Monthly Archives: April 2017

New Gloves

As we now live in a place that actually gets cold (yay!), I’ve been wearing my gloves and mittens a lot. After one too many hiking trips where I took off my jacket to reveal a red shirt and green gloves, I decided that I needed a new pair of my favorite fingerless lace gloves. Since I liked this pattern, I simply replaced the lace panel with another 20 stitch lace panel from Vogue Stitchionary: Lace for something a little different. I used the Hearts Entwined pattern for this project with, of course, red wool yarn.

The finished product.

I quite like the way these turned out and am looking forward to going on a wet hike with my new wool gloves. So much warmer than the cotton ones I have now!

Mt. Si / Mt. Teneriffe

We went out on our first real hike of the year, starting at the Mt. Teneriffe trailhead and taking the saddle trail over to Mt. Si. I was really happy to get back out into some longer hikes. Now that the weather has warmed up so that at least the drive to the trailheads is snow free, I think we will be doing a fair bit more hiking.

I think that the Cascadia region has the nicest day hikes anywhere due to the general combination of moderate mountains with views all around, various types of forests to walk through, waterfalls, and, best of all, so many alpine lakes. I’m excited for the summer.

The trail started off in the standard Cascade Mountains trail manner of soft dirt trail with cedars.

It then proceeded up to a slightly hillier, rockier trail.

Then we got into the snowy alpine wooded area. It was a very multi-zone hike.

But conviently we had microspikes, and thus we didn't have any issues with the icy snow covered trail.

But, conveniently, we had microspikes and, thus, we didn’t have any issues with the icy, snow covered trail.

We were rewarded up at the top of the hike with a view of the Snoqualmie Valley to the west.

Plus, on the way back down, we got a clear day with a pretty view to the south.

Easter crafts!

Happy Easter! Or merry Easter? Goodly resurrection day to you? In any case, we decided to take some time and do the old fashioned Easter crafts of egg dyeing and carrot cake making. Nothing too exciting to report other than it is still fun to do simple craft projects even in your 30’s.

Step 1: Prep the dyes.

Step 2: Eggs!

Step final: Carrot Cake!

Park Pointe

There is a smaller park out by Tiger Mountain called Park Pointe that we wandered around last week. It was one of the more pleasant hikes we have been on in a while: flat, wooded, and with a couple of lakes to hike around. Nothing as fun or crazy as a day hike or bagging a mountain, but it hit the spot for a relaxing walk in the woods.

Most of the hike was nice and wooded with dirt paths.

Some of the hike switched it up with gravel.

We also found a new (to us) native plant – the salmonberry!

The only overlook we got was of I-90. So maybe a little downside?

Renton Garden

Now that the final frost of the season is past (hopefully!), it is time to prep the garden for the year. With the new house came a yard full of fruit trees (about 12 of them?), a weed infested raspberry patch, and a fallow fenced-in garden. The plan for the year is to take it nice and easy with just some small amount of gardening, clearing out all of the vine patches, and trimming back all of the fruit trees. More news to follow…

I am very excited by the prospect of a reasonable size garden!

I am very excited by the prospect of a reasonable sized garden!

The first of out fruit trees to bloom was the plum. It has quite pretty tiny white flowers.

The first of our fruit trees to bloom was the plum. It has quite pretty tiny white flowers.

And, finally, I get a pretty view while gardening which is pretty nice!

Coulon Park

Where Renton meets Lake Washington there is a nice little park: Coulon Park. We were hunting around for places to go swimming and sailing by us and found a nice roped off swimming area as well as the Renton Sailing Club so win-win! And to top it off, it is actually a pretty nice place to go for a two mile walk – especially sense it is within biking distance of our house. I think we will be coming here more frequently in the summer.