Raincharm’s Weblog

Today the season is finally starting to hit home.

I braved the teeming masses and went shopping.
Malls, neighborhoods, parallel parking, brand new parking structures, and closed roads.

It was going fairly smoothly, until we found out Hwy 99 was closed approaching downtown. That resulted in an incredibly roundabout and frustrating half hour – at the end of which all we ended up getting was coffee.

This should have been taken as a sign, but we pressed on back north to the NORTH MALL.
Our recent experience helped us make quicker decisions and we did not even make it into the parking lot.

Finally we got to the fun activity of the day.
The Green Lake Pathway of Lights.

2013 Luminaria

I did not take too many pictures, deciding to try to just enjoy the sights as they came. Click here for some better pictures than I would get anyway.

Jazz at the lake

Green Lake 2013

We have done this most years over the past few decades.
This year it was 50 degrees and not raining.
That resulted in one of the most crowded walks in recent memory, with the usual singing groups, lit-up outfits, lighted kayak parade, dog walkers (try to see a leash leader in the dark), crying babies and complaining kids. [The walk is about 3 miles, and I bet that most of the complaining comes after mile 1.]

One of our enduring memories of past walks is from when Rey was probably 2 and Ashlan an infant.
Rey wanted to stop at every bag with a candle and look inside. It was one of our longer duration walks.

We also used this excursion to pick up a Christmas Tree.
This is Green Lake Elementary School’s annual major fundraiser.
Last year we only had a short tree from the grocery store. We were in the middle of packing the house and wanted to keep it simple.
This year we have kids coming home, and are moving back in.

One of the highlights of the Christmas Tree lot was being helped by Max.
Carl took care of Max here and there when he was very young.
Max is now a high school senior, taking running start classes (community college – can count for both high school & college credits), with a possible focus in biology.
It was good to catch up a bit.

2013 Nobel Fir (with blue spruce topper)

When I first looked at this picture of the tree, I thought the top had a bend to the left.
Turns out it is just our blue spruce trying to get in on the holiday action.

This entry was posted on December 15, 2013 at 11:12 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.