I had the chance to take some time off and head down to Honeyman State Park for a weekend. Filled with sand dunes, Honeyman was a nice change of scenery.
Dawn at Honeyman State Park, OR
Tracks from the previous 4th of July evening.
Andrew launching onto the sand dune slip n' slide into Cleawox Lake.
Sandboarding down classic Oregon sand dunes.
The Brothers
Alex and I set out at 5:00am to the Olympic Peninsula in order to climb the 6000 vertical and 18 miles roundtrip that was required to summit the Brothers, which are two of the Olympic peaks visible from Seattle.
Lake Melakwa
The morning fog below Lake Melakwa.
The view from the top of Melakwa Pass looking down on a frozen lake.
Shadows of Fort Flagler
Exploring the abandoned bunkers from the late 1800's.
Kickboxing at Alpha Martial Arts
C-Sections and a Neonatal ICU
Throughout the summer, I had the chance to freelance a few times for Seattle's NPR station, KUOW, and began by following University of Washington obstetrician Dr. Easterling through his daily routine of seeing high-risk patients. These mothers have had cancer, organ transplants, are pregnant with twins, or have any other number of conditions that qualify them for the UW's highly sought after maternity clinic.
Read Isolde Raferty's story here: http://kuow.org/post/stories-courage-uws-maternity-clinic
KUOW reporter Isolde Raftery and I also had a chance to visit the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Above, Abbie and Ben Ball prepare to take their twins home for the first time after they were born by C-section. Abbie is a special education teacher who was born with spinal muscular atrophy and developed HELLP syndrome, a complication of preeclampsia.