For the last few years I’ve been spending Tuesday nights down at a local watering hole, playing trivia against other like-minded nerds. My team — their name to remain unmentioned on this family blog — has captured the first place season trophy for the last two seasons and I’ve brought home countless beer and booze t-shirts as prizes.

Because Everett is a pretty smart kid, he’s intrigued by this and will occasionally ask us to give him a quiz just like he knows his Dada does. We oblige by trading questions back and forth with him about state capitols, seasons, trains, animals, or whatever else comes to mind. He loves asking the questions almost as much as he does answering them.

This weekend, though, he finally got to go to a real, organized pub quiz and play with us! Well, it wasn’t technically a pub quiz because it was in a pizza place, but still the same idea. The questions ran a little too pop culture for someone who’s only seen a a few hours of TV in his life, but he knew a couple of answers to other questions. There was also a dance round (don’t ask), and Everett’s skill and enthusiasm in that earned us an extra five points, which was enough to put us one point up on the second place team by the end. Such a close finish!

Ready to write down our answers.

Thanks to Allison, Chad, and Jasper for joining us. We’re looking forward to next month when we can pay for lunch with the gift certificate we won!

Everett’s been in a fort building phase recently, with blankets hanging over the table or off the couch, broomsticks used as tent poles, and great walls of pillows. We thought it would be fun to add another structure to the mix, so we got five bamboo poles from the garden store and a twin sheet, then built a tepee.

There’s even room inside for a grown-up, so we’ve done a few story times inside it.

We headed out to the coastal town of Astoria for a day trip last weekend, armed with a long list of suggestions from friends on where to go and what to do. It’s a neat place, and less than two hours away. There’s a lot more to explore, so here’s hoping we get back soon.

At the base of the 125-foot tall Astoria Column. We all threw balsa wood airplanes off the top.

Heading up the spiral stairs inside the column.

A trolley runs back and forth along the waterfront.

At the Maritime Museum there was a demonstration on how rope used to be made. Everett turned the handle to twist the strands.

Everett pilots a tug in the Maritime Museum.

Too windy! At the wreck of the Peter Iredale, a steel sailing ship that ran aground 106 years ago.

The sign at Fort Stevens said to beware of open pits and steep dropoffs, so Everett set out to find as many as he could in the complex of old bunkers and gun batteries. The Japanese actually fired on the fort during WW2.