Beavertails

When Lukey started his skiing lessons, I told him that he was finally going to be able to try the on-mountain treat his sisters have been talking about years: Beavertails. I was talking it up really BIG, telling him it was only for skiers at the end of the day...a delicious reward for hard work.

I did not understand his lack of enthusiasm. Finally, after the umpteenth time I'd hyped it, I noticed the tears in his eyes. Were they tears of anticipation and joy? No.

"I don't want the beavertail...! Why would anyone want to eat the tail off a beaver...?!", he cried.

He was so upset about the thought of this massive beaver tail harvesting operation he was convinced was happening on Grouse that he could not take in my protests that Beavertails are PASTRIES. "Take a deep breath, buddy. They are made of dough. Not beavers. No beavers were harmed in the making of these treats!"

I was glad to see that Lukey wasn't too traumatized to enjoy a post-ski lesson Beavertail with his Daddy up on the mountain on Monday.

Oh, and in other news...Eric's ski jacket is huge.

Hmmmm...!

Lukey was looking at his toy car (a Nissan 300zx) and he noticed it has a pair of tennis racquets in the back. He said, "I guess it's a sports car...". Huh, I guess so. Is that what it comes from?

Freewheeling Hipsters

Oh, you know, we're cool. 

Oh darn, you do know us? Alright. We aren't that cool. At all. 

But doesn't Eric LOOK pretty cool on his beach cruiser bike? And the ironic green bike lock?

And don't I look pretty cool on my beige...oh forget it. I don't look cool. I am wearing my seven year old daughter's hat and a toasty pair of fleecy tights under my jeans.

Eric and I took a little two night break away from parenthood (woohoo for grandmothers!) and headed for the border. I found a great deal on two nights at an awesome hipster hideaway in Long Beach, Washington called Adrift Hotel. It came with a breakfast one morning and a bonfire package (red wine, s'mores, and wood for a fire).

Somehow, in my excitement about this excellent deal and my love of the appealing vibe at this cool hotel...I managed to ignore my Google map. I guess it's kind of far. Oh, and it's also January. Apparently that's not beach weather. Did I mention that it's far? And...January?

Luckily, January isn't that hostile out here on the Wet Coast. Except this week. Freakishly cold. And snow. A bit of hail and some freezing rain. That SCREAMS bonfire, doesn't it? That just SHOUTS long bike rides on the beach.

The bonus was the extra hour we took to drive down because of the snow on the road. It only took six and a half hours. That's right. Six and a half hours.

But once we got there, the long drive disappeared and the cold weather and stormy ocean was a little bit wonderful.

We laughed on our chilly bike ride, drank our wine in our room and drove on the beach. We slept in and watched movies (Ladder 49 and the Last King of Scotland).

The beach was vast.

The hail was also pretty impressive.

This is the skeleton of a 38 foot grey whale who beached himself in 2000.

This is the happy, happy face of a man driving ON the beach for the first time. In Washington it's still legal to drive right on the beach. The trick, we were told, is to drive onto the beach at at least 40 miles/hour. Then stay on the hard sand and don't turn. Eric said he could feel how shifty and unstable it was. I think that made him like it even more.

I had visions of watching the Jetta carried off into the waves with the rising tide when we got stuck...

You can see how close we were to the water. It was a very cool experience.

We drove into the Cape Disappointment State Park. This is the lighthouse at North Head, which was erected in 1898.

The lighthouse feels isolated and cut off from civilization today. I can only imagine how remote it would have felt 110 years ago. This is hostile country.

Somehow, we got a flat tire while we were in the State park. We drove on it back into Long Beach where we found a little shop to fix it while we waited. To kill time we poked around a little grocery store and then popped into a pizza place to get warm.

Chico's Pizza is a place that has had its heyday. But it still has some charm. The most charming part was the $9 pitchers of beer.

How do you say no to that? I don't know, because we didn't even try.

A couple of hours, a large pepperoni pizza and a small $5 of beer later, we were Chico fans.

Even after the long drive there (and back...), it was a divine mini-break from our routine at home. We might not be cool or hip, but we are happy.

 Lukey took his first ski class today. He was a bit apprehensive, but ended up really enjoying himself. It wasn't a postcard day...put it this way: I walked away from the Ski Wee building and couldn't see more than fifteen feet in any direction. Um, sleigh? Uh, chalet? Or painful hypothermic death in an ice crevasse? They all seemed equally probable.

 

You can see what I mean...it was pea soup. But look at the form on that boy...

 Here's the boy apres-ski. He said it was one of the best days ever. I liked it too,

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Our boy is 5...

Above you can see a picture of the awesome cake that Mandy made for Lukey and Lars to celebrate their birthdays. It was gorgeous. December 4th he turned five.

Five years old. Such a strange thing, because the blog is the same age. It seems odd to write about Lukey getting older here...I just have to click a button on this site to see the video of him coming home for the first time from the hospital.

It is the blink of an eye. And yet, I know how lucky I am. As much as I feel the passage of time keenly with my big boy in school, his long legs in big kid jeans and with a backpack on his back full of everything he needs for his whole day at school...I can also still see the baby he was so clearly. It is just behind the veneer of grown kid. It's in the little looks he still gives, the way he pinches my earlobe with love, unconscious that he even does it as he talks to me. He also pinches the skin at the back of my elbow a lot. I don't like that one as much.

He woke up last night and came into our bed, as he still does most nights. He cuddled up to me and told me that I was beautiful and he loved me. His eyes weren't even open. His voice was barely a mumble, but I heard it clearly.

These little gifts are the vestiges of babyhood. I gobble them up fiercely. The are an endangered species. The worst kind of endangered. Guaranteed to go extinct.

So far, he is a good person. He is generous to a fault. He enjoys things more when they are shared. Except possibly with his sisters on occasion.

He is self-confident and self-contained. He has a great laugh and he uses it often. He likes big words. Poor little guy, he doesn't get picture books anymore, really. Every night we read chapter books and he follows right along, asking great questions, keeping track of the plot and characters.

He loves toys more than his sisters. He has more than the two girls put together. One of his vices is the constant desire for more toys. Never enough. But he plays with them, every day.

Playmobil and Lego. And lots of it.

He makes me laugh, too. All the time. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. He doesn't mind which. While we were in Key West, he told me he'd seen "a man with earrings in a very dangerous place...his nibbles!". He meant nipples of course. He didn't care that we laughed. He knew we were laughing WITH him.

He has a temper, but it takes quite a bit to get to it. When it goes, it really lets loose. I think I know someone else like that.

He's a picky eater. There are only a few things he likes. Everything else is bad. That's a lot of things.

I can't imagine life without him. It makes sense that this blog can be found at lucasbutler.com...we started this record of our family when he arrived. He made us complete, we were just waiting for him to join us.

Just found this note on my Post-It pad...

...spelling notwithstanding...nicest note ever.

Molly's gingerbread man...complete with headband and marshmallow water bottle

Disney World 2011 - 1080p.mov

Hey, just found this in WE newspaper...

First ever royalty cheque...

Home from Florida

This post is super late, but I can't leave out these pictures. When we got off the plane in Seattle after our  month of sunshine and vitamin D...we almost froze our butts off. 

This is The Return From Florida...

It was cold. Actually, no. It was pretty mild. WE were cold.

Driving North for the first time in a month...

We left the Keys with regret. We knew we were starting our journey home. The good news: we had almost a week to get back to Orlando

The highlight of our trip homeward was looking forward to some time in Bonita Springs. We have family and friends there, so it was a treat.

After a quick overnight in our old standby, the Hampton Inn in Fort Lauderdale, we stopped off at the GIGANTIC Sawgrass Mall and Outlet Centre (I had a retail heart attack...it was too many stores). Then it was a quick shot across Alligator Alley to get to the Gulf of Mexico side of the state.

Our great family friends, the Smiths, offered to host a dinner with everyone we knew in Bonita Springs. I was excited to see them! I grew up across the street from the Smiths in Burlington and was best friends with their kids (the only thing that would have made the visit better? Seeing Greg and Hil too!). It was such a wonderful treat to hang out with them. And...we got to hang out with them IN THEIR BEAUTIFUL house. Loved it. Straight up love. Not only was it gorgeous, I can't stop thinking about Aunt Erica's drop everything room. She has a room where she can leave things she brings in from the car but doesn't have a place for quite yet. My new mental dream home has a room just like this. In fact, instead of fantasizing about a library or indoor pool in my dream house, I dream of a room just like that one.

The pool felt like it was in the middle of the living room. It was divine.

It was pretty alright.

But the best part was seeing the hosts, Uncle Pat and Aunt Erica. And also getting a chance to catch up with my Aunt Karen and Carl, and Joan and George. It is always fun to see people you know well in a different context. It was a perfect evening.

Joan and George were kind enough to invite us to spend the night at their place (no small gesture when you are a family of five!). George thrilled the kids with pictures from a trip to Africa and we had a nice chat before heading to bed.

The next morning, we met up at my Aunt Karen's, where my parents and brother stayed, and headed to Sanibel Island. It is reknowned as one of the best islands for shell hunting. I wanted to check it out.

It was a very natural, untouched place. Probably because of the big, toll causeway bridge to get there. We didn't realize then, but the hundreds of dead fish we spotted (and the thousands of horrified "Ewwwww!"s we heard from the kids...and Eric) were caused by a big wave of Red Tide that had just hit the area.

Luckily, the beach was huge and the dead fish were spread out. It wasn't that bad.

The boys:

The shells:

Right over Lukey's right shoulder, you might be able to spot my mother huddled down in sheer panic. She is deathly afraid of birds. As you can see, there are a few birds around.

She is getting ready to bolt in this next picture.

And in this one, she's abandoning my children to the bird attack. This picture does not adequately convey the haste she used in her departure. It appears leisurely. It was not.

A bit of driftwood/sea garbage baseball.

My brother contemplating the horizon.

This was a bad game of chicken my father, brother and husband devised for me. There were some big rogue waves in the incoming tide. They bet me I'd get wet where I was sitting. I said I wouldn't.

After a couple of minutes of me staying dry, they got impatient to see me soaked and miserable. So they dug a channel so the waves could access me more easily. Wasn't that nice of them? The three of them stood a few feet behind me and watched each wave come in, cheering it on

Once they finally saw me get wet, they were satisfied and we could leave.

Last night in the hotel in Orlando before the long trip home. We were sad, sad, sad to leave.

Hopefully we'll be back?