Raising Cat and Bug

What can I say....we had such a fantastic trip it is hard to be back to the nitty gritty of school/work/laundry/cleaning, but is is also wonderful to be home an be able to work in our garden and play at the creek and go to yoga again, plus, someone has to make money so we can go on another trip. We did everything under the sun...kayaked, biked,hiked, climbing gym, swam, ran, rockscrambled, fished, ate great food, met up with my family in Lincoln City and Shanes family in Bend and Olympia.

Shane got to go away with Rich for 4 days of awesome mountain biking in Bend. They had a great time, biking over 50 miles. Then I drove up with the girls and got to go away alone with my sister in law Stacy for the first time EVER in the 20 years we have been friends. We stayed at an awesome hotel in Bend while our husbands and kids camped at Sparks Lake just outside of town. We had such a fantastic time not being mommies for 3 whole days.

Then Shane and I and the girls headed off to the amazing Lava area of McKenzie pass outside of Sisters. There was a free campground at Scott Lake that we stayed at and got to kayak and I got to ride HWY 242 3 times – 60 miles all together, the first two trips were to the west and it was awesome downhill, curves through the amazing landscape where I would have to slow to 15 mph because the curves were so sharp. Cars wouldnt pass me the whole first 12 downhill miles because my speed was the same as the cars. It was amazing. I got to do that twice. One day we set out on this crazy 6 mile hike. We have never done more than 4 miles with the girls but it was up to a lake so we figured it would take all day and we would just go slow. It was 3 miles all uphill – 800 feet of elevation gain. It took us 2 hours, which is amazing, considering Jill is 3 feet tall. Alli never complained, she is a true outdoorswoman. Jill had about 20 minutes of unhappiness and said she wanted to be swimming in Mimi and Poppy's pool – but so did I at that point!!! We were being eaten alive by huge mosquitos and it was hot and relentlessly uphill---but, Jill was a trouper and we made it to the beautiful lake.

We swam and napped and played in the dirt....then started the all downhill hike. After the first mile that was pretty steep, the girls wanted to RUN!!! So we jogged for another mile and a half. These girls amaze me!! I know we have “trained” them to like hiking, but I never would have imagined this, especially at only 7 and 4 years old. Then....that night, after we had already hiked 6 miles, Alli asked why we werent going to check out the shelter we had mentioned earlier. I said it was because it was a mile hike and we already did 6 miles.....and BOTH girls started saying, “but we want to see it, why cant we go, cant we go please?????” so we hopped in the car and hiked another mile to the shelter! So, 7 miles in one day, CRAZY!!!!

The next day Shane got to mountain bike the McKenzie River Trail, a really famous trail, that is 26 miles long and strenuous and amazing and beautiful. The girls and I dropped him off at the trailhead and then spent the next 3 hours hiking various stretches of the trail. Another instance of our girls being crazy....we hiked to one waterfall and I told them we could get in the car and drive down the road to the next waterfall, or we could hike 1 mile and get the it that way. The girls chose the hike! YAY!!!

One of the most amazing things we saw on this trip was called the “Blue Pool” We hiked this after the waterfalls. It was a pretty strenuous hike over 2 miles there, but so worth it!!! We actually passed Shane on this hike, since he was biking this trail the other direction. The girls loved seeing him coming up the trail. He had been biking for about 2.5 hours.

We continued on our way and he went on his, we had plans to meet up in 2 hours at the Ranger Station and pick him up. We finally made it to the blue pool (the pics are amazing but do NOT do it justice at all!!!) and we could not find a way down to the pool. I had promised the girls the whole way that we would be able to swim in the pool, but then we got there and could not get down to the water.

There was an area people had climbed up, but they told us it wasnt safe for the girls to climb down. Then there was an area where people were jumping 30 feet off the cliff, and that wasnt going to work, so we went back to the “unsafe” area and scrambled down 20 feet of boulders no problems, and down to the amazing blue water. It was so beautiful, the girls were mesmerized! I wanted to jump in and some people sitting by us said – Its REALLY cold-- but I was so hot I didnt care. I leapt off a rock (alli took the picture of me jumping) and plunged into the coldest water I have EVER been in.

I tried to form a sentence cuz Alli asked if it was cold but I couldnt even talk. My breath had been sucked away by the shock of this water. I crawled out and warmed on a rock like a lizard for a minute before I could talk!!! Alli wanted to go in and I told her no way could she jump, if she wanted to dip she could.

You can see on her face her shock from the cold. Brave girl , though. Jill had no desire and probably would have froze on impact – that girl has no body fat at all! We hiked back to the car and were 30 minutes late picking up Shane but luckily he wasnt too worried about us. He started counting subaru outbacks and guessed we would be the 7^th one to pass by. We were the 8^th one!

It was our last night at Scott lake and the girls wanted one last kayak around the lake to the secret spot with all the tadpoles, so off we went. Little did we know that Shane had put his sunglasses (very expensive sunglasses) on the back of the boat and when we took off they dropped off in to the shallow water. Back we went to camp. Girls went to bed and we packed up all we could. I was going to ride the other direction on Hwy 242 toward Sisters in the morning. It was 22 miles, 7 miles up to the summit and then down to town. I left early on and Shane took care of the final clean up. He was giving me a one hour headstart. The ride to the summit was beautiful. This lava landscape is so amazing.

It was early enough that there were not a lot of cars on the road. One mile outside of Sisters Shane and the girls passed me in the car. I said I wanted to finish the ride so we met at Sisters Roasting Company for an awesome breakfast. Shane told me he had spent a bunch of time trying to find his glasses, but couldnt find them anywhere. So before we headed to Mount Hood we took out both tents, emptied the kayaks and some backpacks and then decided to load the car back up and head back to the lake for the POSSIBILITY that he left them at the secret tadpole spot. It was a 45 minute drive and so worth it since he found his glasses standing up in the shallow, dirty water!! Then off to Mount Hood we drove.

The absolute most amazing thing we did on this trip, was to hike behind a waterfall. I forget what the name of it was, but it was off HWY 35 outside of Mount Hood. The hike was peaceful and the waterfall was beautiful, but the book we had said if you were brave you could rock scramble behind the falls so of course we had to try that. I went first and it was so crazy with wind and the waterfall pelting water at me. The girls followed not too far behind, but once the crazy water onlaught came they were DONE!!!

So I hiked back behind it alone and it was SO AMAZING there was no way the girls were going to miss out on this. So I found another way over that was further up and not so directly hit by the water. The girls are good at rocks scrambling so we made it safely to the back of the waterfall and all four of us stood there in amazement at the power of this waterfall. It was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. It was indescribably beautiful and the pictures do it no justice at all!

One day we were heading into Hood River to do the Fruit Loop, a tour of all the amazing farms in Hood River. I wanted to ride my bike into the city and it was 30 miles so I left nice and early. Shane was going to give me an hour headstart and I told him I would let him know when he passed me if I wanted to ride the whole way or stop...so the first 12 miles were amazing and mostly downhill, not a lot of cars, and not any wind. But then, I dont know what I came up over, but there was a headwind like no other I have ever been in. Not only that, but the nice smooth road was getting repaved and for a 4 miles stretch the road was like a gravely MESS!!! I kept thinking, when Shane passes me I am SO getting in that car, this was CRAZY!!! But wouldnt you know, no subaru came to save my day. The road was awful, the wind was awful, there were tons of cars. UGH!! What was I doing!!! I had only gone 18 miles..i still had 12 left to go, yikes!! The wind was so crazy, I would be riding downhill going maybe 20 - 23 mph (normally without wind I can go about 28mph downhill) and a gust of wind would come up and I would slow down to like 13 mph and have to be working at it. Going downhill and having to work at it is insane!!! Needless to say, I made it all 30 miles to hood river and even then Shane didnt get there for another 15 minutes! WOW! I was tired.

We did the fruit loop, had amazing fruit and spent some time at the river watching the kite and wakeboarders (you can see the crazy wind in the pictures) and then before I almost passed out – I had eaten only fruit all day – we went to Full Sail Brewery and I ordered the hummus plate, chicken soup, pulled pork sandwich AND a HAMBURGER!!! I was still hungry. We ordered a brownie for dessert and the 4 of us ate it in less than 45 seconds. We were getting some nasty looks from a lady sitting at the table next to us. I can imagine how we looked – none of us had showered in 2 weeks, the girls were a dirty mess I was in bike clothes and scarfing down food like I had never eaten before!! Oh well, she has a story to tell about the crazy mountain family she had to eat next to.

Then the next day we spent at the Ski Bowl where the girls got to do all kinds of fun stuff like trampolines, and tube sleds and go karts....Jill has absolutely no idea how to drive a go kart. The guy had to pull her out of the sides like 6 times before she figured out how to turn and not accelerate into the sidewalls. It was so hilarious. She is so coordinated, but not for driving!! She did finally get it figured out.

We spent our last night camping by sitting in the hammock, listening to the raging river go by and talking about all the awesome times we had. It is always hard for us to end our camping trips. It had been about 20 days and we still had 10 days of vacation left, but no more camping. I think, no I KNOW without a doubt, we could live in our car on the road for MONTHS and be perfectly happy.

It is so sad when it comes to an end. We went to bed on our last night and woke up at 1am to a RAVE somewhere in the Hood Mountain Canyon.....thump thump thump it went on all night......then into the morning. At 6am alli woke up and said “What is that noise?” We said, “Its music – go back to sleep - -” Shane and I had been up the whole night.....Quiet beach house here we come!!! HA HA!!!!

After Hood River we headed to Lincoln City to meet my parents and sister and her family. We stayed in a 3 story house with 5 bedrooms, a hot tub, an awesome park across the way and a 5 minute walk to the beach. We got to play frisbee and go on bike rides (just Shane and I). The adults would play games after the kids went to bed. We also went to the Oregon Aquarium. The kids played in the hot tub a lot and we went to the beach so they could dig in the sand – too cold to swim. We had great family dinners and lots of quality family time and then it was time to move on again.

After 3 days there it was time to head to Olympia, the end of our trip. We did lots of fun things while we were in Olympia. Shane and I got to ride from his parent's house to the downtown area (12 miles) and have an appetizer (alone!) and we went on a hike through the Tolmie State Park which is right by his parent's house, and we saw Stacy and her family a lot so the cousins go to play lots and lots. The family took us out to Westport for some crabbing (they caught 4 crab and Sue made some amazing crab dip!)

Shane and I also got a day to ourselves so we went on a crazy hike in North Bend, Washington, up this old road – we were on the wrong trail – it was 2000 feet elevation gain in 3 miles and it was CRAZY!!!! Then we went to Seattle and spent time in the Ballard area which was so fun and different than Seattle. A few days later Shane and I got to go with Stacy and Matt back to the trail in North Bend and this time we did it right.

Then we were going to take them to the area of Ballard where we had gone, but the GPS was taking us to some prepaid toll bridge and we were in a car from Matt's work so we couldnt go over the bridge, but to turn around and go south on the highway for 19 miles to Ballard was going to take 55 minutes (Seattle traffic!!) so we ended up in Bellevue, which was AWESOME and we had some great happy hour food, followed by our favorite dessert of all time AFFOGATO – gelato and espresso....then back to olympia to relieve the grandparents of the 4 grandchildren....Our last day there we took the girls to a climbing gym.

Shane and I have been interested in climbing for a while, but there is nowhere to climb in Chico unless you are a student at Chico State. The girls climbed first for about an hour and they were amazing. The guy working there said he had never seen someone Jill's size climb so confidently. (They didnt even have shoes small enough to fit her!!) She is like a little monkey. She climbed up to the ceiling on her first try in about 3 minutes! Alli was amazing too. Both of them just kept coming down and saying, “Can we go again???” They climbed for an hour solid before they pooped out.

Shane and I went back later by ourselves and climbed the more advanced walls. It was amazing and terrifying at the same time. I have never used so many muscles in my life. Shane and I had a great time and did really good ourselves. After about 2.5 hours we were DONE!!! Home we went to put the girls to bed, watch olympics until midnight and get up at 5am to drive home....our vacation was OVER!!

After 11 hours on the road we arrived at our well loved house, our amazingly overgrown garden and our Hazelnut who missed us SOOOOO much. Plus the girls had a huge surprise because poppy had painted their WHOLE ROOM and bathroom pink while we were gone and it looks beautiful. They were in shock. It was great to get home.

Now we have been home for 2 weeks and Shane started work and the girls and I started homeschool (2^nd grade and kindergarten) on the 13^th.Everything is going great. Our fruit trees are amazing and the tomatoes are out of control!! I have made 90 oz of crushed tomatoes, 30 oz of tomato paste, 4 cups of spagetti sauce and 4 cups of pesto!! The fruit doesnt last long enough to make it into anything, we are happy enough to just eat it off the trees. But this heat is so bad for our chickens, we are lucky if we get 2 or 3 eggs a day!! I am ready for Fall I think!!

We are planning our next backpack for Labor Day weekend. YAY!!!

There are quite a few more cute pics here if you havent had enough!! Here is the link to all the Pictures:

Our Vacation Pics

And an exciting school event: Here is a video of what Jill learned in “school” today – How to ride a bike!!!

The first part is Jill at 8am on her tiny little bike learning how to ride....we had been practicing maybe 20 minutes...it fades into Jill tonight with maybe another 20 minutes of practice....but now switched to the big bike that Alli JUST decided she was too big for in June...

Jill was crushing it like a pro. Shane wants to get her a mountain bike now:

Lake Ahjumawi - A state park that you can only get to by kayak, canoe or shallow fishing boat. That is Shasta in the background. We could also see Lassen. We arrived in the afternoon and apparently there is a consistent GALE FORCE westwind in the afternoon. Maybe not quite that fast, but, it made for a 2 hour kayak to our campsite, 2 miles away.....s-l-o-w g-o-i-n-g.....

Shane had girls, which is a lot, in his boat and I had the Cussa kayak loaded with all the camping stuff plus our crazy dog. She kept going back and forth cuz it makes her nervous when she cant see everybody. She thinks she is a present day Lassie and water makes her shift into LIFEGUARD DOG mode. The kayak I had shifts left and right really easily so i was fighting this crazy wind in addition to my annoying dog tipping the boat back and forth. She was riding with Daddy on the way back!! It was an amazingly beautiful ride, though..lots of birds. I want to go back during a high migration time.

Once we made it to the campground, we had to lug our stuff 1/4 mile back and forth to our site. But it was worth it, it was so peaceful and beautiful. Well, that is until Jill started freaking out from sleep deprivation, at least that is what I am blaming it on, and had to stay with me and go to bed while Shane took Alli fishing.

They caught a HUGE fish, Alli was very proud.....

Alli is such a wild girl at heart. She was enthralled watching shane do whatever it is you do to a fish to get it ready to eat - she did not get that from me!! We tossed the fish in the cooler, Alli joined Jill in the tent and Shane and I enjoyed some quiet hammock time, if you ignore the fact that Hazel barked at everything....non-stop all night...Shane wanted to bring her on this trip, I remembered how annoying she was on our backpack. After this trip, Shane is done with bringing Hazel, but she loves staying with Mimi and Poppy so she will be just fine. She is such a Daddy's Doggie though....

This state park does not get a lot of visitors, as was seen on the two hikes we went on... The first hike we went on we saw a coyote. The girls thought it was just someone else's dog. It was huge!! There must be lots of good eats for the coyotes in this area. We were trying to find a hike that led up to some lava caves. We did end up finding the trail junction, where the sign was completely faded from the sun and there was absolutely no trail to be found. It was possible we could have bushwacked through it, but given the high population of rattlesnakes we decided against that.

So instead we decided to stop for lunch....pull out the lunch bag...oh, didnt you pack the peanut butter and jelly, no....didnt you????? So one hour into a hike with 2 hours left to go and we have bread. Shane and I really messed this one up!! I told the girls, lets go back to the kayaks and paddle back to our campground to have lunch, but these girls wanted nothing to do with that...."We dont need food, we want to keep hiking!!" Crazy kids. I was hungry, so Hazel and I headed back to the kayaks, I roped the two kayaks together and got in to head back to camp....but where is Hazel....she is gone..as far as i know, she could have ran back to Shane and the girls, since she is part Lassie and probably thought they might be lost. Luckily after 3 or 4 minutes of calling her name she comes flying through the water and jumps on the kayak. I am not bringing her camping ever again!!

I finally paddle to camp and pack up some lunch stuff, then paddle all the way across the lake to the other campground where Shane and the girls would be ending their hike. I am paddling still pulling the second boat because we will need it to get all of us back to camp. I make Hazel stay in the boat i am pulling so I dont have to deal with her moving all around. We eat lunch, relax and then head back, just in time for the GALE FORCE winds to be in our faces again. Apparently we are slow learners...but we finally make it back to camp and have our dinner, the fish that Shane and Alli caught the night before. Shane is a little challenged trying to cook it on our backpacking cook gear, but it turns out great.

After dinner the girls remember that we were going to hike to the old Ranger Station. Shane and I are tired but they want to go so we do it. It is about a mile there and when we get there we realized it hasnt been inhabited by humans in a long time. We name it the mouse, rat, and bat lodge. After walking up to the door and seeing the ENTIRE floor covered in rat, mouse and bat feces, we high tail it out of there. No hantavirus for us!! We head back to camp and Shane takes both girls out to fish again, but nothing is biting this night...another sleepless night of listening to Hazel barking at everything and then we paddled out on the last morning on a lake of glass.

On our paddle out we are lucky enough to see an osprey dive into the water, catch a fish in its talons and fly off into the far trees with the fish hanging...it was awesome. The girls were sad to go home (and so were we) but there is always another trip not far behind...We leave for Bend in about two weeks.

Raising Cat and Bug

Labels

Bend and Sisters Vacation 2012

Lake Ahjumawi Kayak In Camping

20 Years Together - 20 Miles Backpacking around Bridgeport

First Backpacking Trip with the Girls - Deer Creek - 4 miles