The Guddat Gang

She is now the PRESIDENT of the Kittias Parent Group. Yeah, that just happened.

We've finally finished our planting, although we'll continue to add to the garden as we harvest in a month in a half. As of right now, we've got a red pepper, green pepper, chocolate mint, pole beans, tomatoes, cilantro, peas, carrots, cucumbers, spinach, green beans, watermelon, raspberries and strawberries. That's in addition to our exploding Rainier cherry, apple and apricot trees and rhubarb. We've planted a bunch of annuals in the front yard and a bunch of sunflowers (mini and giant), fresias, ranunculas, tigridias, anemones and lillies. My guess is everything will either explode with color or our yard will go back to a "natural state" of crab grass, dandilions and noxious weeds. But the real news of the weekend was the return of a woodpecker. You might remember that last spring there was a woodpecker who tried in vain to pierce the top of our chimney. This year his friend is back (bigger and more colorful) and has turned his attention to our cherry t...

This is Jon. Delaney had a field trip to a local farm about five minutes from our house and I wanted to chaperon the trip just so we could hang out together. Part of being a chaperon of course is to watch over your group of kids at all times. My group was five kindergartners, and on my way out our door my wonderful wife gave me a kiss, a pat on the back, a "good luck" and a laugh. Whatever. All I know is I NEVER had all five kids together at once and averaged three kids at a time with the other two hopefully not off getting trampled by farm animals. I can also tell you that 99% of the chaperons there were of the female gender. My buddy Nate and I were the only dudes there. It was a bit embarrassing to be honest as all the women flocked to us like flies on honey. The family had a bunch of equipment and machinery on display for the kids to explore and climb aboard despite the fact that the farm was very much in operation while we were there. Delaney loved "driving" t...

This is Jon. Last week's torrential downpour certainly played havoc on our rivers and creeks, which led to plenty of flooding. Adelyn and I decided to head out and check out the local terrain. My little explorer, getting soaked in the rain. She didn't care one bit though. This is the boat launch (underneath the cresting river) at one of the parks in Ellensburg. About two hours later when we drove by again, the river had gone up probably another foot to overtake the entire parking lot and then some. Addy and I drove down the old canyon road to the Umptanum campground. We hiked around a little to get a bird's eye view of things. This is a foot bridge that leads to trails to a waterfall. We didn't make it much past the other side of the bridge as the trail was washed out. This bridge was rocking and had a pretty good shake to it, which didn't bother Addy Bear one bit. She was hanging over the side, running around it and giving her Dad a pretty good scare a few times. M...

This is Jon. We had a pretty good Mother's Day until we all started getting sick, led by Addy. Brittany got her favorite breakfast (bacon and cinnamon rolls) and was greeted with gifts, flowers and art work from her girls. There's a new place in town called "Bounce Central" and the girls love it. We really like it because it's cheap and it's a great way to watch the girls play hard and crash later. Awesome. As you can see, Mommy got into the mix with the girls as well. Brittany's friend Holly and her daughter Abby visited as well. We went to the fourth annual Bares and Broncs this Saturday, but I'm sure you already knew it. I mean, I wrote about it in my weekly "Under the Hat with Guddat" rodeo column as well as my special preview section on Friday. Anyway, it poured buckets, sheets of rain, huge drops, making the arena one big slop of a mess. Every cowboy who got bucked off or didn't land on his feet were covered in mud. A great time, th...

This is Jon. We've been in the backyard a lot lately, trying to shape our yard and garden as much as we can just to enjoy it as much as we can. Unfortunately, due to the plague going through our house, we've all been sick off an on for the last two weeks, but last week it seemed as though the grim reaper was in our living room. Needless to say, I put weeding and planting on the back burner and I'm paying for it this weekend, but it's been fun to get out there and clean things up. Our tulips, one of the first things we planted years ago before we even bought the house and were still renting. The last couple of years have been a bit bleak for the flowers, but this year they've seem to come back. The apple and cherry trees in full bloom. Last year wasn't good at all for either tree. The cold spring zapped the blooms and neither came out with much fruit. This year looks to be different. My girls.......... Cute DRae The picture's a bit blurry and Adelyn doesn...