memorial day - felton style...

i expect our house to be brimming with visitors next year after you all see the kind of fun felton brews up each and every memorial day weekend...


the felton remembers parade kicks off the festivities on saturday morning. this is your classic small town parade...complete with fire trucks (new and old), 4-Hers, dancers, and bagpipers. we were short on princesses and tractors, but otherwise it lives up to my small town minnesota parade memories.

 the party then moves to the covered bridge park for a day long festival that includes microbrews, sausages, burgers, snow cones as big as your head, games for kids, many local vendors, and hours of live music. the park is steps from our house so we can enjoy the music from the privacy of our deck...for better or worse. 

covered bridge in felton

and then, just when you thought it couldn't get any more exciting in this town of 1,600 people, the cannons start firing and the civil war is happening all over again. if you have yet to witness a reenactment, i highly recommend it! roaring camp railroad in felton has a 3-day reenactment every memorial day weekend. (this is the first year cassie has been completely deaf and it is kind of a blessing. they start "practicing" cannon fire on wednesday and fire multiple cannons multiple times a day through monday. cassie has been blissfully unaware of all the commotion.) the people who participate are committed...they camp in canvas tents, cook their food over a fire, have hardtack at the ready, wear their uniforms from dawn until dusk, and seemingly enjoy what they do a whole lot. the confederacy always seems to have more soldiers, which is interesting. last year the confederacy won the weekend skirmish, but the union won the battle we saw yesterday so hopefully they fare better this year overall! i'm going to let the photos speak for themselves on how the battles go down...

you all are welcome to join us next year for another fun-filled memorial day weekend adventure in feltonia! 

it's official!

four things i never would have predicted: (1) paper in Science; (2) paper in Science in the Policy Forum section; (3) paper on ocean acidification; (4) congressional and staff briefings on Capitol Hill in DC (yes, i have to wear a suit!).


more here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6033/1036.summary

spring in victoria

i just returned from a whirlwind conference circuit...9 days in victoria, british columbia, for the international marine conservation congress and 2.5 days in washington, d.c., for the blue vision summit. the two venues could not have been more different...and i hate to say that canada won. my coworkers and i rented a condo in james bay where we woke up every morning to a phenomenal view of the snow-covered olympic mountains. lovely, eh?

room with a view

we managed to spend our very limited amount of free time in victoria at butchart gardens. so lovely! the grounds were spilling over in tulips of all sizes, shapes, and colors. the photos tell a better story than my words...

 english daisy

 japanese garden

 puffballs

 tibetan blue poppy

 tulips!

 check out the edges of these beauties!

we also managed to fit in a quick trip to the infamous bug zoo! it was amazing! i got to hold a hissing cockroach (see below), mexican red kneed tarantula, millipede, and a katydid! we also saw the largest leaf cutter ant farm in all of north america, scorpions, spiders, walking sticks, atlas beetles...so many cool things! we were maybe the nerdiest adults in the room.

imcc felt like a reunion of sorts...many, many good friends were in attendance. i did not have nearly enough time to spend with each of them, but it was so good to see their smiling faces nonetheless.

d.c. was about 25 degrees warmer than victoria and was a bit of a whirlwind. i was on a panel about ocean acidification, had to wear a suit, and talked about laws. those are all things that i had not envisioned for myself! i did get to have dinner with my dear friend kate during the 48 hours i was in the city, so the trip was well worth it!

i got home tonight to a happy but confused dog. i replaced pete...he left this morning. somehow i need to come up with a doggie calendar so cass doesn't worry about us...

road trip!

pete and i tend to spend anywhere from about four to six months away from each other during the year. so when opportunities present themselves, we try to take advantage of any quality time together we can get! quality time for the month of april looked like this... 18 hours in a ford F-750 and miles of interstate between seattle and santa cruz.

 the giant truck! note that it requires TWO stairs to get into this thing.

i think my carbon footprint for the year is ruined!

i flew up to seattle on friday and we spent the night with our dear friends tish and morgan. this was the first time that the four of us have been together since tish's defense a year and a half ago. we went for a lovely hike, had dinner at one of their favorite neighborhood restaurants, and enjoyed each others' company. saturday morning, pete and i loaded up in the ginormous truck and started our journey south. it was fun for me to drive that stretch of highway again...it has been a few years. there are many sites along the journey that are tied to memories from my years in the pacific northwest. 

lighthouse on puget sound

we drove as far as ashland, oregon, the first day and made it there with enough daylight to go into downtown and walk through the park. it was a beautiful, warm evening and the walk was much needed after 10 hours in the truck. despite it's truckiness, it was actually quite comfortable. 

ashland, oregon

we made it back to santa cruz by late afternoon on sunday after 18 hours of driving (and a stop at the olive pit in corning). the journey was well worth it for the quality time with pete...however strange that may sound. 

(cassie got a weekend away with my friends erin and nick who took her to the beach, topped her food with pork gravy, and paid endless attention to her...so i don't think she felt left out at all!)