“Mom, I caught a SHARK!!”

Although I explained that a dogfish is not really a shark – Kayla thinks it makes a much better story to tell her friends that she caught a shark when we spent the day on Puget Sound with my dad for a day of bottom & salmon fishing. The charter boat captain first set two crab pots off Brown’s Point and then we spent the morning trolling for salmon. Kayla was the lucky winner of the solo salmon catch of the day, and her first salmon ever. Although it was just a small Pink salmon, you would have thought is was the big Chinook that Papa John fought later in the morning, only to have it spit the hook out before he could land it.

Late morning and early afternoon we caught a mess of flounder & our limit of one rockfish each – well, I caught half a rockfish. It took me too long to reel it up from 300+ feet and a seal bit its tail off on the way up!

The real humor of the day came when Kayla & I brought the fish home and tackled cleaning them ourselves. I’ve only watched fish cleaning in the past, but Philip taught Kayla last year, so between the two of us we didn’t butcher them too bad. We enjoyed Dungeness crab that night, rockfish tacos last night, and will feast on BBQ salmon tonight. Tomorrow we will try out the flounder. Mmm!!

You can see all the photos from this trip here: http://photo.walgreens.com/share/p=922221185148912078/l=14556159/g=3310754/cobrandOid=1009/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Why I love small towns & my dog

I live an hour south of Seattle near several small suburb towns with traditional Main Streets and where agriculture is a big part of the economy. I’ve been spending some of my free time poking around the family owned stores in these towns and as a result have added another old wheelbarrow and a red wooden bench to my garden and a few home décor items to my kitchen. I can pop in on a whim and take my time to explore. It’s wonderful.

My good friend, Robbie, is in the process of buying a quilt shop & retreat business in another small town near us – Orting (http://www.thewildrosequiltshop.com/). My mom is a quilter and we spent an afternoon visiting the shop & loading Mom up on new fabric. It is a great shop with antiques & character and a loyal following of clients who have become friends through this connection. You see a lot of this in small towns. I am so excited for Robbie.

This week Rowdie & I stayed in Sumner (http://www.ci.sumner.wa.us/Visiting/About.htm) to walk each day while Kayla was at the high school for her morning weight training with the volleyball team. We spent the hour walking the town and the neighborhoods, admiring the Tudor and Craftsman style homes and getting ideas for the garden. We returned smiles and greetings – a great way to start the day. The only thing Rowdie loves better than going for walks is swimming. As a black lab/golden retriever mix, he really does have webbed feet and is an otter dog. He brings us such joy with his crazy dock-jumping antics and his excited greeting when we come home. He’s getting lots of extra attention these days!

HOT weather & fun: July 14, 2007

We have had AMAZING weather this month – this last week in particular was very hot – in the 80’s and 90’s and hit record highs in many parts of the state, including 98 here at the house. The lake is like bath water and McKenna & I have had fun out on the Jet Ski and taking McKenna and her friend Tori knee boarding and wake boarding.

It was also Harry Potter week for us – I finished book #6 this morning (very good – can’t wait for #7 next week) and we both thoroughly enjoyed the new HP #5 movie on opening day. The movie theatre was a perfect place to escape the heat! Afterward we checked out the new frozen custard shop in Bonney Lake http://www.oldschoolfrozencustard.com/index.html - and YUM(!) we will be going back!

Friday we packed McKenna up & headed east to meet Philip for her two week trip with Dad to Montana & Colorado. On the way we stopped at the Crystal Mountain Ski resort http://skicrystal.com for a 3 hour horseback ride to Bullion Basin with spectacular views of the ski resort, Mt Rainier (in photo), and Mt Adams. The guides with Circle C (http://www.circlecoutfitters.com/index.html) were entertaining and knowledgeable about the area and made the trip a lot of fun. We had dinner at the lodge and then drove another hour to Naches where Philip was showing off the latest fender dent in the Jeep from the previous day's trail ride. After a short visit, I drove the two hours back home, crossing through Mt Rainier national park and spotting a mama elk and her baby on the side of the road.

Today (Saturday) was my only “solo” day all summer – with Kayla still at camp until Sunday. My friend, Kathy, came out for the day and we kayaked out and around Banker’s Island in the morning, then enjoyed lunch and shopping in Enumclaw at all the little mom & pop gift & antique shops and nurseries. What a fun and relaxing day!

Purge mania: July 10, 2007

Call me sick, but I get a great deal of satisfaction and peace from purging & organizing “stuff” and also taking care of nagging activities you know you should do, but never seem to find the time to. In the last couple days I thoroughly backed up my home laptop – my music files, my photos, my address book, my documents and all the extra fonts I’ve purchased. I cleaned out the 959 emails in my Inbox and unsubscribed to all the junk emails that I somehow get subscribed to every time I buy something online. When done, it felt mighty good. Never mind the reason I did this so early in my sabbatical was because I had to send my laptop in for service!

I purged our laundry room – the home of a couple of “I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-this-so-I’ll-stuff-it-in-here” drawers and did the same in the kitchen. I still can’t figure out how we ended up with at least 15 extra plastic container lids with no matching container?

Day Six: July 5, 2007

Other than the mid-week (Wed) date, we couldn’t have asked for a better 4th of July for our annual BBQ at the lake with about 30 friends & family. It had been raining HARD up until days before the 4th and on Monday the weather turned into clear skies in the 70’s and 80’s – and it’s supposed to stay that way for the next 10 days. Yes! We enjoyed the annual fireworks display put on by Tapps Island (http://www.tapps-island.org) across the lake and our neighbors on either side of us are true pyromaniacs with an “unspoken” competition for who can put on the biggest and best display. So we just sat back at the bon fire with a beverage in hand and enjoyed them battling it out. They were still at it when I went to bed at midnight.

At Day Six of my sabbatical I haven’t quite gotten into the “sabbatical groove” yet – is it crazy of me to feel a tad bit guilty & sad for being off? Work becomes such a part of your day-to-day life and you get used to doing everything as fast as you can because you are so limited on time. I catch myself getting into that routine and have to stop myself and slow down. I think I will “detox” with another week under my belt. Ha!

Today is the last day our family of four will be together for 5 weeks – until we are all together at Lake Curlew. Kayla’s knee is fully healed and she leaves for camp tomorrow and then Philip leaves on Monday for his 6 week road trip to camp & Jeep through Washington, Montana & Colorado. I am looking forward to having some 1:1 time with just McKenna – we don’t get that very often. We don’t have any major plans other than to see the new Harry Potter movie, to visit Borders to stock up on books for her trip and I’m sure we’ll spend lots of time out on the Jet Skis.