We still had the original hardwood floor in the downstairs half bath.  It doesn't make sense to put any kind of hardwood in a bathroom.  It might look good at the beginning but after 20 years it did not at all.  We finally bought the trim for the house and the bathroom needed new trim because it was going to need new flooring.  Scope creep strikes again.  So I took a trip to the hardware store.  I had been eying small mosaic hexagon tiles anyway.  Another month went by and I finally figured out what I wanted in the bathroom.  So we purchased many boxes of 1 ft by 1 ft hexagon mosaic mesh tiles  (more than we needed or so we thought). Purchased our cement board for the underlayment, mortar, trowel, and grout.  I had scoured Pinterest for the best grout color and found this hilarious blog about it.  We did try out their suggestion about a trial for the grout I had picked. I used both Maria Killman and Young House Love's recommendation for the color. We removed the toilet and it sat in my dining room for a month. The pedestal sink moved from breakfast nook, to dining room to living room depending on what we were doing.  We repaired part of the wall that was crumbling, removed all the hardware on the walls including the light for a bit, the door that leaned against my couch in the living room and started work on this very small bathroom. John repaired the wall, painted the ceiling and I painted the wall. I had removed the glued on oval mirror so that I could paint.  Since we weren't sure about actually putting in the tile and we thought that we would do the prep work and then hire someone to do the actual tile work.  With plenty of encouragement from people and a borrowed wet tile saw we went to work.  Very slowly.  We laid it out to see what was going to be needed to cut.  We cut and laid it out again trying to make sure the grout lines would be spaced evenly apart with the mesh.  We clipped around the toilet drain.  We really meaning John.  I watched and encouraged and asked questions.  Finally we used the mortar and permanently placed the tile on the floor.  We let it dry and then after deciding on warm grey grout, bought more bags. Mixing it up we just went for it.  Turns out we didn't need as much as we thought but ok.  We will have it for the next project.  Yes, we are already talking about the next project.  Just aren't sure what that project is. I then sealed the grout.  Wait for another 24 hours for the sealent to cure.  Finally we could install the toilet and get that out of my dining room.  Try having a diner with people when you have a toilet in the room.  Uncomfortable.  Anyhow, we then realized we needed more parts for the toilet.  Because the floor was a little thicker than before we needed an extender or some such thing.  Two more trips to the hardware store and the toilet was installed.  Next we tried out the pedestal sink.  We hooked it up but the sink wasn't in the spot for it to look right with the picture frame moulding I put up.  So a trip to the hardware store to find out they didn't have the part.  Amazon to the rescue and we wait.  The baseboard trim had been painted and we installed it along one wall.  Finally the part for the sink came.  We hooked it up only to find out that the seals on the handles were leaking and so the pedestal sink came back out and more parts were searched for and finally ordered.  Meanwhile I kept working on the picture moulding.  There were lessons to be learned about that as well.  The moulding done, the sink in we were able to put in the rest of the baseboards and call this room finished.  Except that I still needed to buy a mirror but that eventually happened too.  This was all done so we could baseboard trim in the rest of the downstairs.  And yet that has another story to it as well.

So many times we've taken the trail most people take to snowshoe near Mount Baker. I do love that trail.  It is so satisfying to make it to Huntoon Point that allows a 360 view of the area showing Canada and south into Skagit Valley. However as we make our trek up the hill I often look over towards the small bowl that has Bagley Lake buried under multiple feet of snow and wonder what that trail is like.  This was our day to find out. The avalanche warning was low, I thought it should have been a bit higher seeing as how we could hear and then watch snow tumble off the cliffs picking up speed and more snow once it hit the ground. The starting point for both Huntoon Point and Herman's Saddle are the same.  The end of the road near Chair 1 at Heather Meadows Ski Lodge. From there you drop down into the bowl following a light used trail over the lake to the northwestern side of the valley.  We could see out of bound skiers make their trek up to ridge right below table mountain only to leave just a bit of snake like trail behind them.  An hour of hiking for 10 minutes of beautiful graceful skiing. We wound our way along the valley floor hugging the south facing side peak and started to climb. So very slowly up towards the saddle, thinking it was closer than it actually was.  We hiked and hiked and hiked. I paused all along the way to soak up the sun, the view, the clean mountain air, the bright blue sky. Each step was closer to our destination. We talked about finding a spot part way up although as we neared the top we couldn't imagine not making it. At about 5200ft we looked up and realized that the skiers who had passed us about 45 minutes ago were taking out parachutes of all things. The brightly colored fabric filled with the breeze as they prepared for their decent to the valley 1000 ft below them. One at a time they started downhill picking up speed until their chutes filled enough and lifted them up to skim the trees below. They were pulled right and left weaving  down the hill and finally out of sight to leave us wondering how many actually made it to the bottom of the valley. A 200 ft higher and we had made it to Herman's Saddle which offered a spectacular view of Mount Shuksan, Mount Baker, and the Northern Canadian Cascades. During the summer this can be hiked as a loop called the Chain Lakes Loop, shich is 6.5 miles and it definitely leaves you feeling as if you've had a good day hiking.   In the winter, Herman's Saddle is as far as you can get and it will still leave you feeling as if you've had a great day outdoors.  Note to self on sunny days, bring sunscreen and shorts.  I was sweating rivers of water hiking up and my nose was more of Rudolph's color the next day. This will definitely be one that we do again.