Sluicing the hogback

 
We added some blueberry plants and a gate to our garden on the 3rd.
 
Cheri’s parents came up for a visit on the 5th.  The next morning Gryphon’s school had its Veterans Day assembly.  The Kindergarten class sang a song that Gryphon recorded for us to hear back in September:

Afterward we went on a historical walking tour of downtown Port Angeles, which everyone enjoyed.  We learned that the stench of sewage in the port was bad enough that in 1914 the town came together and raised up the main street by “sluicing the hogback”: spraying water on the mountainside, causing a mudslide to fill in between cement barricades.  Spaces next to the barricades became “underground” when sidewalks were built above them, and a small section of the underground still remains.  We also learned that the upper floor of the Family Shoe Store used to be a brothel, and still retains signs of its risqué past.
 
Then I got to fix our washing machine, whose warranty expired a couple weeks before it started pouring water out the door.
 
 
On the 7th we visited scenic Salt Creek despite some rain.  We added hip waders to the kids’ Christmas lists.
 
 
After launching a series of driftwood boats, Boppa and Gryphon came upon some scientists counting fish.
 
  
We picked up a bike from Cheri’s parents’ basement on our last visit, and are in the process of making it over for Gryphon. 
 
Gryphon made a TIE Fighter pancake shooting lasers on the 10th.

Honey

 
We went to the Queen of Angels School Fall Carnival on the 25th.  Gryphon tried most of the booths twice while Alice watched from the stroller (she was still under the weather).
 
 
We’ve been eating a lot of carrot bread lately.
 
 
On Halloween we took a ladybug princess and Honey the Chihuahua trick-or-treating in town.  First we stopped at neighbor Rudy’s house to see the real Honey.
 
Afterward we stopped at midwife Laurie’s house where they were giving out good candy.  We were welcomed home by the jack-o-lantern connected to the motion detector.
 

Bus wash

 
Alice and I compared one of her hairs to one of Meowmers’.  We determined he doesn’t seem to shampoo.
 
On the 19th we carved three faces into one pumpkin.
 

 
The next day we rolled in leaves.
 
We spent the evening peeling fava beans and talking about how we didn’t like peeling fava beans.
 
 
On the 22nd I went with Alice’s preschool class on a field trip to learn about buses.  She liked the bus wash even though it was loud.
 
She had a fever on the 25th, but it didn’t last long.