Happy Father's Day (x2)

Happy Father's Day everyone! I'm happy to announce that I'll be a father for a second time. Brooke is 23 weeks pregnant with another baby BOY! Below are pictures of Brooke at 2-week intervals (16, 18, 20 weeks)…

Clam Digging

A couple of weeks ago, on a whim, we made the decision to go clam digging with a friend. We borrowed a shovel from my uncle, purchased a Washington State shellfish license online ($14.30 annually), and headed out to Kopachuck State Park. We got to the park right at low tide, and as we had predicted, the beach was already filled with people Asians…




We reviewed the state regulations (40 clams per license per day, clam must be at least 1.5 inch wide, etc) but we never bothered to research how to dig for the clams. When we got there, we saw people were scattered all across the large beach. With a little snooping, we learned that some people were collecting oysters among the large rocks, geoducks were in the sandy area close to the waterline, and butter clams were in the gravelly areas high above the waterline.

The clams were only a few inches below the surface and fairly easy to get to. The difficult part was identifying them. Every rock seemed to be the same size and shape of a clam, especially when covered in the dark gravelly sand…



I love clams and Brooke hates them. (We make the perfect pair when eating clam chowder. She starts first, eating the potatoes and broth, and leaves me the clam-dense remainder.) So instead of helping to dig, she and Ryan scoured the beach for sea creatures. They found hundreds of 1 to 2 inch baby crabs, star fish, sand dollars, shrimp, oysters, mussels, and sea snails…






Later in the day, we ran into a Geoduck-digging superhero (pictured below without his cape). He taught me how to find these giant clams, but after watching me unsuccessfully dig for 20 minutes, he leapt into action. We watched as he dug up 3 geoducks in 15 minutes and he gave them all to us…




By the end of the day, I went home with 35 clams, 1 mussel, and 1 geoduck. I cooked my clams in some butter, garlic, lemon, and wine. I thought they were delicious and was surprised that Ryan liked them so much too. (Our camera ran out of memory, so we weren't able to capture Ryan asking for more clams)...

Videos of Ryan

Here is Ryan singing his favorite song, Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People. He doesn't know the real lyrics, which is for the best…


Ryan doing a connect-the-dots…

Our Downtown Day

At Pike Place Market, a magician was asking for young volunteers. Brooke tried to pull Ryan away from the front line knowing he wouldn't be able to follow instructions, but of course he was asked to come up. The magician started going through the usual questions: "What's your name? How old are you?" When Ryan answered he was 2 yrs old, the magician was quite surprised, stating Ryan looked much older. Ryan was instructed to make scissors with his fingers and magically cut the rope, but all Ryan wanted to do was grab at the rope. After a couple of minutes, with a lot of coaching from Brooke on the sidelines, the magician and Ryan finally performed the now anticlimactic trick.
(notice the 175-ft-tall ferris wheel in the background)




After the Pick Place Market, we headed to Kerry Park on Queen Anne Hill to take a few portraits. We wanted to capture the Space Needle while it was returned to its original color, officially called "Galaxy Gold". The color will remain through the summer in celebration of the Space Needle's 50th anniversary. I really like the color. It offers a nice contrast to the normally gray Seattle sky…