Chief Seattle Days Parade

We enjoyed a quick 2-block walk to downtown Suquamish today to watch the small parade to celebrate Chief Seattle Days. They had a bunch of vendors set up with trinkets and some booths with food.

We enjoy taking quick walks out on the new dock - today was a bit windy and cool, so we were very happy to have sweatshirts with us.

Graeme is getting quite good at taking photos, so it's handy to have him along to snap some of the adults here and there.

I also 'made' the kids hold hands and walk together - it was cute - and I was surprised to see Graeme still smiling when I had them walk back towards me - posing for a picture along the way.

After a quick perusal of all the booths, we waited for the parade and were inundated with candy - lots and lots of candy.



It was such a short parade - over almost before it began - but fun for us to live so close to it and just be able to walk home for lunch.

Walking & Talking

One thing we love about the German culture is all the walking. The weather has been beautiful and we have been enjoying getting out in it - taking walks with the soldiers and talking along the way. The kids think it's great to have extra hands to hold, shoulders to sit on and backs to ride.

Yesterday we took one soldier and walked to a local park. We had a great time exploring and seeing what our neighborhood has to offer. The kids got a kick out of the teeter-totter.
Today we did a couple of tours in Idar-Oberstein - the nearest town to us. We had a beautiful climb up to the Church in the Rocks and ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant and then drove to and toured the local Gemstone Mine. We took our intern (Laura) and a soldier that is staying with us this week. The kids were thrilled to have extra people to hang all over and they enjoyed trying to capture their attention.
Inside the church

Getting ready to go into the mine. Paige did NOT want to wear her helmet, and our tour guide was very nice about it.

Walking Tour

First thing this morning, Duncan spent a few hours helping Brad by mowing and cutting back some over-sized trees. Then after lunch we took a stroll to check out the neighborhood. It was a great time to see the neighboring houses and get familiar with the roads - and the kids had a blast burning off some energy. We also got to meet a turtle named Greta - the kids had fun watching her get around in her yard.




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This area has some very steep hills and the Festaburg is built on the edge of a ravine. Cadence actually contracted with the owner of the property to have it built in the late '70s. It was built to be a hospitality house and has enough room to hold a lot of people - with multiple bunk rooms and 5 bathrooms spread throughout the 3 stories of the house. It has been rented by Cadence for the past 30 years and has had quite the ministry in that time. From the street it appears to be a rather normal sized house, but from the terraced back yard you can see the full 4000 square feet of it.









The weather is pretty mild - it has been in the upper 60's-low 70's for the past couple of days. We've had showers off and on, but nothing substantial.