Month: November 2019

Over the weekend, we trucked out to Wenatchee to visit Thom and Katie. Although they’d already been to our new house twice, we still hadn’t been to their almost-a-year-old “new” house. The architecture of their house is definitely unique: a mix of modern (roughly ten years old) and an old farmhouse (right around a century old).

In true form, Thom and Katie took us on a hike into the hills behind their house. It was a beautiful day– a little chilly, but in mid-November you expect that.

Julian showed off his parkour skills at the trailhead:

We missed the height of the fall colors, but the trees were still pretty.

The hike took us through a gorgeous golden meadow.

Sefton alternated between running up the trail to catch up to Noni (aka Julian), and being carried in a backpack or on shoulders. To a two-year-old, there’s always something to point at in excitement.

At the summit, we had a commanding view of the entire Wenatchee Valley. I can see why Thom loves this area.

Although we couldn’t (quite) see their house behind the ridges, we could see the entire city spread beneath us.

Julian took some great photos. And I took one of him taking one of me.

Julian installed some retro game emulator, and we had a grand time playing Tetris and Mario Bros (the ones from the early 90’s). Katie fired up Mario Kart, which is somewhat of a disappointment after playing the updated Wii version.

On Saturday we went up to Leavenworth, which is a fun little town whose theme is “Bavarian”, to the point where all the businesses are required by statute to use certain German-looking script fonts. Even the Subway has this font, rather than its usual logo. The town was decked out for the holidays, and the lights were pretty cool.

Also, we found a shark hat and a giant bear. What a great city!

We hiked along Icicle Creek, which is a pretty hike that heads up into the Enchantments. It was, in fact, the same trail Thom and Katie came down after their wedding. I managed to get a nice shot of the creek:

And a few fall colors, for good measure.

On Sunday went on a ten-mile bike ride across the Columbia and Wenatchee Rivers. It was a ton of fun, and the trail was populated by other bikers and walkers out to enjoy the nice weather. Sefton was in heaven, because not only did we ride (and walk) across bridges…

… but we rode a 10-gauge mini railroad! What two-year-old wouldn’t love that? Thom, on the other hand, appeared to be underwhelmed by the train. (Pepper is having fun in the back with the caboose guy.)

We loved the weekend and can totally understand why Thom and Katie decided to make Wenatchee their new home.

I love inventing a costume for Halloween and then dressing up for parties or trick-or-treaters or just to go to the office. I’m pretty proud of a few of my latest creations: the Dread Pirate Roberts and Doc Brown, or even the more generic hippie and plain old pirate.

Alex and his work cohorts all dressed up as ghetto Marvel superheroes, and some of their costumes are so bad they’re good. He sent this picture:

Sadly, we don’t yet know enough people in the area to throw a party, I don’t have an office to go to, and there’s zero chance of trick-or-treaters coming to our house. So I was kind of bummed that I wouldn’t get to wear anything fun. But then Pepper discovered that Bigfork has an annual Halloween event on the main street, Electric Avenue (yes, insert 80’s reference joke here). All the local businesses hand out candy to trick-or-treaters.

So I donned my pirate hat and dressed all in black, and Pepper dug out a witch hat, and we headed downtown.

It was a chilly evening, but there was a huge crowd. Hundreds of families were walking along the shops getting candy, and we managed to score some as well. My favorite costumes were this couple, dressed as Bert and Mary Poppins:

So Halloween wasn’t a total bust. Afterward we went out to a little Italian restaurant to wrap up the evening.

I told Pepper that next year we’re definitely throwing a big party.

A few days ago, we had about three inches of snow fall in the area. When Pepper and I went outside for a walk, we saw some tracks in our front yard. One set was definitely from a wild turkey:

The other set looked like a large dog made them:

Since it’s incredibly unlikely a regular dog made its way up the mountain into our yard, I’m guessing these are wolf tracks. They’re too big to be coyote, and not shaped right for a bear.

We also saw some deer tracks along the driveway, and of course a few smaller critters (squirrels and rabbits, probably). It appears we have quite the menagerie of animals in our yard…

It was barely a week ago that I posted a picture of a beautiful sunset across the lake. Well, tonight Pepper and I were sitting in the office and glanced out the window. Here’s what we saw:

I can’t get enough of these…