Salmon Release

Every year at our Intermediate School, the kids get to take part in a "circle of life" science lesson.  They raise salmon eggs through the fall and winter, keeping track of how quickly they change from egg to little squirmy thing to bigger squirmy thing to something vaguely resembling a small fish.  Then they release them in a stream to become part of our area's salmon population.  If the mini-salmon are extremely lucky, they will return to the same stream in about five years to spawn.  They have about a .0000001% chance of avoiding bigger fish, pollution, illness, bears, and fisherman, so out of the 100 or so fish the kids released, I think that means about .00001 of them will return.  The kids had great time catching the little guys in clear plastic cups, walking them carefully down to the stream and wishing them well on their journey through life.  Who knows, maybe one of the salmon will win the lottery and return to complete the circle! Even if doesn't, I still think this is a great, hands-on science activity for the kids, and one that they enjoy, which is important, too.

 

Trying to catch a salmon-fry.

 

This one Ben named "Meatloaf"  Salmon loaf would have been more appropriate, maybe?

Getting ready to release Meatloaf into his new home.

Just keep swimming...

 

This is a lovely spot for baby salmon.  I hope they get to enjoy it!

The Adults Outnumber the Kids!

 

Another one of my children turned 18, which technically means that our family now consists of four adults and two kids!  It wasn't that long ago that I worried about the kids outnumbering the adults!  We haven't had a family picture taken recently, but if we had, you would see that almost all of us are close to the same height.  Ben is a few inches shorter, but the rest of us hover between 5'7" and 5'10".  It's pretty strange having a bunch of adult sized people in the house and no little kids!

 

Anyway, for Kylie's birthday, we gave her a good sleeping bag and a pair of hiking boots.  She wants to go to college in Colorado, so we thought she should have some good camping gear.  She loves the outdoors and I'm sure she'll have plenty of opportunities to explore wherever she ends up.

 

 

 

 

She didn't want to have a big party like Nathan had, but I wanted to do something special.  She decided going out to dinner would be fun, so she invited her good friend, Justeen, and we went out to a nice Thai Restaurant. 

 

 

Happy Birthday, Kylie!  I'm excited to see what the next year has in store for her, even though it mean she will be leaving home. She's definitely proven herself to be hardworking, determined, and responsible, so I'm not worried about her succeeding at whatever she tries, but I will miss her!

 

 

 

Green Mountain Hike

We've had a string of gorgeous, but very cold, winter days.  I've been wanting to take the family on a hike, so when Saturday promised to be sunny, I decided we'd go to Green Mountain.  We invited another family who has an adventurous streak.  They have four kids, plus two of the mom's half-brothers, who are the age of her two oldest kids (13 and 10) were visiting so they joined us as well.  At the last minute, Brad and Jillian decided not to go.  They definitely missed out!

Kylie leading the way, with Ben and Jeffrey following.

John, Jeffrey, Kylie, Aaron, Alan, and Ben, about 1/2 way up.  

We ended up ahead of the rest of the group, who had the two younger kids.

At the top!  That's Seattle and the Cascade mountains in the distance, with Puget Sound, Bainbridge Island, Silverdale and Bremerton in between.

Ben and I at the top. 

We ate our lunch and waited for the rest of the group to arrive.  Kylie was anxious to head back down (she was slightly under-dressed for the cold weather), so she went on ahead.  

Somehow I ended up with all but one of the kids on the way back down.  The mom and dad of the other family was behind with the youngest girl, and Kylie was way ahead.  We went down a different way so we could see the view of the Olympics.

Everything went well until about 1/2 a mile from the end, when we had to decide which way to turn to join the main trail.  I chose the wrong way, and after about 15 minutes, realized we weren't in the right place.  I had a map, and thought I knew how to get us back, but I was with six young boys who were a little freaked out about not being where we were supposed to be.  Eventually we came to the main road, fortunately only about 1/4 mile up the road from the trail head.  I think we ended up hiking about six miles instead of five.  I'm glad we went, but next time I will choose the left instead of the right!