Sleeper

Little chicken arms

Christian does golf lessons Thursday nights with a good sized group from school.

"guy's last name". hahaha.

Sausage Fest. Ring Toss is hard! Nobody won a pop (thank goodness).

Back to Top Chef. This is Olin's creation - a tortilla chip, seaweed, a freeze dried mango strip, refried beans, and a single macadamia nut. We called it "salty and sweet". Not a combo I would ever imagine together but it was much more palatable than I expected.

Christian's Top Chef - yummy guac!

Wine tasting to celebrate our fall joint birthdays. At Hightower Cellars.

Amy is friends with the Hightower owners so we got to go in the back and sample the barely fermented grapes - these were 4 days in (of 2 weeks) and it basically tastes like grape juice.

First time making granola. It tastes ok. I might have overcooked it.

Bread #28 - "Ballpark Pretzels"

Note the quotation marks around ballpark pretzels. haha! They rose a little too much. Let's hope taste is a little more accurate than looks....

Kids' Delights

Tie dye turned out pretty well. Note to self to really super saturate the shirts with dye or a lot of white prevails

Guess which child this is. Christian writes lists for tons of things. He forgets very little. He is extremely on top of his to do list.  

Forgot to post these things Olin said back in January. We had been talking about babies and he made it clear that he thinks I am no longer of childbearing age!

Yesterday, Olin was bursting at the seams to tell me he had made his first big phone call, to the Richland Public library, at school yesterday. He said he was a little thrown off at the welcome menu (where an automated voice tells you to press certain buttons for hours and directions, etc) but that he eventually got to speak to a librarian. I asked him what he was asking her. He told me "I asked her if they had any books on 'of the seas'.....like Ovation of the Seas and stuff like that". So basically, he wants to know Royal Caribbean's line-up of cruise ships that end in "of the seas". The thought of the librarian trying to decipher what he's talking about makes me laugh so hard every time I think of it! Olin said his teacher eventually told him he might be better off looking for 'cruise ship' books. I would have to concur!

Yesterday, coincidentally, Christian actually had a field trip to the Richland Public Library with his upper elementary class and he was really excited to look for and borrow a origami book. He whipped through about 6 different designs last night and has decided he will string them up and hang them up. He is quick at making his creations and does a very tidy and precise job. I will have to take a photo once they are all strung up.

Out & About in Eastern Washington and Oregon

Fran Rish stadium for Hanford vs. Walla Walla high school football. We won! We only stayed half the game but it was pretty fun.

Spudnut Shop prior to Pendleton Round-Up for the 5th (or 6th) year. This year we caught the tail end which culminated in the barrel racing and wild cow milking. Very fun. 

Olin's team's first win! They won 5-4 over Walla Walla. I was probably more excited than him. :)

Pioneer Park in Pendleton which the kids still love.

Native American parade at the Pendleton Round-Up. Luckily, Walla Walla was only 45 minutes from Pendleton so we stopped in Walla Walla for Olin's game and then drove straight down to Pendleton.

Tie-Dye at the Safranski's house

Neighborhood get together. These boys all live within a couple blocks from each other. Henry, Derek, Fox, Olin, Christian.

Bread #26

French baguettes. They turned out pretty small, and from the looks of it I believe they are denser than ideal. Once they have cooled down a bit I will cut them open and make some jambon fromage sandwiches tonight! They were pretty labor intensive because they had several periods of rising over a couple of days. The recipe also kept calling for a 'couche' which is some sort of special linen proofing fabric, but I got lost in all the couche instructions so it's very possible I followed some of the steps incorrectly.

Christian's field trip to the B Reactor today. Per the website: The B Reactor National Historic Landmark is the world's first full-scale plutonium production reactor and part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.
We did this tour (adults) 7 years ago when we moved here and it was pretty good. Christian was SO looking forward to this field trip to learn about radioactive materials.

Carnivore

Our plant has turned out to be a true carnivore. It caught 3 flies while we were gone this weekend. They are sealed tight with the fly in them, almost like a ziplock bag without air in it. 

A Boatload of Photos

We had lots going on this past week, from Olin's birthday party on Friday, to the very out of the ordinary Huskies football game on Saturday.

Olin's closest friends at school minus Marcus who couldn't make it because he was in Astoria. From left, Liam, Teddy, Kian.

I had all the parents meet me at the library where they began their scavenger hunt.

JK Rowling section is where they found their first clue. Took them a while. haha.

2nd clue: Starbucks

3rd clue: Leslie Groves park

4th clue: 2647 Harris

5th clue: Bond's house

Digging for gold at home. Liam actually got gold! It's a tiny little piece in a small clear bag.

Preying mantis enjoyed Olin

They desperately wanted to do pyramid but only had 5 people...

...so they never got it to work and asked me if I would help make up the base...

...so we set the phone on a 10 second timer and nailed it!

Tetherball. They played for a loooong time.

Wild Horse wind turbine farm outside of Vantage. They offer 1 hour free tours daily, and it was very informative and interesting. These windmills are from a Danish company, Vestas, and are the 80m diameter size. On the scale of windmills, they are moderately sized or slightly smaller than moderate. They start spinning at 9mph winds, and turn off at 56 mph. Their maximum efficiency is 20-50 mph winds. They only turn clockwise. 

A blade. Each blade (of 3) weighs 7 tons and is made of fiberglass. They have to be grouped with blades that weigh within 12 pounds of each other or they will be imbalanced.

When they test them for flexion they move the end of the blade 12 feet up and down! The tour guide told the kids they could get up on the blade to make it go up and down. 

The blades have these little metal things to prevent lightning damage (I was unsure how that works but the gist was that they don't get destroyed when lightning strikes). They get maintained twice per year by a guy that climbs up the ladder inside. There is a 'climber assist' rope that pulls them a little bit which makes the climb easier. The metal base comes in 3 separate parts that are put together. I think he said in this solid/hard ground the windmills only need to be placed 30 feet below ground but in looser soil they need to be placed deeper. I can't remember how much power each windmill generates. 

Pumped for Game Day

Just a hair off

Our seats, before.....

....thunder, and lightning galore! It was spectacular! The Huskies and Cal Bears played for 8 minutes before they cleared the stadium and people waited in the halls. We left shortly after when it was pouring and lightning outside. 

We returned at 12:30am and stayed for one hour until the bitter end, when we lost to Cal, again, 20-19. We had been 2 touchdown favorites, and played very poorly. Dae the bad luck charm. Still has yet to see a Huskies win in person.

I read in the news that about 15,000 spectators stayed, which is about 1/4 of the original size. It was kind of fun to come back to the stadium with so few people there. 

Can't get enough of this place! This time we got onion rings to go with our enormous burgers.