December Vacation
In December, mal and paeyl and I headed northwards to Tacoma, Seattle, and Vancouver. I did not take a whole lot of pictures; but you can see them if you click on any of the ones here. Overall the vacation was great.
My folks do first person history at Fort Nisqually. December 4 was "1850s Christmas" and so we all went out there for the afternoon -- my folks to work and us just to see the sights and hang out. The Fort Nisqually proceedings were interesting. I think mal got better pictures of people at the fort than I did.
We also had a nice walk in the woods of Point Defiance Park. Along the way we came across some examples of the bajillions of mushrooms and other fungi and lichen growing in the pacific northwest. At exactly the moment we were wondering aloud what kinds of mushrooms it might be that we had found, a 200 year old man materialized out of the ferns and pronounced the words "witch's butter". He also gave us the scientific name, and identified some smokey gilled woodlovers for us as well. Almost exactly at the moment when it might have turned slightly awkward to all be standing there in the woods without having introduced ourselves or anything, he smiled and wished us a good day and hiked off down the path. We rounded out our day at the fort watching the blacksmith make a courting candle for mal. mal and paeyl spent most of sunday and all of monday in Seattle visiting cmpriest and moriarty6. I hung out with my folks, which was quite pleasant, and worked on completing the shawl, which I didn't accomplish during the trip. Monday morning, I watched my dad complete an OW (pronounced: oh-double-yuh) in iron. He'd had the blacksmith from Fort Nisqually make the O since it needed an anvil and properly hot fire. In his garage, my dad cut and welded the W. This was pretty entertaining to watch, if somewhat cold out in the garage.
Sunday night I spent some very pleasant hours hanging out with my brother, cat228, and one of his spousal-type womens, kaylakittie.
Late monday night I joined the youngsters in Seattle. We all went out to an entertaining, if somewhat confusing, goth club which was having a "lounge night". We had a good time and I very much enjoyed meeting cmpriest's friend, whose name I've regretfully forgotten. [edit: This would have been gaaneden.]
Early on tuesday, mal, paeyl, and I set out by train for Vancouver. The train ride with great company was very pleasant. Spending time shopping and looking at inside out people in Vancouver was even more pleasant. Hanging out altogether with us and tquid and the divine Ms. K [edit: valkyira] was pleasantest at all. We had great food, including chocolate pie to die for (not pictured). Also, I totally p0wn3d tquid and paeyl at Carcassonne even though tquid was cheating. Totally. Oh, yeah. In your face! Oh, also, paeyl got older.
My folks do first person history at Fort Nisqually. December 4 was "1850s Christmas" and so we all went out there for the afternoon -- my folks to work and us just to see the sights and hang out. The Fort Nisqually proceedings were interesting. I think mal got better pictures of people at the fort than I did.
We also had a nice walk in the woods of Point Defiance Park. Along the way we came across some examples of the bajillions of mushrooms and other fungi and lichen growing in the pacific northwest. At exactly the moment we were wondering aloud what kinds of mushrooms it might be that we had found, a 200 year old man materialized out of the ferns and pronounced the words "witch's butter". He also gave us the scientific name, and identified some smokey gilled woodlovers for us as well. Almost exactly at the moment when it might have turned slightly awkward to all be standing there in the woods without having introduced ourselves or anything, he smiled and wished us a good day and hiked off down the path. We rounded out our day at the fort watching the blacksmith make a courting candle for mal. mal and paeyl spent most of sunday and all of monday in Seattle visiting cmpriest and moriarty6. I hung out with my folks, which was quite pleasant, and worked on completing the shawl, which I didn't accomplish during the trip. Monday morning, I watched my dad complete an OW (pronounced: oh-double-yuh) in iron. He'd had the blacksmith from Fort Nisqually make the O since it needed an anvil and properly hot fire. In his garage, my dad cut and welded the W. This was pretty entertaining to watch, if somewhat cold out in the garage.
Sunday night I spent some very pleasant hours hanging out with my brother, cat228, and one of his spousal-type womens, kaylakittie.
Late monday night I joined the youngsters in Seattle. We all went out to an entertaining, if somewhat confusing, goth club which was having a "lounge night". We had a good time and I very much enjoyed meeting cmpriest's friend, whose name I've regretfully forgotten. [edit: This would have been gaaneden.]
Early on tuesday, mal, paeyl, and I set out by train for Vancouver. The train ride with great company was very pleasant. Spending time shopping and looking at inside out people in Vancouver was even more pleasant. Hanging out altogether with us and tquid and the divine Ms. K [edit: valkyira] was pleasantest at all. We had great food, including chocolate pie to die for (not pictured). Also, I totally p0wn3d tquid and paeyl at Carcassonne even though tquid was cheating. Totally. Oh, yeah. In your face! Oh, also, paeyl got older.