cuddling on the couch. 

Daisy was crazy excited about the rolls.  

My brother-in-law Taraz made handcrafted Chai, his own recipe.  It was amazing!

My sister-in-law Ruhiyyih and her hubby Matt.  She is expecting a little girl in February!  This Auntie is very excited!

Daniel with my mom, the photographer. :)

I hope you all had a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving!  Let's not forget to be thankful all year long!  

Let the holidays begin! :)

Lunch with the siblings...

Today was going to be my decorate for Christmas day but there was a happy change of plans.  Rue's brother Taraz is visiting from Denver and sent a text last night asking if he could stop in for a visit today.  Of course!!  When all was said and done it turned into an all Dannells sibling lunch.  (Taraz is the cool guy in the middle of the above picture hugging Daniel.) Taraz, Rahmat, Ruhiyyih and her husband Matt had gone on a hike (in the rain) before hand so they arrived cold and hungry.

I had a big pot of beef stew, spaghetti squash casserole, cookies and Starbucks freshly brewed coffee waiting for them when they arrived.  We had a lovely afternoon visiting and just hanging out and relaxing.  Rue got in a game of Street Fighter 2 with Taraz and the guys also played some Foosball out in the garage.  Ruhiyyih, Daisy and I had a girls' pow wow in Daisy's room discussing plans for the upcoming long holiday weekend.  And I rubbed Ruhiyyih's tummy a lot as she is expecting her first little sweety pie in February! 

Here is Rahmat and Ruhiyyih.  He's tall, handsome and single ladies! :) 

They will all be back on Thanksgiving along with Rue's parents and mine.  Sadly my brother Ben, my sister-in-law Mai and sweet little nephew Charlie won't be able to come all the way from Anchorage.  But hopefully we will be able to do some Skyping with them.  

 

Daniel forlornly watched out the window as everyone left.  Don't worry sweety, they will all be back on Thursday!  :)

My Christmas decorating day has moved to tomorrow.  I went and bought a couple more strings of Christmas lights today after everyone left.  Walmart, in the evening, on a Saturday, is quite crazy, just so you know. 

Happy weekend everyone! 

Where have you been?!...

I know, I know, I have been very absent from the blogging world.  But I promise I am back now!  We finally have gotten rain here in the Northwest after an amazing stretch of no rain and warm weather.  Now my attention has turned back to indoors with canning, cooking, sewing, scrapbooking and blogging.  I opened my Etsy shop back up and soon I will be adding a couple new items to my shelves.  For now my baby bibs and burp cloths are still up for sale. 

My hubby and I love to ride bikes in the fall.  We love to find trails in the country with beautiful fall colors.  Rue pulls Daniel in the little trailer behind his bike.

Our latest bike ride was on the Olympic Discovery Trail out on the Olympic Peninsula "It's a paved trail system that links Port Townsend on the Puget Sound to the Pacific beaches at La Push." .  That's right, Twilight country! :)  Most of the trail is abandoned railroad grade. We didn't do the whole thing, obviously.  We rode on a little section between Blyn and Sequim.  But we know where we want to start from next time so we can see more of it.

Love my goofy men!

Talk to you soon!! :) 

Fall is on the way...but it's not here yet!!

I am not ready for fall to arrive and thankfully our weather here in the Northwest isn't ready either.  We had a light sprinkling of rain last night, the first in quite a while but the rest of the week is suppose to be dry and sunny with the end of the week being in the high 70's.  I absolutely LOVE autumn but I am just not ready yet.  I still have hikes I want to do and after our long winter I still feel like I need to soak in some more sun before another winter sets in. 

This is a picture of my father-in-law George and Daniel up at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.  We camped at Heart O'the Hills and drove up to Hurricane Ridge one evening.  We went on a little walk and enjoyed the evening light. 

The next day we hiked up Hurricane Hill.

Daisy and my mother-in-law Bonita.

Relaxing at the top.

My parents camped with us for 4 nights.  My mom made a shower set up.  That's what the blue tarp is.  They have a shower bag that has a shower head.  It worked great! 

This is how my dad slept.  He was more comfortable sleeping in his chair than in the van.  We called him bear bait.  :)

We did a lovely little hike to Marymere Falls near Lake Crescent.

Marymere Falls

 My mom watched Daniel for us one day so Rue and I could take off and do a nice big hike just the two of us.  We drove out on Obstruction Point Road.  It is the old survey road back in the day when they wanted to put a road through the Olympics but when they saw the scenery it would cut right through they abandoned the project.  You can still drive out on the dirt road.  It is 8 miles out to Obstruction Point.  The road goes through some amazing scenery but it's not a road you would want to drive a little car on.  You probably could if you wanted, but I wouldn't want to.  The road starts at Hurricane Ridge and it feels like you are driving right over the edge of Hurricane Ridge.  It was a lot of fun!  

This is looking back toward the Obstruction Point parking lot.  In the far left of the picture you can see the road going up and over a hill.  

Mt. Olympus.  I had never seen this view of Mt. Olympus before.  We hiked out towards Grand Lake.

Starting the descent down towards Grand Lake.  We didn't go all the way to Grand Lake but we found a nice little "lake" to eat our lunch next to.

Rue wasted no time "jumping" in.  He's actually lying down in the picture.  

It was so great to be out on a hike all by ourselves.  That is my kind of date!  We are both looking forward to doing more hiking and exploring in this area.  We are also talking about doing our first backpacking trip in the next year or so.  

Summer Vacation, Part 4: Glacier Hikes...

We ended up camping for three nights at St. Mary in Glacier Park. One morning my hubby was kind enough to stay with Daniel at the campsite so I could have my first summit climb in Glacier.  Bonnie and Frank took Daisy and I up Mt. Oberlin.  It's not a long climb but it is incredibly steep.  Daisy had already done this climb when she was 8.  She "climbed" down the whole thing on her rear.  This time she stayed on two feet all the way up and all the way down.  :)

When we got to the top this little lady greeted us.  She walked over to that rock turned around and looked at me as if to say, "Okay, go ahead and take your picture.".  The view from the top was breathtaking and it's hard to describe the thrill of finally being on top of a mountain in Glacier, even if it was a small one.  The summit is not very big and its a LONG way down on all sides.

Looking down.  The line going across the green a the top of the picture is Going-to-the-Sun Road.  The height would make anyone a little dizzy.

We climbed down a different way and we came to a spot with all kinds of little pools and streams.  It was something out of Eden.  I could have spent all day lingering here.  (With bear spray, of course.) :)

The next day Daisy graciously stayed at the campsite with the dog and Rue, Daniel, Bonnie, Frank, Melanie and Patrick all hiked up to Lunch Creek Basin.

There are some spots where you have to scramble up and Daniel tackled them like a pro.  At the "toughest" parts we had his little Bob harness on him and Rue kept him very close.  I am glad to be getting him used to this kind of stuff. I want it to be second nature for him as he gets older.

 

Lunch Creek Basin.  The last time Daniel was here he was 5 weeks old.  I carried him up in the Snuggli.  This time he carried himself up.  I changed his diaper in that meadow.  Gone are the days of me carrying him in the backpack on hikes.  He's just too big now.  I have to say even though I enjoyed those days it is nice to have all the weight on my back.  I am really happy I put all the effort in to bring him on hikes with us starting when he was 5 weeks. Those are priceless memories that I wouldn't trade for anything.  

It was quite windy in the basin.  It felt like all the wind in the park was being funneled through there.  Rue found a nice little shelter for Daniel.

Daniel in his little harness.:)

 Going down was harder than going up for Daniel.  Rue was so sweet and stopped to give him a little pep talk.  Can you see Bob saying hi to the camera? :)

The day we headed back to Kalispell we drove into Many Glacier and did some touristy stuff.  The is the view from the Many Glacier Hotel.  

Big sky!  Uncle Frank took us the scenic way home.  This is looking west toward Glacier.  I love Montana!  

Whew! Done, finally! And this is only a fraction of all the pictures I took on our trip! I took almost 500 in all!  

We have had a blast this summer and it's not over yet.  Tomorrow we are heading up to do a hike near Mt. Rainier, the Naches Peak loop.  It's the fated hike where I sprained my ankle and was in a walking boot for 2 months last year at this time.  I don't plan on spraining my ankle this year!