It looks like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths but we all know looks can be deceiving! What a pair of cheeky boys!
Cheeky Monkey’s
Skiing
The ski lessons are back on a Wednesday afternoon and here are the first action movies. Admittedly neither are coming down the slope films but it’s a bit tricky identifying the boys amongst everyone else! Anyway, here are a couple of videos of Toby on and around the magic carpet and being scooped up by the ski lift:
httpv://youtu.be/SnXAu8QFWyo
httpv://youtu.be/lfrgVQw5wZs
A brief glimpse of Harry:
And a ready to rock Toby:
It certainly beats an afternoon at school!
Return to Bainbridge
The last time we went to Bainbridge was for a Gunners soccer tournament back in August 2011. The return to Bainbridge was because it was Saturday morning, the sun was out and I decided we ought to go somewhere on a ferry – after all Tracy does like a Washington State ferry!
After having a quick breakfast, getting dressed and throwing stuff in to the trunk we set off to Seattle and the ferry terminal. The excitement of going on a ferry, and having to sit waiting for a ferry, meant that we had a second breakfast – McDonalds hash browns for all – yum!
The ferry duly arrived and we drove on to what turned out to be a quiet trip. Clearly not many other people had got up and decided to go on a ferry somewhere. The view as we left Seattle was a lovely as the last time we saw it, leaving on an Alaskan cruise:
The initial intention when setting off on the ferry had been to drive up through Bainbridge and head to Port Townsend (built to be the New York of the west coast) on the Olympic peninsula. It was a bit of a drive to get there though so we decided to change plans and just have a day mooching around Bainbridge.
After some quick research we found a new beach park to visit which was just near the ferry terminal. Apparently Hawley Cove park is a great place to find sand dollars – which we hadn’t seen since our Oregon trip – so off we went.
The beach park was a short walk through the woods down to the water and it was a beautiful beach park. The sun was out, the sky was blue and the ferries were coming in and out!
After a nice stroll on the beach, climbing over driftwood, chasing sea gulls, watching ferries and not finding sand dollars we walked back up through the woods to the car.
Then it was a short drive to the town of Winslow, where we stayed last time, and time for a spot of shopping. We made a couple of purchases and then realized it was ages since we’d had two breakfasts so it must be lunch time.
We drove down to the harbor front and went to a restaurant we visited last time. We filled ourselves with pasta, burgers and salmon before eating some yummy puds. Tracy had a giant chocolate cookie warmed up and covered with ice-cream and sauce and I had lovely bread pudding.
Feeling quite ill, we went for a short walk along past the boats before heading back to the ferry terminal for the trip back to Seattle. There were no whales leaping from the water but we did see a bald eagle and the mountains looked fab – Rainier and Baker.
And to end the trip off that night Harry kept up the tradition of visiting Bainbridge by being sick! Not sure what it is about that island but something definitely doesn’t agree with him!
All the pictures are here.
New Year
So another year is complete and we certainly know how to celebrate in style! In the morning we collected Harry from his sleep over party. He’d managed a total of two hours sleep the night before and it has to be said he looked a bit like death warmed up! His grumbles throughout the day confirmed how tired he was – although he managed to stay up a lot later than we thought he would on New Years Eve.
In the afternoon we did a spot of shopping for new running shoes and cycling shoes – these were important purchases to support our 2013 year of exercise! How long will it last!?
The late afternoon sun gave us a brief treat with the mountains and then the sunset on another year:
As it was a chilly evening it was time for a lovely dinner of slow cooked beef followed by trying to find something to watch on American TV. In the end we sat and watched the movie Despicable Me and stayed up late enough to see the New Year in for New York. That was as close as we got to seeing the New Year in though and by 9:30pm we were all in bed! This was an impressive effort by Harry and Toby but a bit pathetic from Tracy and I!
On New Years day we woke to bright sunshine and a heavy frost – it was a lovely morning to start 2013.
Because we were in bed so early, we were up and at it in the morning. I hit the treadmill and Tracy went to the gym and all this by 9am! We’re clearly early birds! All that exercise meant we were starving so off we went to Ray’s for our, now traditional, New Years day lunch.
We stuffed ourselves silly with burgers, steak and pasta before heading up to the Golden Gardens (where we saw the seal and beavers last week) to see another Seattle New Years day tradition – the burning of the Christmas trees! Every New Years day everyone (well almost) brings their finished with trees down to the beach and they burn them.
It was chaos down there so we didn’t get out and walk – plus it was very cold! So after driving round a couple of car parks to see if we could find any good American licence plate numbers for the boys new game, we set off home for the final afternoon before going back to work tomorrow.
How sad – still in 43 days we’re off to Sydney – it’s all go, go, go round here!
Happy New Year!