Yet Another Breezy Point Project

At our Breezy Point house we have a little (~8'x8') cinderblock shed down by the water that was probably built in the 1950s and over the last 70 years has acquired a lean toward the Sound, and has a shake roof that is falling apart.  Rebuilding the whole thing would have been a huge project involving lots of digging.   The back wall appears to have extra concrete and is anchored into the hill.  So, I decided to get creative and basically just made a giant shim.  I poured some concrete to make the front wall perpendicular again, and created a new level roofline.  I skim coated the walls with concrete so the slanting lines of the cinder blocks wouldn't be visible. There was a last step of of putting siding on the open sections that isn't shown.

Dad and Noah Catch Lots of Fish!

Dad and Noah went to Westport again to do a charter with Captain Nick on our favorite boat--the High Life.  After an early 5 AM start, we had to go close to 30 miles north to get to the salmon, but once there we hit our limit pretty quickly of 2 good size silver (coho) salmon each, and then also each hit our limit of rockfish (also called sea bass).  On the last cast of the day Dad also managed to bring up a 12 pound lingcod which was a nice bonus!   We put it all on ice and when we get home Cynthia vacuum packs and freezes it all, and we have a fish supply that lasts for a while.

Gem Lake Backpacking Trip

Noah and Dad did a quick backpack trip up to Gem Lake in the Alpine Lakes wilderness area off of Snoqualmie Pass.  It's a bit farther than Snow Lake, which is one of the most popular destinations in the Northwest.  Fortunately we left fairly early on Friday morning, found a good campsite, and had the place mostly to ourselves.  The number of people we passed on our way down though on Saturday that were headed up to Snow Lake was astonishing.

Aaron's Track Meet

This is one of Aaron's track meets (at Ranier Beach High School).   Aaron ended up being the captain of the Roosevelt track team for his senior year.   This the the 4x400 team that ended up qualifying for the state championship.  Aaron is running the anchor leg here for Roosevelt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES9M2SGK5xo&t=19s

Snow in Seattle!

We got some decent snow in the winter of 2018-2019.

 Aaron built an igloo!

Deck in Seattle is snowed in

 We got even more snow at our Breezy Point house.  Somewhere 

there's a driveway in this picture.

Noah does a V6!

Noah does a challenging route at the Seattle Bouldering Project.

Paddling on Greenlake

Aaron's friend Max made a nice video including lots of drone footage of a paddling session on Greenlake.

Aaron and Noah Make the Podium at Northwest Boulderfest!!

Aaron and Noah have been climbing for a while now and decided to enter the Northwest Boulderfest competition held at the Seattle Bouldering Project, which is one of the largest climbing competitions in the Pacific Northwest.  They both entered the Men's Novice division.  Noah ended up 3rd overall, and Aaron was 1st!   They both won a bunch of cool gear!

This wasn't part of the competition, but here are videos of the boys practicing on an intermediate route--at least it's intermediate if using both arms and legs.  Noah and Aaron decided to make it a little more challenging.

Baby Island

About three miles to the south of our Breezy Point place is Baby Island.  The boulders are actually harbor seals--we think they're all seals but didn't get close enough to determine if they're sharing the real estate with sea lions.  The population might be one of the reasons we see transient orcas passing by once in a while. 

Breezy Point

A few pics from trips up to our place on Camano Island...

A breezy day at Breezy Point. 

 One of Aaron's favorite places to take a nap:

 In the spring we see schools of baitfish (maybe herring or candlefish) moving through.  You usually can tell by all the birds and seals in the immediate vicinity.  We also finally saw a grey whale going by this spring with a big spout.  There had been lots of reports from the neighbors but we always seemed to miss them.

Another breezy day at Breezy Point.

We planted baby clams in our tide flats a year or two ago.  We'll see if it works.

 Lots of fresh crab.

Every once in a while we see a pod of transient orcas pass by our back yard.  They are different than resident orcas in that they feed on marine mammals rather than salmon.  They move quickly and quietly.  Woe to the poor seal who ends up in their path.

The summer of 2016 there were a lot of forest fires in the area which made for some interesting sunsets.

Aaron and Noah go climbing

Aaron and Noah have been doing some indoor climbing (seems to be a big thing in the Northwest).  There was an indoor climbing gym near Ashland so we made a couple of trips while we were there.