++Hiking, take 2++

We tried out hiking for a second time this weekend.  This time we went to where we thought we were going last time.  Much longer hike, much tougher terrain, and much more beautiful scenery.  Mark wins the trooper award as he carried Claire for the 2+ hour hike.  She did her best but is so pokey.  On our list to buy: a hiking backpack.  Funny.  I thought we were done with all that gear acquisition.

 Here we are at the bottom.  Wyatt was there too.  He was just about ten steps ahead of us the whole time it was hard to take his picture. 

We're doing our best to play pacific northwesterners.  Now if we could just figure out how to embrace the rain...

++On her way++

Watch out world.  Here she comes.  Not sure where she is headed, but I'm fairly certain she hasn't left anything behind. 

++It's here again++

The most important day of the year has once again arrived, right on schedule. My little elves were hard at work baking me a cake.    I think I had something set funny on my camera...they didn't come down with a bad case of jaundice...so don't be alarmed. 

I was greeted with cake for breakfast. 

 I'm not sure if Claire sampled the icing or not, what do you think?

 I guess when you are 34 and have two kids, you no longer get to blow out your own candles.  Now that birthdays have somewhat lost their luster for me. It's fun to see the little ones get all excited about them. 



So do they get the wishes, or do I?

++The world needs more of this++

It was our turn to host boy's book club this month.  A while back, I stumbled on information about this park and knew we had to try it.  It's a dream come true for little boys.  Tools, scrap wood, a forest and their imaginations.  Each boy was given a toolbox with hammer, nails, twine, etc. and access to this huge pile of scrap wood. My favorite part is that nobody got so caught up in safety and covering their bums that the fun was taken away.  

The tool boxes included safety goggles but I think the kids liked them as fashion accessories best.

 Demo was just as fun as building.  If not more fun. 

 Every construction site needs a foreman. 

 And every construction site needs one man to "supervise" while the other works. 

 Our crew with their, um, creation?

 Have I mentioned before that I love having a boy?

++A Walk In The Woods++

Now that we have lived here for two years (crazy, I know) that kind of makes us official Pacific Northwesterners, not just visitors.  And if you are a Pacific Northwesterner, you hike.  That's just the way it is.  We started small.  We weren't quite sure how the littlest one would handle it. 

Wyatt checked out our course before we took off.

 Now that is one big tree.

 The highlight by far was "skipping" rocks.  Don't you just love the soft haze coming off the water?  Makes everything seem dreamy. 

 I had to include this shot.  Kind of looks like I was about to get clocked in the head with a rock.  I don't remember it ending that way but it sure didn't look good for me.  We need to work on teaching her to throw OUT.

 My goodness, if I didn't know better I would almost say we look authentic.

No one needs to know that we took the wrong exit off the highway and ended up at the wrong park and on a totally different trail than we expected.  No wonder we were the only ones there.  It still was beautiful!

++Life These Days++

We got a new table for our deck so most of the meals these days are consumed outside.  It didn't take too long to figure out that the two of them side-by-side on the bench wasn't going to work out so well. Clearly the kids are fans of the whole thing.

++VBS++

We just finished up a week at vacation bible school at our church.  As a two-year-old Claire could attend but I had to be with her the whole time (a bit of overkill if you ask me, but I don't make the rules).  It was fun.  This is really the first "school" experience for the little one.  She was super cooperative but SO QUIET.  I'm not used to that side of her!