Sun!

So apparently the sun does occasionally come out here, and we decided to take a bike ride to celebrate.


Becky with lake Washington and the Cascades.

Rainer hiding in the distance.

View of the Cascades from the dock.

Travers in FL

Don't tell Becky, but I managed to go somewhere warm for Christmas, and I thought I would share some pictures I took on our trip to Crystal River. My parents were extremely generous and blessed me with a new camera, so please bear with me as I learn how to do things such as focus and use appropriate settings.

Right as we were pulling away from the dock we noticed an Osprey up in the tree with a good sized fish in its talons.


We then drove over to the Three Sisters for a little manatee viewing.


Followed by a quick run down the river to the gulf, with some nice saw-grass action along the way.

Unfortunately Casey was not able to come along for the ride since the tide was too low for her to get into the boat.

The next day we saw a bunch of manatees, and plenty of birds like the cormorants below.
I also got to try out my mom's new kayak, which I unfortunately could not sneak back in my carry-on.

Here's a beetle I found outside our house

Happy Holidays!

Before we get too far past the holidays, here's an update on what we did to celebrate. Did you know that the state of Oregon grows most of the Christmas trees for the US (millions every year!). Turns out we live right next door to OR, so there were boy scouts and other folks practically giving trees away all over the place. Since we're a little short on space and haven't built up a huge ornament collection yet, we decided that this little guy was perfect:

AND, who knew Travers was this crafty with tin foil?!

We also celebrated with a delicious tofurkey dinner (it tastes better than it looks, I swear!)

Unfortunately, we couldn't figure out a way to be in two different states at once, so Travers headed back to FL to be with his family and I went to MA to see mine. It was great to see everyone! And for those of you in warm places, here's a frosty New England picture for you so you can feel like it's winter:

Eagles

This past Sunday we were driving back to the apartment and Becky noticed some large shapes in the trees near our place, so we stopped the car and were surprised to see and hear several bald eagles. After a quick stop at home for a camera (new toy of mine) and some warm clothing, we walked back to the end of the road to enjoy the show. There were three of them in the trees, screeching like madmen and occasionally swooping about. Here is one of them telling us to leave them in peace:



And here is a little guy who looked like he was trying to stay extremely still with the eagles around: