the town of or

Over break, we took our first trip to Winthrop (in Methow Valley). So much snow; so beautiful; so fun! I see why friends love it so. Jake and Eli both tried Nordic skiing for the first time, and both did great.

Awesome family weekend. Went to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park to go sledding. So very beautiful (and cold!).

Convergence of two of my worlds. Wendy Kopp (founder of Teach For America, who I worked for in the early 90's) giving a keynote address at the 20th anniversary conference of Net Impact (where I served as Executive Director in early 2000's). Net Impact now has 30,000 members - and 2800 of them attended this conference. That's a lot of do-good MBAs.

We went for a family hike, followed by a picnic at Blakely Harbor last night. The boys found lots of seaglass.

The spiny dogfish is the world's most abundant shark. So common in fact, that we caught one off of Faye Bainbridge Park today. Thank heavens Chris (holding the fish here) knew what he was doing.

While hiking with my three year-old son Eli (and thinking about work)...

Me: "Eli, your Daddy's really busy."
Eli: "Me too Daddy."
Me: "Really, what are you so busy with?"
Eli: "Walking."

There's nothing like a three year-old, to remind you how to be present and live in the moment!

A couple weeks ago, our friend Peter taught us how to catch dungeness crab. This weekend, we made a solo attempt...and dropped a crab pot a few hundred yards off the beach. We caught a dozen huge ones within a few hours, and kept five (our limit) before releasing the rest. Fun.

Being a 3 1/2-year-old, Eli is at that "sponge" stage where he picks up everything. Better than memorizing a board book, though not quite as useful as learning a foreign language, he has taken to memorizing all the dinosaurs:

Jake the Scientist, and Ben dissected owl skulls and pellets this evening. We found them under a tree in our yard. Nineteen mouse skulls and many small bones. Yum!

Jake's first t-ball game. Fun!