Speech, Speech!

Sage turned 4 on Monday. Birthdays are not much of a formal event in our family: just a few family members over for dinner,cake and presents. So I was surprised, while straightening up before the afore mentioned family members arrived, to find the following speech on the coffee table:

Birthday Speech
(by Jensen)

We are here to celebrate a girl, named Sage, turn 4. Before the annual Sage-opening-of-the-presents begins, I would like to make a little speech. Sage was born 4 years ago. What a cute baby she was! Last year, many important things happened to Sage like the trips to Idaho, Utah, and all the National Parks Trip. That does not mean we will not go on other important trips. I believe that Sage should be honored in all ways. Her birthday is a landmark in Katschke history. As she grows older and bigger her character grows, too. She goes with the flow most of the time, but she can be pretty stubborn when she wants to be. We all love, like, and enjoy Sage. Will everybody who loves, likes, and enjoys Sage please raise their hand. Sage, look around at all the people who love you, who like you, and who enjoy you. I would like to invite Sage up to the stand to say a few words to her "fans."

Jensen delivered her speech with remarkable skill then invited Sage up for a "Q and A" afterward. I'm not sure if the speech was intended to honor Sage or upstage her, but it was a sweet and fitting tribute to Sage's fourth year.

Washington State

The other day Ken and I were planning our next family trip, and I realized I never finished posting about our last big National Parks trip. So . . . After leaving Oregon we headed for Olympic National Park on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. Olympic is such a large park, we decided to concentrate on just seeing the rain forest. The Hoh Rain forest is amazing with moss hanging from the trees and the ground covered in ferns.

Zaddock in the Hall of Mosses

The children with a fallen tree

Resting from a long hike along the Hoh River

Besides hiking in the Hoh River Valley, we drove through Forks and over to see the Sea Stacks on the beach where Jensen and Zad performed a innovative play called, “Boston Jane and Philadelphia John.” It consisted of Zaddock pushing Jensen off the end of a large piece of driftwood ordering her to “walk the plank,” which she did after giving her last words which were “Remember what you said about the seven seas, there are actually eleven seas, not including oceans.” No wonder John wanted to get rid of such a know-it all.

The cold winds on the coast

Jane walks the plank

The rocky coastline

The Hoh Rain Forest was also a delightful place to camp because the sites were grassy, instead of dusty, and the temperature hardly dipped at night. The only bad part was the tent was still soaking wet from overnight dew when we had to break camp at first light. Since we were up so early we were able to catch a few of the Roosevelt Elk grazing in the campsite. We waited until we reached Port Angeles to eat breakfast, and we were rewarded for our patience by finding Cafe Garden. The food was outstanding, the waitstaff gracious (even though we were a little under dressed and hadn't showered for three days), and the girls loved the gardens on the grounds. Highly recommended.

Breakfast for Edward Cullen*

Breakfast for the humans (at Cafe Garden)

After breakfast we continued on to Spokane via Seattle and a ferry across the Puget Sound. Ken and I thought this would make a great memory for the children, but they seemed to have forgotten it by dinner time. While crossing the sound the ferry stopped for a memorial and let out three loud blasts. We were on the top deck directly below the horn, it was so loud that Declan began to cry.

On the ferry with Seattle in the distance

We spent that night at my sister Lisa's house in Spokane. It was so good to see her and her husband David, but we forgot to take any pictures until late that night after Sage had already fallen asleep. Since we so rarely get to see Lisa, Ken insisted we take a picture with all of the kids, so he hauled Sage out of bed and propped her up next to me “Weekend at Bernie’s” -style. She slept through the whole thing.

Lisa with me and the kids

*We had not read the Twilight series before visiting the Olypmic Peninsula and were completely unaware we were in Cullen territory at the time. It was great fun, however, to read the books a few months later and realize that we had been to all of these small, out of the way places.

Why We Love Zad

He loves bracelets, the rubber Lance Armstrong kind. This is how his wrist usually looks.

He also loves watches; he has four of them.

The other night we picked Ken up from the airport when he was returning from a one day business trip. He was still dressed in his suit. When Zad saw him he asked, “Were you at church?" Ken responded, “No.” “Were you at a funeral?” “No.” “Then why are you wearing handsome clothes?”

We were climbing Watchman at Crater Lake, and Ken had just told Jensen we were halfway there. But we were on the way up, so I explained to Jensen we were only half of half way there. She brilliantly replied, “We are a quarter of the way there.” Zad overhearing all this responded, “I don’t think so, it’s still a long way. I bet we are only five dollars there.”

For all his male tough guy, rough and tumble, shoot 'em up play he still likes to sleep with the light on, and we often wake up to him in our bed.

He'll play tea party and dress up with the girls. And he loves to dance.

He has a sound effect for everything.

For these and a million other unique Zaddock moments, we love him and life wouldn't be the same without him.

Happy Birthday, kiddo!

Na'pali Coast

So I mentioned that we hiked out to the crest of one of the ridges of the Na’pali coast, today we got to see this fascinating coastline from the water. We took Captain Andy’s Zodiac boat tour as recommended by the Staples. This was a high quality adventure. Our captain, Captain Matt, and his first mate, Lisa, were very knowledgeable and friendly. The ocean was clear blue and smooth as glass, our captain said it was the smoothest day of the year. The Zodiac boat glided over the water with hardly a bump. We stopped to view a couple pods of spinner dolphins that swam and jumped right along side our boat. We saw several see turtles and sea birds up close as well.

We went the entire length of the coast line stopping to take the boat right into several sea caves. We were able to dock at an archaeological site where ancient Hawaiians lived along this rocky, steep shore. We snorkeled there, which I enjoyed much more than I had anticipated. Then they fed us a fabulous hot lunch and gave us a guided tour of the site. It’s amazing that people lived in this narrow shore among these huge cliffs, but it’s so beautiful you can see why they did.

Do you see King Kong's face?

Spinner dolphins

The beaches gets swallowed up by high winter surf. We were there just before the swells arrived.

Ridge after ridge after ridge.

Water fall

Ken and I inside a sea cave which has an open top.

A waterfall inside a sea cave.

After the boat trip we started making our way along the Eastern Shore to the North Shore. We stopped to view a few beaches, but continued on to arrive at our hotel in Princeville just at sunset.

The view of Hanalei Bay from our hotel.

Perseverance

When we woke up this morning we thought we’d hike in Waimea Canyon and spend the afternoon at the beach. We started by eating breakfast on our porch while watching the dolphins play off the shore. Then we drove to the spectacular Waimea Canyon.

There are two hiking options in this area, you can either hike into the canyon or out along a ridge of the Na’pali Coast. We chose door number two, but about ½ way down the 2 ½ mile trail we were still walking in mountain mist with little visibility and began to doubt our choice. We ultimately decided to take the gamble that we would be able to see the view once we got to the end of the trail. The gamble paid off when we finally dropped below the clouds in the last ¼ of the trail. The view was breathtaking, and the chance to walk out on the tip of the ridge was worth the hike.

Look beyond Daddy to the ridge to the left and behind him. We were standing on one just like that.

After taking in the view we headed back up the 1100 foot elevation change when about ¼ of the way up the rains hit. As we squished our way up the trail we came to understand why the YMCA camp up the road is named Camp Sloggett. We were soaking by the time we made it back to the car. Ironically, our swimming suits became our dry clothes for the day. Driving back down we stopped to take a few more pictures of the dramatically different looking Waimea Canyon after the rains.

Since it was late in the afternoon we decided to head for a Western Shore beach to take in the sunset. We thought we’d drive all the way to the end of the line at the Polihale State Park. It was a little difficult to find the road and when we did it was a rough dirt road. It took about 20 minutes to drive down to the beach and we weren’t sure we’d ever make it. But when we got there we were treated with the best beach on the island. The sand was soft, fluffy white and so clean. It was like walking on a marshmallow. The water was clear blue and warm. We walked along the beach and let the sun warm us after our soggy hike. The lesson of the day was to keep on going because that’s when you get to the good stuff.



Love,
Mom

Indiana Jones

This summer was surprisingly hot in Millbrae, and my dryer heats up the whole house, so I decided to try hanging the clothes out to dry in the backyard. I strung twine from the patio cover across the yard to one of the bars of the trampoline safety net and used a pack of clothes pins I used once for some church activity. It worked great until one day Zad decided to play Indian Jones in the backyard and tried to zip down the laundry line. The line snapped sending Zad to the ground. He thought it was great fun and wanted me to put up more twine, but I decided to wait for cooler weather to do laundry. Today I got to experience the joy that Zad found on that summer day when we zipped through the jungle here on Kauai.

The zip line was part of an organized tour we took which started out with kayaking 2 miles up a river. Then we hiked to a lagoon where there was a rope swing. After swimming they drove us through a ranch where we observed cows, goats, peacocks, and other birds. We also saw wild pigs and roosters that roam the island. The last thing we did was zip through the jungle down a big cable. It was a very active day. It was a rainy day, even by Kauai standards, but we didn’t mind because it was still warm and we wet anyway.

We came home and got all clean and dry before going to a luau. It was supposed to be on the beach, but they had to move it indoors because of the rain. We still got to eat lots of yummy barb-a-que food and raw fish! It was really good. They had singers and ukuleles and dancers. There was even a fire eater who spun two sticks that were on fire at both ends. He walked right by me and I could feel how hot the torches were. Very hot, incase you were wondering. Here are some pictures from the luau:

Hawaiian hula dancer

A Tahitian warrior

We had a great time, but, sorry, Zad, I don't think we'll be putting up a zip line in the backyard anytime soon.

Love,

Mom

Aloha

Ken and I have never taken a vacation alone since Jensen was born over 9 years ago. So this year we conned his parents into coming to California to watch the kids while we headed for Hawaii. But alas, I can’t do anything without the children, so I told them I’d blog it while we were on the trip so they could see what we are up to.

Today we arrived on Kauai and the first thing I noticed when we left the airport was how great it smelled. There is a constant waft of the most wonderful flower that is sweet but not sickening. It is quite humid, but really warm. Everyone here is really nice; I think it’s because it’s such a beautiful place to be everyone is just happy. It is also very relaxed here and things move a little more slowly than back home, so we spent a long time in line waiting to get out rental car.

After getting our car, a convertible, we headed to our hotel. It has a downstairs and an upstairs with a lanai, that’s what they call a porch. The edge of the downstairs porch has a fence and just beyond the fence it drops down about 50 feet to a rocky cove in the ocean below where we watch sea turtles swimming all day. I’m sitting on the porch right now as I write this. It is dark out, but the moon is big and the sound of the waves is very relaxing. We are going to go to dinner now, I think we are going to have fish. I bet now you’re glad you got to stay home with Grandma and Grandpa and have Little Caesars.

Love,
Mom

P.S. A gecko just ran across the porch.