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.