Salmon!

There's not a lot to do here in Washington, that is unless you hike and watch nature all of the time, and there's nothing wrong with that. One of the things you do get to do (and I guess this really does go along with watching nature) is, you get to watch salmon. It's more exciting then it sounds (or maybe it's just really exciting for me, because I stay at home most of the time with my kids).

The homeschooling program that we are in (Off Campus), gets salmon eggs every year, and they let the kids release them into the stream, that is right next to their building (how convenient). Last fall in November we got a chance to see the salmon swimming upstream. This was at the very same stream that is right by the school distract building. 

We were told by Mrs. Huggins (our homeschool supervisor), that soon they would be getting the eggs, and we could come and see them in their library. AWESOME! So from that point on, every time we were in the building, we had to go and see those eggs.

This was really exciting, even if it doesn't look like it. Even if you are thinking to yourself "They are just eggs." Well yes they are, but they are also a learning experience, and that really gets me excited. Salmon are such awesome fish. From babies they travel thousands of miles to the ocean, and after just a few years they travel all the way back just to lay eggs, and then die, and that's if they make it back (Well I guess if they don't make it back, then yes they did die too....). Wow what a journey!

This became even more exciting when the eggs started to hatch :)

They were so small, and looked nothing like salmon. It's hard to believe that these little guys could make such a big journey. I've mentioned before that Olivia really likes fish and aquariums, so she was the real pusher, but the others of course didn't mind one bit.

Last week was release week, so we came on friday, and it was awesome!

This is the kids, and Mr. Menefee (one of the teachers), releasing the salmon

Each of them were able to release a few, with their red cups.

Mr. Menefee is showing them how to do it

He is now wishing the fish good luck :)

I was nervous when Mr Menefee started to hand each of the kids a cup, but he told me that he has yet to have a kid drop a cup, or fall into the stream. He was right, no one dropped their cup or fell in, and I was so glad (you have no idea). I really didn't want to be the first family to have someone drop their cup of fish, or have one of my kids fall into the stream.

Okay so great day, and big success! Can't wait to do it all again next year.

The weather was been great here these past few days, and we've been out more (you may have notice on the pictures above, that the sun is acually shining on the kids). On clear days you can see the mountains.

This is Mt. Rainier, and even though it is 75 miles away, you can still see it from here on a clear day, and it is huge! It's summit is 14,411 ft tall, and it is considered a Volcano. No Hawaii isn't the only state with volcanos, and no Mt. Rainier isn't the only one we have.

These are the mountains of the Olympic National Forest, and they'er a bit closer.

On most days you can't even see them because of overcast or rain, but like I was saying it's been really nice here lately. Sunny days, and the temperature has been in the mid 60s.

Saturday we took a walk downtown. We live close enough to do so. We visited our favorite game store, the pet store (to pick up some treats for the cats), and the playground.

Olivia has to bring her bears everywhere :)

Darien and Zach love the swings

Nathaniel loves to climb.

It really surprising how many cool things are within walking distance.

If the weather stays this nice, then this weekend we are going to go hiking (thats all you can do around here right?). If we do I'm sure you'll hear all about it ;)