Family

Fremont Lookout Hike

Today is my birthday and when Tyla asked what I wanted to do for my birthday weekend, I requested a hike. I had hoped to do a lot more hiking this summer but it hasn’t happened yet. So on Saturday we packed up the car and headed to Mt. Rainier.

I chose the hike out to Fremont Lookout. It’s one I’ve done twice before but it’s a great one. It’s something like 6 miles round trip with about 800 feet of elevation gain. It’s not super strenuous but the trail does get narrow and requires your concentration to avoid a long slide to your doom.

The weather was gorgeous and the temperature was perfect for hiking. Unfortunately it was a little windy at times and Elijah was just along for the ride so he was pretty cool. Thankfully Tyla had planned well and we had enough extra gear to keep him warm. Elijah walked about 1 of the 6 miles and happily rode in the backpack for the rest of the way. I was happy to survive the hike with the ~40 pound pack.

It’s a little over 2 hours away from our house so it’s quite a hike (pun intended) but it’s so cool to have world class hikes like this within range of an easy day trip!

Thanks to Tyla for taking a bunch of great pictures along the way too! Oddly enough, neither Tyla nor I took any pictures of the actual lookout, but you can find plenty of those on the interwebz.

benmartens September 12, 2016 Family, Outdoors

First Day of School

This year, Elijah is attending the preschool at our church. It’s a big step for all of us! Thankfully it’s a very comfortable environment. He has been going to this building every week since he was born, he knows the teachers, and he already knows some of the kids from our church who also go there. I dropped him off in the morning and he really didn’t care that I was leaving. Tyla picked him up at noon and that’s the only time he cried… because he didn’t want to leave!

benmartens September 8, 2016 Family

Soggy Fair

We have some pretty good fairs in the area. The Puyallup Fair is one of the biggest in the country with over a million annual visitors. The sheer size is fun to see, but lately Tyla and I have been going to the Evergreen State Fair in Monroe. It’s smaller, but it has everything we need and it’s not so crazy crowded. I generally take a day off so we can go during the week when the crowds are even smaller.

This year I took the Friday off before the long Labor Day weekend. It was a good choice in terms of the four day weekend, but it was a terrible choice in terms of weather. It DUMPED. You know it rains a lot in the fall, winter and spring around here, but you may not know that it rarely rains hard enough to need an umbrella. But Friday we had actual rain storms come through with torrential downpours. Thankfully I had packed a big golf umbrella in the truck and that kept us dry. There were a few breaks between the soaking events so we were still able to have a good time and see lots of things, but it will forever be the day we refer to as, “Remember when we went to the fair in the rain?”

Elijah was finally big enough to go on some of the rides, but he wasn’t big enough to ride them all by himself. That’s how I ended up riding a little kid’s ride all alone with my son in the rain. Plus five daddy points. His favorite activity at the fair is riding the pedal tractors that the antique tractor club always brings. He was there for a solid 20 minutes and we still had to pull him away.

benmartens September 6, 2016 Family

Kayaking

During our caboose vacation, we went kayaking each day using the kayaks provided by the owners. Elijah fit pretty well in front of me, and aside from having to do a bit of an awkward paddling stroke, it worked well. Our longest trip was only about a half hour but he never got bored or complained.

We played around with the GoPro a bit. The comments from him were unprompted. As we were paddling along on this trip, Tyla noticed a big tugboat and barge coming up the sound. I didn’t know how big the waves were going to be, and with a three year old on my lap, I wasn’t keen to find out while sitting on the water. We hustled back to the bay and then watched it go by.

benmartens August 19, 2016 Family, Travel

Caboose Vacation

Tyla came across a caboose on the southern end of Puget Sound that you could rent as a vacation home. It was available on her birthday weekend, it was in an area that we haven’t visited much, and Elijah loves trains so it seemed like the perfect fit. We headed down there last weekend and had a wonderful time.

The caboose has been nicely remodeled inside. They doubled the width of it so that you actually have a little room to stretch out. The main body of the caboose has the entry area, two sets of bunk beds, and a living room with a TV. The extended area has the kitchen, queen bed and a bathroom. The only interior door is to the bathroom so it’s a cozy setting.

The property overlooks the South Basin of Puget Sound and there are stairs leading down to the water so you can explore the shore and use the provided kayaks. We took advantage of the kayaks for short trips each day. Elijah was able to sit on my lap while I paddled.

I know that tides have been around for a while, but we were still amazed at how much water was moving in and out twice a day. The little cove by the caboose was probably 6-8 feet deep but it completely drained out with each low tide.

These rental properties often include a book where guests can leave a comment. They’re usually pretty generic, but it’s such a great opportunity to leave a funny/awkward message. Here are a couple that I thought about using:

Thanks for letting me poop in your house.
We came here to celebrate my beautiful wife’s birthday. My ugly wife doesn’t get birthday trips.

This concludes a busy month of vacations and adventures for us. There’s still more fun on the calendar, but I think we’re looking forward to a little time at home too.

benmartens August 11, 2016 Family, Travel

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to my wonderful wife! I love you!

benmartens August 8, 2016 Family

Tolt MacDonald Camping

Tyla and I used to go camping once or twice a summer before Elijah came along. Then we got a little gunshy about camping with a munchkin. We have visited Tyla’s family at a campsite multiple times but we’ve never slept at one overnight. It was time to try it out for real.

I picked Tolt MacDonald park as a location that wasn’t too far away but one that still has some interesting stuff for us to explore. It’s the same park where we had our family photos taken. I know there are lots of you who would have been happy to come along, but we wanted to do this first trip by ourselves to make some family memories and then be ready for bigger trips with more people.

We had great weather for the trip and Elijah loved it! We all went to bed together at night around the time the sun set and he was zonked so he fell asleep quickly. We spent Saturday down by the river playing the sand and we also drove over to Snoqualmie Falls. I haven’t been there since they redid the lower viewing area. They have it completely blocked off so that it’s impossible to get down to the rocks below the falls. I’m glad we had opportunities to explore there years ago before access was shut off.

Elijah got to roast his first marshmallows over a real campfire and eat meals outside. He loved it all and didn’t want to go home at the end. The only misstep we had was that he woke up at 6am on the last day and couldn’t get back to sleep. He hasn’t figured out how to keep quiet for very long so we went on a 2 mile hike through the woods to avoid waking up everyone else. All in all, the trip was a success though.

Personally, I was thrilled to go camping with the truck. It was so easy to toss everything in the back. And this was the first time we had fully set up our new tent. That tent is going to last us forever. It’s built really well and worked great. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for my air mattress. I vaguely remember a leak from the last time I used it years ago but for some reason it didn’t get thrown away. So I spent the second half of both nights laying on the ground. I remembered to toss it in the trash this time.

It was a really nice weekend and I’m excited that we can start adding these trips back into our summer schedules again.

benmartens August 5, 2016 Family, Outdoors

Tractors Galore

Elijah is a farm boy born in a subdivision. He LOVES tractors. He’s in heaven when we go back to Indiana because Dad and Mom have three tractors at their house. They have two John Deere lawn mowers and one Alis Chalmers WD 45 which Elijah has named Otis.

Elijah was already enjoying riding those around the property and even driving one of the John Deere tractors by himself. Then we met up with my high school buddy Scott. When I was in high school, his family owned a Deere dealership. Since then they sold it but they still own/manage the dealership and they have a bigger/newer shop. They sell everything from lawnmowers and blowers to top of the line combines, tractors, seeders and sprayers. Scott is the resident expert on their GPS equipment which is fun because that’s what I did in my internship at John Deere. It has changed a LOT since then.

We chatted with Scott and his dad for a while and then headed outside. Scott tossed me the key and told me to take Elijah for a drive in anything he wanted! Our first pick was a fairly new 8245R. Back in high school I used to help Scott’s family on the farm a little bit but it has been a very long time since I’ve driven anything like that. Thankfully he gave me a quick tutorial on all the buttons and switches and we were off on a quick tour of the parking lot. After that we climbed around in a combine (complete with refrigerator) and then took a 5000 series tractor with a bucket out for a longer drive. Elijah loves the smaller tractors with a bucket and no cab. Scott asked if there was anything else we wanted to drive and for some reason, Elijah wasn’t interested in any of the other huge equipment they had (bummer!) but he loves Gators. Scott found one of their brand new, high end models and let me take Elijah and Tyla for a ride. Those things FLY! He said a guy in their shop had it up over 50 but I kept it under 40 with a three year old sitting on my lap.

It was a fantastic outing. At the end of the day I asked Elijah for his favorite part of the day. He said, “Mr. Scott is so nice! He let us drive TRACTORS!” Thanks Scott and Ken! We loved it!

benmartens July 29, 2016 Family, Travel

Warren Dunes

Indiana has better beaches than Washington crazy. Sound crazy? You’ve never seen Warren Dunes! The Lake Michigan shoreline is gorgeous. It has huge sandy beaches and the lake is so big it looks a lot like the ocean (minus the salty water, huge waves and sharks.) You can only see the other side if it’s a VERY clear day and then you can only see the tops of the highest buildings.

One of our favorite shoreline spots is Warren Dunes State Park. The beach is beautiful and there are pretty big dunes that you can climb. The tallest one is 240 feet. Climbing up it in the hot sun on slippery sand is quite a chore, but the view from the top is worth it. As kids we would run as fast as we could down the hill. As gravity pulled you faster and faster, your strides would get enormous until you inevitably started tumbling head over heels. I climbed the big dune with Tyla and Luke but our descent was a little more controlled than it was in my youth.

Elijah and David had fun playing in the sand on the beach and even though it was a very hot day, we got there early enough that we could enjoy ourselves before it got too hot and we left.

We finished up the trip with a stop at Oinks in New Buffalo for some delicious ice cream. Yum!

[UPDATE] Thanks to Ken for pointing out that Warren Dunes is in Michigan, not Indiana. But my statement still holds true. Indiana has some nice beaches/dunes too! Michigan’s coast line definitely wins though. It’s huge!

benmartens July 28, 2016 Family, Travel

Hesston Steam Museum

Tyla, Elkijah and I spent a week in Indiana with my family. We had a fantastic time! The weather was great and, unlike our Christmas trip, Elijah was healthy. We crammed in a ton of activities and spent most afternoons in the pool since it was quite hot. Posts over the next few days will highlight some of our activities.

One of our first stops on the trip was at the Hesston Steam Museum. We bounced along back country roads for about half an hour until all of a sudden we ended up at a field with a bunch of steam trains and equipment. It has been operating for over 60 years. It started with a couple guys who liked steam equipment and has grown like that ever since. The facility is mostly operated by volunteers.

We focused our attention on three of the trains they have in operation. There’s a full size narrow gauge train, a smaller train which was just big enough for us to squeeze into the caboose and a tiny train where you ride on top of the cars. That tiny train was all of our favorites and we rode that one twice.

It’s a pretty impressive place in a pretty unlikely spot, but if you’re ever in the area, it’s worth a visit.

benmartens July 27, 2016 Family, Travel

Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Just trying to get through life without looking stupid, so far it's not going very well.