Sunday, October 12, 2014

Ups and Downs

It began Friday night.  We had another lovely evening for a soccer match.  The Sounders were playing west coast rivals, the Vancouver BC Whitecaps.  Seattle was favored.  The city was beautiful, the sky was dramatic...

We founds friends on the light rail.
 We marched and chanted our way to the stadium.



 The field was colorful and we got to sing Oh Canada!
 The tifo produced by the Emerald city Supporters was grand! 

Then it all went south.  After a tense 90 minutes of play, Seattle lost.  The Whitecaps fans celebrated the winning of the Cascadia Cup while the rest of the 55,000 filed out of the stadium, disappointed.

Saturday morning the weather looked to be good as we traveled south to my brother's house in Chehalis for the annual Norquist Family cider bee. 

We got to work cutting and grinding and pressing apples.


 Samples of freshly squeezed cider were tested.
 More family crew arrived.

 The cider was strained into jugs.


 Cousins had fun. 
  I borrowed some photos taken by my niece Katie from her Facebook post.




I left the apple crew to go shuck the corn for lunch.

 Just before the lunch stop we had some heavy rain move in.
So lunch was moved to the garage.


Tom and I had to leave then to go to Olympia to attend a memorial service for a too young member of his extended family. We drove through rainstorms and rainbows to get to this lovely place.

We heard that the apple squeezers produced 75 gallons of cider, to be divided up around the families. We brought some home too.

Sunday has been another dry day.  We got up late, I did some grocery shopping and then Tom and I went for a walk.  We settled in front of the TV at 1:30 to watch the Seahawks play the Dallas Cowboys in Seattle.  At half time we went to Jill's house to take them some cider and applesause I had made last week and give Isaac a new rain jacket we shopped for at REI Saturday evening after we got home. He goes to outdoor education camp this week and the rain is coming back the the northwest. 
Unfortunately the Seahawks lost too!  Bummer.  

Tom and I think it's time to leave town.  This week will be about getting ready to do that. We fly away on Thursday.  I'll tell you more about that later.

13 comments:

  1. You have your apple cider making down to a science and have a lot of fun to boot. Too bad about your team! On the other hand super for Vancouver! I didn't know Vancouver had a team.

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  2. What a fun post!! Cider making is a super family activity. Everyone looked like they had lots of fun. Thanks for sharing all of your adventures through your beautiful pics!!

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  3. What a packed weekend. Those two grand kids are growing so fast!

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  4. You know, in every life some rain must fall. And sometimes our teams lose, but not usually all at once! I know you will be going somewhere really fun, so please have a great time and take lots of pictures! :-)

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  5. Wow! The blue in the stadium is fabulous. My younger brother on the farm and his wife are making apple cider today as well. He bought a used cider press at an auction, the fields are wet, so he is busy doing something interesting for the day.

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  6. I have some sparkling apple cider in the fridge, so I'll open a bottle and share it with hubby. Yummy.

    Sorry your two teams lost, but that's life.

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  7. Clearly no moss grows under your feet of those of your gene pool!!

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  8. The cider be sure looks like a fun time. I thought about you yesterday when the Sea Hawks lost.

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  9. Did not know people today made their own cider. It looked like a fun project with great food as a reward.
    Sorry your Sounders lost. I always am amazed at how much ceremony there is shared by the fans.
    So sorry about Tom's loss.
    It was a rather and up and down week end for you.

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  10. Looks like a great weekend, except for the sports losses.

    I'm sorry about your young family member going away too soon.

    Hugs,
    Kathy M.

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  11. I was just talking about your family's cider bee to someone and saying what a wonderful family tradition it is. Looks like everyone enjoyed him/herself. Sorry for your loss!

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