Mt St Helens 2008

We spent all of last week down camping at Mt. St. Helens with another family. We camped on Swift reservoir (our absolutely most favorite campground) and on our way home Saturday we hit the visitors' centers on the north side of the mountain. The views were fantastic.

We left on Monday and got rained on until Wednesday (oh well, whatcha gonna do?) We had to hang tarps everywhere and cover the tables and firepits.

Everything was just drenched!

But once the sun came out on Thursday morning, things were much better and the weather was just gorgeous! We played on the lake, did some hiking to a couple really neat waterfalls, and bummed around the campground.









And on the way home the views of the mountain from the Visitors Centers were breathtaking!





This is coldwater lake, one of the lakes formed by the eruption blocking a creek. It was really calm and soothing. So quiet... then we arrived :)


Can't wait until next year!

Girls' Camp 2008

On Monday, Josh and I went to Girls' camp and helped out with the 4th year girls' overnight hike. We started at Zion's Camp in Belfair, and drove about an hour to Green Mountain. Not really a mountain, but that's what they called it. We hiked about a mile up to the campground and set up camp. Then we did a three mile each direction hike up to a really pretty view of Puget Sound. We could see Seattle, Tacoma, and a whole lot of the sound and islands. The view was amazing. Here are some pics of our hike and camping with the girls.






As we hiked down after our campout, all the gear was loaded into our van and driven back down to the parking lot. It was a lot of stuff and the van was very well loaded :)

Overall it was a lot of fun... and the girls were fun too :)

No more monkeys...

or so we wish. Joshy is quite the little climber. We take him off the dining room table every 30 seconds, it seems. He's great at going up, but not so good at getting back down. He's frequently found "stuck" somewhere that he could easily get down from, but doesn't know it. Here are a couple pictures we took the other day of him screaming on top of the little table in the kitchen. You'd think he was 8 feet up, not 18" up...

Winter in July??

We went up to Blue Lake on Friday (near Mt. Baker) to do a simple 1 mile hike each direction. We were all ready for a nice warm day to spend together and have a picnic by the lake. When we arrived, this is what we found!





Yup, you see right, that's snow. And lots of it! At the parking lot there was snow only in shadowy places and in the saddles between hills where it had gotten extra deep. But as we hiked on, the snow got to be more and more prevalent. We had all come in shorts, capris, and the like, so we were totally not prepared for snow. We actually couldn't find the trail! So we asked another hiker who was familiar with the terrain which direction to go. Eventually we got to the lake, which was beautiful, but still frozen over.

There were glaciers with water running beneath them leaving really cool looking snow/ ice formations. In places where it was open to the ground there were little flowers and plants growing already. I think Blue Lake is only now getting to its spring!




But putting our cold, wet feet aside, we had fun and it was a neat thing to go play in snow in July :) We took some really nice pictures of Mt. Baker and some waterfalls on the way back home.




And a gorgeous sky over Puget Sound to top it all off!

Redmond Derby Days

We went to Derby days with Grandma and Grandpa. There was a fun parade, blow up toys to climb on, sidewalk chalk, a sand pit, sprinklers, and lots of good fun. Here are some pics!
Becca's first pony petting

This really cool bike... I want one of these :)

Becca got to meet a Storm Trooper!

A clown tried to make friends with Josh

And this was Josh's reaction

And Isabel has officially participated in her first political event. She marched in the parade with Grandpa for Larry Ishmael. They handed out pamphlets all along the route. She had a blast!

Happy Independence Day!

I hope everybody had a fun 4th of July, I know we did! The rain was a little present in the morning, but cleared up nicely for the afternoon and evening. Here are some fun pics of our day!


First we went to the Redmond 3rd Ward breakfast and Kids' Parade.









Then we spent the evening with Don and Jill, and Grandma and Grandpa T down in Tacoma. We had a BBQ and fireworks.