Ski to Sea 2010 - The Road Bike Leg

Sean competed in Ski to Sea today. After the first leg of the relay course, things weren't looking so good...his cross-country skiing teammate was, reportedly, the last participant to finish that leg. But, by the time the rest of his teammates were finished, they finished at about the 50th percentile overall. Sean's own unofficial results for his portion were 1 hour, 39 minutes (a 38 mile course) and he passed 65 other cyclists. He was happy.

Here he is coming in the final turn--Owen, Guyan, Nathan and I were there to cheer him on. And that annoying little dot on my camera. Shows up unnanounced and randomly. Grrr...

And just about to cross the finish line...

And finally, Sean, giving us a short synopsis. He said he's so fidgety in this video, but I say it was the endorphins. Only three more legs to complete--cross-country skiing (hopefully he can do better than...), mountain biking, and the final leg, kayaking.

Crabs at Home, Crabs at Low Tide

This past Sunday, Sean was feeling particularly stir-crazy and wanted to get out of the house. Me? I was content to tinker around the house and garden, but knew that would drive him crazy on this particularly gorgeous day in the Pacific Northwest. So Sean and I figured we'd go on a walk/hike with the boys to Raptor Ridge.

The boys? They'd have none of it. Our nine-year-old "teenager" made it pretty clear to us that a day out in the sunshine with family would be torture. Especially a day hiking. Why walk and get exercise when you can play Wii all day in your pajamas and never leave the couch? Why, Guyan? Because your mother says no way.

Then the wonders of facebook. A good friend of ours and a certified nature lover that the boys (especially Guyan) worship posted on facebook that there was a low tide just after lunch. Perfect. The boys like the beach (with or without low tide), and they were now game for a family outing. We left the crabbiness at home, and went to look for crabs at the beach.

I think Sean was amazed at how strongly the kelp adheres to the rocks. Whatever he was doing, he was happy.

This snail colony was cool. No Lewis Moon Snails, or whatever those gigantic one-foot snails are called, but small snails en masse were cool.

And then--crabs! See that camoflauged thing with seaweed on it? Pretty neat looking crab. Have no idea what kind exactly, but thankfully we are not anal-retentive tidepool detectives.

Sean picked one up out of the water so the boys could see it up close. The boys and I were in no way shape or form going to hold it though. You can just forget about that.

The boys didn't do much tidepool discovering, but they drew pictures in the sand, threw sand, and got dirty. They were perfectly happy...

...until we came home, and the crabby "teenager" came back. But that's a post for a totally different type of blog.