1st Day of School

Don't have a lot of words for this event....I've been doing this for four years now and I still cry.  Just wondering how my Baby Girl is growing up so fast?!?!?

G1 has grown a TON this summer....look how
tall she has gotten!

Excited for the 1st day of school

Amusement Park

All 3 munchkins together

I'm not sure how I forgot this day trip.....but we had a blast driving down to the amusement park for the day back in August.  G1 is a daredevil and LOVES the big roller coasters and rides which is a ton of fun!  And both of the boys enjoy going on the rides for the younger set...W is just getting tall enough to go on a few of the bigger rides.  He isn't a huge daredevil so he was super happy with the rides he was eligible for!!  We had such a great day and just love that we are out of the napping stage and can enjoy fun day trips like this!

Day-cation

School is quickly approaching and there were just a few little day trips we wanted to take before the kids were back in school. I must say, I'm pretty proud of us for getting through the "summer activity to do" list that we made at the beginning of the summer. We have been crazy busy this summer but we have had a ton of varied experiences and I don't think the kids can say they have been bored at all! Today, we took a day-cation to a state park near our house....the main agenda item was to try out our new inflatable kayak. We had SUCH a GREAT time paddling around the river. It was overall pretty peaceful and way beautiful.  No pics of us in the kayak though...we didn't know how wet we would end up so we didn't want to risk our camera.  Very happy to report there were no overboards. The view from the river was so serene and the water snake bobbing his head in the water couldn't ruin my good time.   After kayaking, we climbed around on the rocks.  Since the state park is focused on the history of the Oregon trail, we headed over to check out the historical significance of the area as well.  My pictures uploaded in some wonky order, so excuse the disorganization.  It will not fix it and I have wasted too much time trying to get things lined up!

Climbing up a steep rock



Can you imagine crossing this in a covered wagon? 
Over 500,000 American pioneers did. 

 area of the river we were paddling. 
Across the river is "River Joe's
winter cabin"

The sunflowers this year are just amazing!

The historical aspect of this park is really amazing to me.  The journey of the American pioneer always has intrigued me.  Now that I am a mom and find long car trips with three children to be challenging in the respect of how do I entertain/feed/prevent sickness/manage diaper blow outs/schedule pit stops/etc, I have even more respect for these courageous people.  I mean, can you imagine a 5 month trip in a wagon where you actually have to cook, do laundry, find your own water, hunt your own food, and protect your family from all sorts of dangers?   I cannot.  I guess that is why I found these rocks acknowledging that people truly did make the journey successfully really neat. 

And, to prove that I would make a horrible pioneer, I saw a snake in the grass (two snakes in one day is way too much for this girl!).  What did I do??? Run off screaming and leave my children near the snake.  So much for me trying not to pass on my fear of snakes to my kids.  In my defense, the hubby was near the kids and could have saved them if needed.  

Register rock showcases signatures of many of the pioneers
who made it to this point in their journey to
 Oregon, Washington, or California

If you can read this, it explains the following pictures. 

Signature of 7yr old who drew the Indian head in picture.
Yeah, I know it's sideways.  Blogger is not cooperating!

Indian head sketched into rock by 7 yr old

Back to School tea party

G1's friend hosted a "Back to School" tea party for a group of school friends.  It was so cute to see all the little girls dressed up in their fancy dresses and so excited about it.  (There were a lot little flowergirl dresses getting some use!)  After the big party, we took G1 and her friend along with the rest of our family to a heated outdoor swimming pool.  After swimming in the heated wonderful-ness of that pool, the fam is going to be pretty hard pressed to get me back in the freezing waters of our local water park! 

Golf

G1 once again joined Junior Golf this summer and had a great time out on the course.  Each week I volunteered to drive a cart with a group and had the opportunity to watch G1 and a few other girls take what they had learned in their lessons and play a "real" game of golf.  The boys LOVE LOVE LOVE riding on the golf cart and were pretty well behaved....well, except the one yelling/whooping incident that I thought was going to end with us being kicked of the course.  Instead, it ended with this little old man (who I had thought was going to tell me to control my child when he came booking over from a different hole!) telling me he is so glad to see "youngsters" learning the game and enjoying getting outside and playing golf.  Whew!  Huge relief and a big thank you to this sweet Grandpa who understood I was trying my darnedest to teach my 4 year son the etiquette of golf and that the cart IS NOT a horse and you are NOT a cowboy.

2nd place

On the last day of Junior Golf, they have a tournament, and for the second year in a row, G1 earned 2nd place.  She was pretty thrilled with herself.  She likes to point out the the golfer on the top of her trophy is a girl...wearing a golfing skirt.  Her kind of lady.

Camping

We made our (almost) annual trip to Redfish Lake and once again, had an incredible time.  We added it up and we have been camping in this same vicinity 6 of the 8 years we have lived here.  The weather did not disappoint and we got in our freezing temperatures at night and the USA Today designation as "coldest place in the US" while were were there. Thank goodness for great sleeping bags!

Sawtooth Wilderness Area-were our hike led us

 Our first day we (or shall I say the kids and their Dad) swam in the 67 degree water (that is the average high in late July) while I held down the beach and played in the sand with G2 (he wasn't a big fan of the cold water either!).  The kids & I enjoyed a paddle boat ride around the lake powered pretty much exclusively by Dad since G1 wanted to sit in the front and "help" which put me in the back relaxing and holding G2 and enjoying the beautiful scenery.  We also met up with some friends who were also camping and spent a big chunk of hours playing in their inflatable raft.

View from Stanley--it is so much prettier
 than the pictures capture

 The next day we took the kids on an approximately 7 mile hike on which they did pretty well.  G1 hiked the entire time, W made the trek up but got a little tired on the way down, and G2 rode in the hiking backpack for about 98% of the time.  The view from the end of our hike was breathtaking and worth every step!

 That afternoon we went and soaked in some hot springs in the Salmon River.  They were pretty stinking but the hot, hot water felt good and it also felt good to get the dust we had acquired from hiking washed off us a bit.

W needed a little bit of encouragement from his
Big Sister to finish up the hike

Our final day camping we went to the Fish Hatchery.  We always love seeing the fingerling Salmons all the way up to the big Salmon who have made their way up from the Pacific Ocean.  The kids liked trying their hand at the free fishing offered in the stocked kids' pond as well....but once again, to no avail!  We love camping in this area.  It is so remote, so quiet, so beautiful.  Even though we leave with a layer of grunge and dirt, we also leave with a ton of good memories!