Midwest Night: Dinner, Games, & a Movie

Hal writes:

We recently hosted a theme party of "Midwest Night" at our house. We had representatives from MN, WI, MI, and IL. (The people from CA and WA me made into honorary IA and NE residents.)


I made name tags for everyone with their home state. Boys were given the middle name of "Bob" and girls had either "Jo" or "Sue" for a middle name.

The evening featured two games. The first one was a Midwest Quiz that Hal put together. Tyler, who has lived in WA all his life, won the quiz. Things were pretty even, but he pulled away when it came to the "match the senator to the state they represent" part of the quiz. (For future reference, Chuck Grassley is from Iowa.) The second game was called "Tip the Cow". Everyone had a circle with a cow print out. After naming their cow, they were blindfolded (and for my own personal amusement, made to wear a cow vest and cowboy hat) and stuck their cow on the "farm" in the style of Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Whoever had the cow that was the most upside down won. (We had a level and a PT angle measuring tools to settle disputes.)

Nils celebrates his victory in "Tip the Cow".

Here is the food. Drinks included beer from WI (Leine's), wine from IL (Galena Cellars), Kool-aid, and "Mississippi River" water (really, just from my tap, I lied about that one), and Minnesota Milk (really from WA, but hey, I lied again.) Food included sloppy joes, brats, ceddarwursts, beer bread, cheese dip, jello pretzel salad, potato salad, cheesy potatoes, and tater tot hot dish. For dessert, there was an assortment of bars.

After dinner and games, we watched Drop Dead Gorgeous. The fun part was, only three of us had seen it before. It was fun watching it with people who were hearing the jokes for the first time. Gladys, we need more bars!

Bonus picture. Here is Riley (left) and our neighbor's Yorkie named Fido. We tried for a cute picture, but they wouldn't sit still.

Mt. Rainier Trip #4 and Blackberries

Hal writes:

This weekend Anna and I made our fourth trip up Mt. Rainier. Similar to our trip with Kim and Sam this past winter, we traveled up to the Paradise location. We had fog for most of the trip so we elected to go climb on one of the glaciers since the views would not be very good of the mountain top at the elevations we would be at.


This is Stephanie, an intern at Anna's clinic. She is on her internship for two months, so we brought her along in our exploring adventure.

At the start of our journey we found two mountain deer. (The other one was too camera shy to come out and say hi.)


Stay on the trail! Leave no trace! Don't be a meadow stomper!

Above 6000 feet we came to our first section of snow. (Keep in mind, this is August...)






Hal (right) and Stephanie (center) cross a makshift bridge.

Anna on the Nisqually glacier where the official trail ends. She wanted to keep climbing to the top but lacked a few items. Items such as a compass, altimeter, food, clothing, water, and shelter for such a hike.

Anna and Stephanie exploring the river coming out from under the glacier.




Can you see the marmot?

This one is "medium difficulty" in "Spot the Marmot" game.

This should be easy enough. Do you see him now?

Returning from our trip we found that our blackberry bush had some ripe berries.



The first batch was made into the this blackberry pie that we ate last night fresh from the oven with some vanilla ice cream.


We did some more berry picking today at PLU. Unfortunately, we didn't bring enough buckets or the right kind of clothes to contend with the thorns of the bushes. So, there are many berries left to be harvested. Today's batch will most likley be for muffins and scones. Let us know if you have suggestions for the future batches this next week.

(Finally) Pictures of our new house

Hal writes:

Ok, after two months we finally have pictures up of our new house. Um, I suppose it's charming when a part of the number is missing like this?


A picture from the drive way of the front of our house and the side lawn.


This is a view from our front door. The driveway comes up from the road on the right hand side (behind the bushes). It's just us and our neighbors Thomas and Lynda (and their Yorkie "Fido") who live on the hill.

When you enter the house, there is a staircase to the left to go upstairs, a coat closet, and a bathroom to the right. Straight ahead is the living room.

Another view of the living room (you can use the rocking chair for reference) and in the background is the door to the patio and the dining room.

A view from the back of the kitchen (sorry it's small and apparently dark without the lights or a flash). Behind me is small room with a washer and dryer and the water heater, which then leads to the garage. Five points if you can spot the dog in this picture.


A photo of the back of our place. Our house is a duplex, there is a porch for our neighbors on the other side of the wooden divider.

One of the four cherry trees (three different cherry varieties) on the property. The cherries are already out of season (the ones on our property) but there is a blackberry bush to look forward to later on this month.

Ok, back inside the house. This a view of the staircase from the upstairs.

Our bedroom. To the right is a sink and linen closet that leads to the full bathroom. To the left is a closet in the room.

The guest room. Reservations are currently open for our Bed and Breakfast. Let us know when you would like a Washington Adventure!


Some fun facts about our house:

* We are located in Spanaway. A span is ten miles of railroad distance and, wouldn't you know it, we are living ten miles from downtown Tacoma. In other words, a "span away" from downtown.

* In addition to the cherry trees and blackberry bushes, our yard has other trees and plants including a white rose bush and a Japanese maple plant.

* We live (according to Anna's coworkers) a "Pioneer Life": no cable/satellite, no Internet, one car for our family, and Hal mows the lawn with a push mower (no gasoline or electric power, just pure muscle). (We do still have a TV with a DVD player for occasional movie viewing and an ever growing library of books.)

* Within two blocks walking of Spanaway Lake and one block to the edge of Ft. Lewis (army base).

* Urban enough to be near gas stations, Dairy Queen, and grocery stores; rural enough to hear rosters crowing in the morning.