We had an action packed week--first it was somewhat calm, then mommy's old housemate and his family came to visit. They liked us--they said they'd finally found kids geekier than they are. We hung for the afternoon and evening, and then the next day went camping with a bunch of other friends in the North Cascades at a lake below Mt. Baker. The second day we were there we went up into North Cascade National Park and hiked up to an alpine snowfield--in August--and had a snowball fight. It was great. The next was shabbat, so it was very mellow around the campsite--so mellow in fact that the adults pretty much drove the kids away with singing and such. The funny that happened at the lake was that some people got married on the beach next to our campsite, and there were some really obnoxiously loud polluting speed boats on the lake that were so loud that the park rangers came and gave the guys on the boat a ticket--we all cheered when that happened because they were such bad citizens.
We all got back to our house and went to a really good chinese restaurant tonight called Bamboo Garden that has all kinds of beef and chicken and pork and seafood dishes that are all KOSHER. How? We don't know, but we suspect there was some vegetable matter involved. I (Willie) really liked the General Tso's chicken, even though there wasn't a shred of chicken in it. The other really good things from my POV were the Shanghai style rice cakes and the Oyster sauce noodles. Oysters? At a kosher restaurant? Something smells rotten in Denmark.
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These are Bill and Helen's kids, Nat, Mim, Sam and Toby--it's hard to see Sam and Toby from this angle, but we'll post the photobooth shot next week.
Okay, here you can see Sam and Toby's eyeball and mouth, but not much more.
Harry and RaeAnn and Adar and Daveed also came along, and so did Tzachi and Lara and Noah and Aviv. Harry had this great filtering device that he put into the high country stream and it filtered out all the stuff that would give a guy the runs and the water tasted great.
This is the side of Mt. Baker--almost there.
Not before a sneak attack snowball barrage by Nat.
He doesn't seem to be looking--time for some payback.
Break time--two thumbs up.
From up in the high meadow, you can see right down the cascades. It was spectacular.
Sweaty and wet from snowballs and such, but I'm still kicking. What does this trail lead to anyway?
A snowfield--what else?
The snowfield was huge, and the weirdest part was that there was water flowing underneath it. If you listened carefully, you could here it and in places there were holes where you could see the water moving underneath. Very disconcerting.
Oh, and did we mention snowball fights in August?
Ready, aim, FIRE! SPLAT!
It was warm up there and incredibly bright. Most of us didn't have sunglasses so Papa decided that we should wait in the shade a little lower down while Bill, Nat, Harry, and RaeAnn completed the portion of the hike they wanted to go on. A short time later we all caught up with each other and went back down the mountain and had shabbat.
Before we left for camping, Bill and Nat were working on the poetry magnets on the fridge--this is what they came up with.
After we got home I showed Mim, Sam and Toby my seven levels of hell poster--they were pretty amused.
I probably should have rated my poster PG-13, but that wouldn't keep Sam and Toby away--they are even more relentless than Teddy. One difference though--they are allowed more rough-housing than we are.
For example--Toby started saying that all girls liked pink.
Here's Mim's reaction--hmmm, better not say she likes pink if we want to stay in one piece.
They also love all the comic books we love so we figured they'd like Gary Larsen's
There's a Hair in my Dirt. They did, naturally.
See you later Bill and Helen and family--it was great having you!
Okay, here you can see Sam and Toby's eyeball and mouth, but not much more.
