Fun with Preston

These are just a few videos of Preston from the last few weeks.

The Family that Kayaks Together...

Kayaking is a favorite past time in the Southworth family. Well, and now the Thomas family. Will had his first kayaking experience with me back in 2004 when we were dating.

Behold - the "kayaking date" from March of 2004.

No I will not show you the photos of us ram-rodding each other's kayaks.

I have so many fun memories of my family going kayaking on the ocean together. We have gone up to the San Juan Islands several times, and most often our hot spot was Bowman Bay.

Picnics were had, laughter was heard, and sore muscles ensued for days after.

So it was with special fondness, that we got together as a family to go kayaking while my brother Mike and his family were in town. With our two kayaks, my parents' canoe, and 2 borrowed kayaks, we scrounged up enough gear for 10 people.

There was:

The water color that day was incredible. I've always been jealous of the water in Hawaii, but check this out!

Not exactly Hawaiian water, but a close 2nd, eh?

So I don't know if you knew this or not, but I grew up living by the ocean. We lived either on the beach in a shacky beachhouse (thanks mom and dad for the memories!) or only a few miles from the beach where we would walk to it. My parents and grandparents both had boats and we spent a lot of time camping on them, playing, etc.

With that said, I LOVE THE SMELL OF THE OCEAN.

As soon as we got out into the kayaks I took one giant wiff and said, "Ahhhh that smells so good!". And of course I heard all of my family agree with me from the other kayaks.

Then I hear Will say, "Sure if you like the smell of dead rotting fish and seaweed."

See this is where we differ. We don't differ much in our marriage, but do have different appreciations for what smells good.

The ocean smell that I love so much reminds Will of cleaning his salt water fish tank.

But whenever we drive through Idaho and I get a wiff of a cow pasture, Will says, "I just love that smell! It reminds me of growing up on the farm."

I guess if I like the smell of fish poo and he likes the smell of cow poo, then we're even somehow, because I don't think either of us can understand how the other finds those smells remotely appealing.

Preston experienced his first chocolate chip cookie.

He...was...in...heaven.

Seriously...it's no wonder the little guy had a tummy ache later that night.

That sunset was really really for reals.

An Enchanting Birthday

A few months ago, I told Jenni that for my Birthday I wanted the board game, "Ticket to Ride". Well, who would have thought that by the time my birthday arrived, I would still be unemployed, so we scratched the gift and then I got to thinking. What do I want for my birthday that doesn't cost money? .... How about a nice trail running memory of the Enchantment loop, a 25 mile loop of amazing scenery. We'll call it a "Ticket to Hike". LOL

I had first heard about the Enchantments a few years earlier from my friend Aaron. We were discussing places we wanted to go backpacking & camping when he brought up the Enchantments. He described it as an out of this world kind of place. An oasis of granite & alpine meadows & lakes in the middle of the Cascade Range. I said, "Let's go" and then he filled me in on the coveted permit process.

The area is so popular, but the landscape so fragile, that they only let a few people camp there at a time. You have to apply for a overnight camping permit months in advance, and then still it is a lottery system and there is a good chance you won't get accepted.

With that thought, I pushed the Enchantments to the back of my mind as something to do down the road. A few years passed by, and I knew of only one friend that got a coveted permit to camp overnight. Then it hit me, I'm a trail runner... I don't need to camp, I can be in and out of there in one day, thus I won't need a permit.

So I was granted my birthday wish and with Mark, my trail running partner in crime we took off to do the loop on July 3rd.

Because part of the loop is road, we decided to bring our bikes and bike the 8 mile road section on our mt. bikes. Then the rest we would do on our feet. We decided to do the loop counterclockwise starting at the lowest elevation and biking up the road, then doing the steep ascent up Aasgard pass on foot. This would take us from 1200 feet up to 8000 feet all in the 1st 1/3 of the trip. From there our work would be done as we gradually work our way back down to 1200 feet during the final 2/3 of the trip.

Mark had recently got off, what I would call "running probation" set by his wife after his scary incident at our 12 hour race in May, in which he ended up in the ER for 18 hours after the race. Today was his first real test run, to try and figure out what went wrong so that he can do endurance events, stay hydrated, eat well, and keep his stomach in check. It's a lot harder then it sounds.

Well, by the time we climbed up our 6500 feet, things weren't looking good and it was starting to look like a repeat. Mark did a good job assessing his body and stopping when he needed to to rest.

In the end, what was supposed to be a quick afternoon hike/run, quickly turned into an emergency overnight camping trip.

Somehow I had a faint cell phone signal so I called Jenni to let her know what was up and that I wouldn't be home tonight.

We came across a group of campers, that were lucky enough to get camping permits for 4th of July weekend and they were very kind and let us bivy down with them.

While Mark laid down and slept for a while I ran around the Enchantment Basin with my camera like a kid in a candy store. Mark was very apologetic for the unscheduled emercency overnighter, but I was super excited to be spending the night in the Enchantments. I was finally getting to do what I wanted to do for years; camp in the Enchantments.

There were lots of goats that I followed around the basin and I enjoyed taking pictures as the sun was going down. This little goat was so cute, it must have been just a week or two old. He was about the size of a little poodle.

The scenery was breathtaking whatever direction you turned.

We must have ran across 50 mountain goats on the hike.

I was suprised at how close the mountain goats would let you get to them.

After a tough night for Mark, he woke up feeling a bit better, so we slowly worked our way through the Enchantments and back to the car.

The scenery was amazing all day long and the hiking easy because it was all downhill. It was another hot day so when we finished we jumped into this cold stream to cool off a bit.

Needless to say, the trip was an awesome birthday experience with memories that will last a lifetime.

Take a Look

Two new promos for the album.

Take a look left. :)

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P.S. If you would like to help support my music, please post one of the promos on your blog (sidebar, or in a post). I would really appreciate the help to get the word out. :) It would be doing me a HUGE favor. If you don't know how to do it, leave a comment and I can help walk you through the HTML. Thnx., J.T.

Celebrations!!

Cause for Celebration #1:

After the birthday kayaking, we went birthday hiking up at Mt. Si. We reached the top around 9:54pm and hiked back down in the dark. Preston was a sport and slept in the babypack.

I was a sport and didn't cry despite my fear of the dark. And the woods. And bears. Oh, and cougars.

Cause for Celebration #2:

Happy Birthday America!

For the last 4 years, with the exception of 2008 because Preston was 3 wks old then, we've been going down to our "special dock" on Lake Union to watch the Seattle GasWorks Park Fireworks.

It is pretty cool - because pretty much anyone who owns a boat is parked out on the lake with an upfront view of the fireworks, while the rest of us boatless folk crowd the shore, docks, and marinas for a spot to watch them.

Aside from the two hippy people who sat down next to us and were clearly againt using deoderant, it was a fantastic show!

If you want to see the most well behaved baby at the fireworks captured on video, scroll down for the fun.