so cute, our kids

Cape Flattery

The pups experience waves for the first time! They didn't like it :(

A young eagle hanging out in a tree.

Today, the boy and I went to Cape Flattery, the most north western most point in the lower forty eight states. It was about a 4 hour drive to the trail head. We saw several kinds of wildlife including bald eagles, starfish, seals, a sea otter, a possible puffin, some odd birds with red beaks, yet to be determined. Of course sea gulls were everywhere!

Painted Desert Petroglyphs

During our trip to Washington, we traveled through Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park. Here are some Petroglyphs contained within the park. It is also home to another "Newspaper rock".

I once heard someone say that if we were to disappear today, the future generations would have nothing solid to figure out our technology or history. Our books and computers would not survive as long as these petroglyphs have. It seems our ancestors had it right, if you carve the important stuff in stone, it will be there forever. Makes you wonder what they were trying to say to the future generations. Makes me wonder what I would say in stone if given the opportunity.

Skagit Eagle trip

A few weeks ago, Alan and I got up at 430 and drove about 3 hours to the skagit river area where the eagles come every year to feast on salmon returning to spawn. We were not able to get there during the peak time, due to my work schedule, and some very wet days. However we managed to see more than 20 eagles.

While we saw over 20 eagles that day, we did not get any great photos, they were just too far away, and my camera was just not good enough to capture good clear photos. Makes one rethink the camera they have and thoughts of a new one are there.

Alan poses like his neices do for photos....what a funny guy!

The last three are just some pretty things we saw along the road.
Maybe next year, we will have gotten a better camera with better zoom and telephoto lens and luck out with the eagle sightings.

Alison's visit

So when your friend comes to a conference in Seattle and only has an afternoon to visit, what do you do? Well, we took the underground tour of Seattle. It was pretty neat with lots of good stories and humor inflicted thoughout the tour. A lot of very cool things to see. So here are some photos of the underground and the last picture is Alison! We also visited the market and saw some fish being thrown. Then we capped off the afternoon adventure with a dinner with my brother. All and all we figured we walked about 3 miles ....the boy and I are feeling it today.

More Puppy Photos

Grandma sent us some great things to torture the dogs with this week. As you can tell, we turned them into reindeer. Molly was not happy as evidenced by the last photo.

Typical play

Being Super Cuties

Just the kids being adorable.

More Hoh Rainforest

Mono Lake

Views from Mono Lake. A surprise sidetrip for us. Very pretty.

Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park

Alan took this photo of a Northern Pygmy Owl. It is tiny, I thought it was just bird that the birdwatchers were excited over, but it turned out to be an owl.

Yesterday, the weather was due to be nice so the boy and I headed to Olympic National Park, specifically the Hoh Rainforest. We had some lovely weather and got to see sunlight throughout the rainforest, something a bit unusual. We walked the Hall of Mosses trail and it did not disappoint, we saw a ton of moss. As we left the trail to head back to the parking lot, we came across a bunch of excited people with huge cameras pointed up. We knew they saw something good in the trees, it took a minute to find the pygmy owl, it is one the world's smallest owls. Alan got the only shot that ended up in focus. The remainder of the posted photos all come from the Hall of Mosses trail.

Sunset Crater

Sunset Crater NM is a small park in Arizona that has some great views! I found this park in March 2008 when I went on my solo adventure into the Utah parks and came down into Arizona on the drive home, it was along the way. So when we were planning our trip up to the same area, we decided to stop for a some quick pretty views.

Cedar Breaks

Cedar Breaks NM is much much smaller than Bryce Canyon, however both the boy and I feel it has prettier coloring. It is worth the trip there because it is much less crowded than Bryce, and you feel like you have the whole place to your self. We saw no one at the turnouts and only a few at the main viewing area beside the visitor center.