Category Archives: Family

Adventure West: Day 5

Day 5: This is what at least half of day 5 looked like, leading us toward Bellingham, WA.  In my opinion, eastern Washington State has really been overshadowed by western Washington State.  This country is beautiful!  The topography here is a geomorphologist’s dream… these rolling hills are enormous features formed by the catastrophic release of water from glacial Lake Missoula. … (more…)

Adventure West: Day 4

Day 4: After spending the night in Bozeman, we continued westward on I-90, headed toward Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. Here’s where we crossed the Continental Divide -  sure doesn’t look like raindrops that fall on the other side of this overpass head west… I suppose there’s some slop in the location of signage at the divide.  The divide is around Butte,… (more…)

Adventure West: Day 3

Day 3: Time to hit the road again.  But – before we get too far, at least one-half of the family requires a stop through Deadwood, SD.  At this point in our lives, Eric and I had watched all but the last episode of Deadwood.  We followed signs to Mt. Moriah cemetery, the final resting place for many of the… (more…)

Adventure West: Day 2

Day 2: It was this guy… or one of his cronies.  Taking his morning constitutional steps away from our tent.  Bison were everywhere in Custer State Park.  And, BONUS!  They were in rut.  We were told not to approach them, which I thought was quite reasonable.  I can’t tell you how many people were inching their way closer and closer… (more…)

Adventure West: Day 1

Hello there!  It sure has been awhile.  I’m suddenly compelled to get a few things out into the ether…  I wish I could say that I’ve been taking a sabbatical from the google tubes… but alas, I’ve just been focusing my efforts on other priorities – like my day job, and an even higher priority – myself.  Back to our… (more…)

Livin’ life

You know… I’ve taken a hiatus from blogging… Turns out, I’ve had to live my life a bit – away from my computer.  It’s been a nice distraction Spent a whole weekend away (OK… maybe it was just 24 hours of the weekend…)  But, nonetheless… it was time to get away. Got me thinking really… about camping.  About getting back… (more…)

For the love of music…

One of the best things about raising two little people is bringing them into your world and watching them begin to love the things that you love.  In our home – there’s no better example than that of music. Maybe it’s because Eric sings them to sleep – Slaid Cleaves, James Taylor, Death Cab For Cutie, John Denver… Claudia used… (more…)

Psych Yourself Up

I love this…. go ahead, you can watch it again… I’ll wait. Dwight and I have a lot in common actually.  I used to listen to a lot of heavy metal… I can see how Mötley Crüe could psych you up.  I used to crank up the music to be ready to face my day. I think I need to… (more…)

6 years ago…

My big girl is 6 today.  I asked her if she felt different today – and she told me that, ‘yes, I feel grown up today’.  And she acted grown up today… Before I get into what went down today, let me provide some kindergarten context. Breaking the circuit Claudia did the birthday party circuit last year, and the year… (more…)

Badger Summit 2.0

We’re in Costa Rica this week – a little vacation that we like to call the Badger Summit (Badger Summit 2.0 to be precise).  We’ve decided to vacation once every 3 years with friends from graduate school.  Turns out, the 4 couples each have daughters about the same age – so it’s kinda nice to get the girls together too. … (more…)