Always Onward Adventures

Sara takes on her first engineering task - building a small go-cart/speeder out of random stuff we have laying around the house. 2025-08-09 I was doing a bit of work in the storage space under our house and I pulled out a bunch of the old junk that the previous owners had left behind. Sara got to work. She used a bunch of paper tape to create a sled - with all the fixings - a chair for monkey, a chair for her, a storage tub in the back, a pull cord for helping her get up to speed, and a bunch of wires and pipes - well, for funsies.

When Jane was born, I took two weeks of paternity leave and by the end of it Sara and I were itching for an adventure. After clearing it with Angela, we headed off to the peninsula for a short backpacking trip. This was only Sara’s 4th trip carrying her own stuff and she upped the ante this time by carrying some of her own food. She loved it. 2025-08-11 We drove out to the Dosewallips Road Trailhead - which is less of a trailhead and more of a dead end road. The cool part about this hike is that it used to be a road - but in 2002, it was washed out and never repaired. At this point, there are a couple of dozen washouts and rockfalls that make the “road” impassible, so it’s unlikely it will ever return. We were backpacking, but this would be an awesome trail for bikepacking as well - where you could bike to the main camp and then hike from there.

The day was here - we finally got the chance to meet Jane! 2025-07-30 We had a scheduled induction date for a bunch of reasons, so the trip to the hospital was a lot less hectic than it was with Sara. We woke in the morning and got a call around 7a that we should head on into the hospital. We aimed for the 7:55a ferry and missed (primarily because of me) and we ended up getting on the 8:45a instead. We drove up the hill and parked to head upstairs.

My current company, Openlane, has 13 auction sites across Canada - and one of those sites is in St Johns Newfoundland. In July, I was given the opportunity to travel to Newfoundland for a work trip and I absolutely loved this place. The week I was there happened to be the same week as Canada Day - so I had a few days outside of work to tour around. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to get to Newfoundaland - so I started a 3 leg journey on Sunday at 8a PST and finally getting into St Johns at 8p PST (3:30p local).

Derek and Diane invited us to head to Cabo with them for my 43rd birthday - which also happened to coincidentally be their 20th wedding anniversary. They got a house in a place called Playa Colorado (colorful beach I think) and we spent the week eating, swimming, napping, and doing a bit of snorkeling/diving. 2025-06-20 We started the day early, and somewhat irresponsibly. We left home just enough time to get to the flight, but we ended up getting stuck in a little traffic (it was too early for the ferry, so we had to drive around) and for only the 3rd time ever, the masterpark lot I usually use was full. We ended up just parking in short-term parking for a little extra money and we made it to the gate just as they started boarding. Thank goodness! Everyone started sending pictures of them as they got on the plane - we were all on our way!

We are off to Hawaii! We had planned this trip to Kauai last year and we were excited to get some sun. My parents were arriving just before us and were there to be our welcome party. Just to make things interesting, we purchased a new home a few weeks prior and our closing date was in the middle of the vacation - perfect timing, huh? 04/13/2025 Our house was in boxes, but we managed to put together three bgs of Hawaii essentials (sans a swimsuit for Tom that would need to be purchased there) and we were off to the airport!

It’s been a while since my last post - but not due to lack of adventures! Sara and I have been skiing like there’s no tomorrow: 25 days in total this year, almost a month of skiing this season! Sara was a spectacular skier for her age before this season, but seeing her slide down a double black like a pro at the end of this season was a huge rush.

Summary We had a rainy weekend ahead of us, but having not been on many adventures as of late, we opted to go exploring. I read about an abandoned mining town (ghost town) in the north cascades called “Monte Cristo”. We ended up leaving home late and it was a 2 hour drive to get there, but we decided to push on and brought along some lights! It was raining a little when we started our hike at about 4p. It was a 2 hour drive to get here and we had to make a few stops on the way. The trail was quite nice, wide and flat, which meant we could hold hands which Sara loves.