A friend of mine often posts series pictures and it's fun to see things change--or stay the same--over the years. When I saw these pictures from this year's trip to Friday Harbor pop up in my camera, I couldn't help but see the possibilities. With childhood's perfect memory (perfect, that is, about "my turn" and "last time" and "but Mom, you said." Not so perfect when it comes to "what did you ask me to do again?"), the girls requested portraits on the opposite totem from last year's trip. Here's a fun comparison--Enjoy!

Meira-2008
Hannah-2009
Hannah-2008
Meira-2009

The Launch!

I'm beginning to go through photos from our latest trip (those of you who do this immediately upon your arrival at home--or better yet, while still on vacation--can feel quite superior to me at this point) and don't want to miss the chance to tell you about an exciting event that occurred the day before we left.


Bryan had decided to take our gear and the new dinghy to LiLo and then drive back to meet us at my parent's house. The plan was to celebrate July 4 with them and then take the train back to Olympia so we didn't end up with a stray car there at the end of the trip when we brought LiLo to the Columbia. But before we took the dinghy up, we had to launch and christen her!

The girls always wear their lifejackets on the docks so we had brought theirs home, but Bryan and I had left ours on the boat. As we were trying to figure out who might have some we could borrow, we had to laugh at ourselves. "Let's see...who would be the most likely people we know to have lifejackets?" "Um, that would be...us." But N&A came to our rescue and we picked up their pfds and drove out to Hagg Lake.


We put the dinghy together by the truck and then carried her about 50 yards down to the water. This would have been an impossible distance to carry our old dinghy; already we were in love with the new one! We posed for the obligatory pictures and slid her down the bank into the water.


Everybody got a turn to row around a bit...



...and then we made up our own christening ceremony. She is now officially Split Pea!



We got a few funny looks when Bryan took her apart in the water to see how well that worked (very, as it turned out.) Don't forget to tie off both halves before trying this trick!

More to come from the trip...at some point.