A hike at Snake lake

The boys and I spent a couple of hours at Snake Lake yesterday, mostly hiking the trails, but also checking out the little exhibit area they have. Quite fun, but rather wet and cold. -Gerrit

Christmas morning

Playing a new game on Christmas morning. Our friend Andy stayed the night, and Bob and Janet came over. Sarah made a tea ring and I made fried potatoes, sausage, grapefruit and eggs Benedict. Tasty. -Gerrit

More Christmas Eve

Grandmas opening gifts. -Gerrit

Christmas eve

Grandpa dennis getting a DS video game to play solitaire and such.

Max and his electricity kit

Max spent the morning working with his new electricity kit. Very fun. -Gerrit

Making birdfeeders in Max's classroom

Another day of making birdfeeders. A fun craft for the last day of class before Christmas break. There were other activities planned for Max's class, but a Pertussis outbreak forced the Health Department to sort of quarantine the kids in their classrooms. I had the supplies from Henry's party, so it was a nice way to fill some time in class. Kids love messy crafts and nature, so there was lots to talk about and it is always so fun the see the kids happy and engaged. -Gerrit

The Trash Audit at Blix

A group of parents with a little support from a Tacoma Schools Board member are trying to convince the school district to recycle more. If we can show it will save money, the board member will present it to the board. So, we are auditing the trash from a day at an elementary school, a middle school and a high school. Here we are at Blix, a great little elementary school in a pretty challenging neighborhood. It was a busy day, going through trash and helping the kids dispose of their lunch garbage in the right bins (we are very hopeful we can start sending our food waste to composting, instead of the trash). If we can do composting and have really good recycling of paper and plastics, we can reduce the roughly 350 pounds of trash generated by the 400 kid elementary school each day to something like 54 pounds of trash. That could save the district good money, perhaps even $100,000. We still need to audit a few more schools and get the city to let us do a pilot composting program, but it could come to fruition. Probably won't, but it really is worth trying. I roped my Mom and Father-in-law into coming and helping sort trash. Yeah family. -Gerrit

Making bird feeders at Henry's class holiday party

The Lego party

Max's 6 th birthday

Fun for all.
Sarah

Pump-it-up party

Spent Monday evening at a birthday party for one of the boy's friends. Lots of fun in inflatable toy land. -Gerrit

Snowy day

Max started the day with a bit of fun in the snow. I figured it would be a 1/2 day, but they are still at school with no mention of coming home early. I'll take the sled up with me when I do go get them, and we'll sled home. -Gerrit

Henry's finished quilt

Some great teamwork helped Henry and nana finish the quilt quite quickly. -Gerrit

Feeding the horses

A nice beach weekend. Here we are on a walk to feed the horses. -Gerrit

Field trip!

Last Thursday I got to go to the Schilter Farm with Max's kinderdarten
class. Jack and Max and Owen kept me running. I think they liked the
corn maze the best.

Sarah

Breakfast with grandma lois

We ate breakfast with grandma Lois at her retirement center. A nice meal, but they needed to have hashbrowns on the movie. -Gerrit

Halloween approaches

We picked up Grandma Lois this evening and met some friends for pizza. The, we went to the Haunted Ballet by the Tacoma City Ballet. It is a great show and super fun for the kids. Some other friends help put it on, and it was pleasant to see them too (and I ran into another friend I hadn't seen in years, which was great). After the show, Henry and I drove Lois home, and stopped at the Mandolin cafe for a drink. As luck would have it, there was a great piano/violin pair playing, so we listened to live Celtic music while we played some chess. -Gerrit

Puzzle night

A few nights ago it seemed fall had finally arrived - cold, wet, rainy. So, we did the proper thing - ate soup for dinner and spent the evening happily reading, playing games, and getting started on a jigsaw puzzle. -Gerrit

Pumpkin field

Henry, Max and I picking pumpkins a few weeks back. -Gerrit

Art project

It is a bit rainy at the old beach house, so we're making some Halloween decorations to pass the time until the weather clears (or low tide, when we'll go out rain or shine). -Gerrit

Green Tacoma day

2 Saturdays ago we picked up garbage and did some blackberry vine
removal in McKinley park. It was green Tacoma day, and it was fun to
join in all the folks doing the cleanup. Here is Henry doing some
clean up. -gerrit

Cub Scout camping

Another camping trip with the cub scouts. In exchange for a free night in the group site, the Ranger set us up with a service project to trim back some growth in the camp site. here are Max and Henry hard at work pruning. -Gerrit

Fair Legos

Well, I'm a little behind, but here are Max and Henry's lego entries from the Puyallup fair. We saw them when we all went there a couple of weeks ago. -Gerrit

Apple squeeze

Last Sunday Ellie Froney let us help her run the apple press at the
Curran Apple Orchard apple squeeze. Very fun. -gerrit

First Day of School

Henry is off to 2nd grade, Max is off to Kindergarten. They are both very excited about school. -Gerrit

Cooking breakfast

Last weekend the boys and I camped with henry's cub scout pack at
their annual Millersylvania campout. Very fun. We biked, hiked, swam
and all sorts of other cool stuff. Here the boys are cooking some
breakfast. -Gerrit

Walking the loop

We decided to walk the 3 mile loop down to the waterfront this
evening. A lovely night. -Gerrit

Grandpa's Birthday

Here are Henry and Max helping Grandpa open his cards and gifts. -Gerrit

Weekend at the beach

We had a nice weekend at the beach. We did some boating and swimming every day. On Saturday we picked up some firewood with Grandpa Dennis and helped stack it. Sunday was Grandpa Dennis' Birthday, so we had a feast of crab cocktails, artichoke and jalepeno dip, potato salad, BBQ ribs, watermelon and birthday cake for dessert, of course. Pictured are the Red Rock Crabs pre-cocktail (Henry, Max and I went crabbing on Saturday). -Gerrit

-Gerrit

Museum and a bit of a movie

Henry's cub scout den went to the history museum last night for a
field trip. Very fun. Sadly, we finished up about 3 minutes after
the bus left, so we had to wait an hour for the next bus. Luckily, it
was art walk night, and they had a free movie (oh brother where art
though) in Tolefson plaza, so we stopped to watch for a while until we
had to get to our busstop. -Gerrit

Backpacking at Sheep Lake

The Boys and I and our Friends the Tumbuschs (with Rita, Henry's age and a 3 year old also named Henry) went backpacking Wednesday and Thursday up to Sheep lake just East of Chinook Pass. A beautiful spot. Not too many bugs, beautiful scenery, nice lake for swimming, a great spot to catch and release tadpoles, lots of interesting wildlife (birds, chipmunks, fish, salamanders, frogs). Very fun. Here is a picture of them playing in the lake (probably destroying the delicate ecosystem, but oh well). -Gerrit

Seattle

Went up to Seattle on Monday to pick up Ajax's ashes (our good friend
Andy's dod that was sort of our dog too). We later went biking with
Seth, Achim and Gabriel. Here the boys are cooling off in lake
washington. -Gerrit

Morning paper

I woke up and came downstairs the other day to find Max had collected
the newspaper off the front porch and was busy looking through it,
probably for the weather section. -Gerrit

Tea time

Harry and Lucy were over for the day last week. Very fun to see them
after going most of the summer without hanging out with them. -Gerrit

Our Europe Trip movie is now available

Finished my first draft of the movie from our recent trip to Europe. It is at http://gallery.mac.com/gnyland#100454 . I tried to include the interesting things we did as well as the things that were really important to Henry and Max (escalators, swimming, subway ticket machines, etc) which aren't always so interesting.

enjoy,
-Gerrit

Foothills trail

Max, Henry and I drove our bicycles into Puyallup and biked the first
leg of the foothills trail. It is flat and pretty darn boring. The
best thing we found is a little dirt trail off the main path. A nice
ride overall, just nothing really spectacular. A couple sections near
orting and enumclaw look a good bit more interesting, but will need to
wait until another day. -Gerrit

Trip back from Eugene

Heading home from Eugene on the train today. Here we are switching
trains in Portland. The boys drove down this past weekend with Sarah,
then Sarah came home and the boys spent a couple days with grandma
Janet, Grampa Bob and varios others from Sarah's side of of the family
at the farm. I took the train down yesterday, stayed the night, and
the boys and I took the train home today. A very nice trip back
home. Right on time, too. -Gerrit

Great swimming pool

We finally made it to Stewart Heights swimming pool in east Tacoma.
The boys loved it. There is a great lazy river with innertubes and
lots of fun stuff all over. The pool is about the same size as the
one in Iceland, with a similar kid focus. But in Iceland, there were
great hottubs for adults to lounge in. Nothing like that here. And,
there were at least 8 lifeguards on duty here. There were none in
Iceland. There was a waterslide here, but only for age 7 and up. It
was way tamer than the Iceland one, which had no limits. We took the
13 bus (2 blocks from our house) which turns into the 42 and delivered
us 30 minutes later just 2 blocks from the pool. Pretty sweet. -Gerrit

Home safe and sound

Made it home just fine, but up a bit early since we are still on Iceland time (7 hour different). Hope you enjoyed following the trip. We sure enjoyed taking it. -Gerrit

Heading home now

A last museum in Iceland before leaving. We waiting to board our
flight now. -gerrit

Excellent thermal spa

The slide at a Reykiavik pool. The pool was very kid focused - lots
of fun places to play. However, it had lots of hot pots - basically
very large hot tubs. Each tub was a different temperature. Maybe 5
different temp pools. There were also shallow areas to play and lay
down or relax or whatever in all the pools. Very nice place to hang
out. -gerrit

Downtown Reykjavik

It is very windy, a bit rainy, but not really cold. The town is a bit
spread out, but has an adequate bus system. If it was a little nicer
weather, I think we would walk a bit more. The downtown has lots of
stores and restaurants. Most of the museums require a bus ride. We
are all having fun exploring the town. Currently taking a break from
the wind in a pizza restaurant. Next, the boat museum. -gerrit

Iceland

Achim, Max and Henry in front of a famous Iceland landmark church. It
is really quite impressive. Most unusual inside. It is a huge
vaulted space like most churches in Europe, but completely undecorated
inside. The columns, ceiling, and walls are all plain white. It is
light and airy and massive and clean. Very different than the dark,
old, aged, ornate, heavily decorated, and heavily painted churches
that are stuffed full of statues, candles, benches and lots of other
stuff. Tomorrow we'll take the elavator to the observation platform
in the church and hopefully hear a noon concert on the church's large
pipe organ.

We have a full day of Iceland fun tomorrow. Hopefully some parks and
museums. Nice and cool here - it is in the 50's. -Gerrit

Goodbye

Saying goodbye this AM to cousin Ian.
We are taking the train to Amsterdam
Sarah

Castle Ruins

After a nice night in my friend's in-law's castle, we headed back to
Maastricht. This time we stopped half way back at the fortress ruins
called Rhinefels (on the Rhine, as you might guess). Lots of towers,
passages and such to explore. -Gerrit

Achim's grandparents house

We arrived at Achim's grandparents house (it is owned by a foundation
now with multiple families and a business using it, but it is where
Achim's grandfather grew up). Here is Max playing in the fountain. -
Gerrit

On the Rhine

The Rhine is behind me and a train, a 1000 year old town and castle
are up the hill in front. Nana, Henry, Max and are sort of posing.
We are on our way to pick up Achim. -Gerrit

Boys on Mini Cars

We could have spent all day in the coolest park I have ever seen. The
three story slide would never fly in the U.S.
Sarah

Leslie, Ian, Max and Andy

Lunch at the musem.

Living Museum

Here is Cousin Ian and Henry in a schoolroom from about 200 years ago.