The Wood Between the Worlds: October 2011

10/31/2011 | Author: kate

8/20-8/26:
The story starts with August 20, our 12th anniversary. Many discussions had been made and babysitters had been talked to about Brent and I finally taking a FUN anniversary trip somewhere NEW, and by ourselves...except, we would have brought Ollie because he's only one year old. But then we heard that Brent's brother Danny would be getting home from his LDS mission in Singapore and having his homecoming party the day after our anniversary. And because we don't want to be out of the family loop too much, we decided to go to Utah again...for the second time this summer. What nice family we are, huh? So we decided to plan our anniversary celebration in Utah, where my mom agreed to watch the boys for us. And that was very great! Then I had this brilliant idea: we should climb Lone Peak for our 12th Anniversary!! EPIC! That mountain is Brent's childhood backyard. He grew up playing on it. I've heard so many tales of climbing it, and yet we never have. We tried to once, when we were newlyweds. But we attempted our climb at the end of October, and so after about half way, there was too much snow and I turned into an icicle. Anyway, I thought that would be the BEST present for Brent. And I was very excited to be in good enough shape and not pregnant, so that I could do something like that! And to top it all off, Brent's brother Jonny and his wife Emily were going to come with us!! EXCELLENT! {I think I'll do a separate post all about Lone Peak}.

So, it was set...and for the second time in two years , we found ourselves driving to Utah on our anniversary!
8/20:

Ya know, the honest to goodness truth is that I LOVED driving to Utah on our anniversary. I know it doesn't sound romantic and great, but it gives us 14 hours straight to sit and talk to each other without any distractions. I am absolutely positive that we grow closer together on these trips!

clouds in the rear view mirror!

We stopped and had a lovely dinner in Boise at Goodwood Barbecue to celebrate our family birthday.

8/21:

On Danny's homecoming:

I really wanted to kick myself on this occasion because there were so many family members all in one place, and I didn't take one picture! So I had to be sneaky and borrow this cute picture off of Danny's *special friend*'s facebook profile picture. Sorry Mindy...I hope you'll forgive me...gosh, you kids are cute! Danny's homecoming reminded me a lot of Brent's because he had a girl there waiting for him. Now honestly, I wasn't *waiting* for Brent on his mission, per se...but I was VERY happy when he got back!

8/22:
This is the Place Heritage Park:
My mom had tons of leftover tickets to this park that she bought for all the guests she had staying with her this summer. It had been years since we have been there and it was fun to go see some real deal Utah culture!

brothee love on the train ride

{and wrong camera setting again...geez!}

inside a hogan with grandma and cousins!

what a cute kid!!

it's funny to think that I actually miss this arid Utah dryscape. Something about it is just so...earthy.

For a couple of years we lived less than a mile away from this place while Brent was in graduate school...at University Village. I used to run past this park everyday, as I trained for two marathons while we lived there. MAJOR nostalgia!

SO bright! We don't often need sunglasses in Oregon.

breathtaking

LOVE Utah.

Now here's something incredible and random that happened- I just happened to bump into this amazing lady named Kris, whom I had only met on the internet. I recognized her and her family from her blog. Kris contacted me almost a year ago after she lost her beautiful little baby boy and it's been nice to connect with her ever since. What a lovely coincidence that we ran into each other, since we had been planning to meet but had been too busy on our previous trips. She invited us for dinner at her house the night before we left Utah, and that was lovely too.

Panning for *gold*:

how nice to get out of the hot sun for a while and splash in the cool stream!

here I am with my *gold nugget*

Everyone really enjoyed the pioneer activities and the sights to see there...

...but THIS by FAR is the best picture!

{sasparilla. mmm}

8/23:

Lone Peak, more on that later!

8/24:

A day to recover from Lone Peak:

We had a lazy morning, slept in, tried to get our bodies to move again after our HUGE hike. Then we *tried* to go out to lunch at the Silver Fork Lodge in Big Cottonwood Canyon.

for those of you who knew us "way back when", this is where we stayed the night we were married. Our reception was up at Brighton and we stayed here before leaving on our honeymoon. So in staying with the "anniversary" theme, we decided to take a BEAUTIFUL drive up here for lunch. Brent REALLY wanted a Reuben Sandwich, since this was the first place he ever had one. But by the time we finally dragged our bums up there, there had just barely switched over to the dinner schedule and would not serve us a Reuben. SO LAME! It was a charming idea...maybe we'll try again next summer.

Our next relaxing activity was to go to the park. Actually, we had hoped all our Salt Lake friends would join us there for a picnic. I guess our Salt Lake friends don't love us anymore though, because nobody showed up! :-( No joke! But honestly, it was pretty late notice, AND it was the first week of school for a lot of our friends there. So I really don't blame anyone. But I really hope we're all still friends and we can meet next summer!

it all turned out ok though. We got to enjoy one of our very favorite parks--Sugarhouse Park! And the evening was LOVELY...we had good cloud cover and it cooled off just a bit.

Ollie had a joyous time crawling through this tube and playing with his brothees and his deedle!

I'm so glad that my kids still REALLY love playgrounds...because I STILL really love playgrounds.

{and doesn't Toby have the BEST Nacho Libre smile?}

Next we made a little visit to our sissy:

It was honestly the most lovliest of Utah summer evenings. The kind where you can kick off your shoes and lay on the grass for hours, looking up at the clouds, finding the shapes they make.

We are SO grateful that Elsa's resting place is so peaceful and secluded. We couldn't have asked for a better spot for her! And it was SO nice to be able to visit her just a few days after her birthday.

8/25:

Another relaxing day, this time with family. We made our own REUBEN sandwiches...and we invited Brent's nearby siblings to come and join us:

YUM!

8/26:
Trip back to Oregon:

And like I said, we brought grandma back with us to stay for a week!!

Malad River Gorge

This is a lovely little place we've stopped at before on our drive. It's just outside of Twin Falls. The first time we came here was a few months after Elsa died and we kept seeing {and hearing} Meadowlarks everywhere. This place has a special spot in my heart.

on this day we just got brilliant blue skies, larger than life sunflowers,

and some raging water far below.

our first rest stop back in Oregon...and the boys are doing push ups!

Get your BUM down, Joshua!

I can't stop staring at my adorable baby and also the sunset in the Colombia River Gorge, as we approach home.

adventures, anniversary, brighton, Elsa, idaho, park hopping, summer, utah, vacations | comments (2)

a tale of two visits

10/30/2011 | Author: kate

South Slope, Mt. St. Helens, Ape Cave, Trail of two Forests, and Lava Canyon:

8/10 and 8/31:

We found a new favorite little day trip in southern Washington. It's one of those neat places that we will take out of town visitors to when they come to stay with us. ;-)

Starting on 8/10, we set off for Ape Cave, on a whim, after our chiropractor visit, since his office is in southern Washington. This has been on our "to visit" list for a few years.

Here we are at the cave entrance, getting ready for the descent:

One thing about this trip was that we didn't think about how cold it was going to be inside the cave. Down at sea level, it was a hot August day. Then up in the mountains the temperatures were a bit brisk. But inside the cave it is always 40 degrees! Brrrrr....we didn't think to wear long pants and sturdy shoes, let alone wear jackets! It was a cold ~2 mile underground trek, made possible by our dim lights which we DID think to bring. This cave is a marvel! It is a long lava tube on the south slope of Mt. St. Helens. The cave is thousands of years old, not from the more recent 1980 eruption because there was no lava flow in 1980. We learned it is rare for a volcanic eruption to have lava flow...the conditions need to be just right! We had to keep reassuring our kids that this cave is perfectly safe to hike through. The other interesting thing about this trip was that they were in the process of filming a movie in the cave, so there was movie making equipment and props everywhere. We asked the ranger about it and found out that the movie is a thriller, called Mine Games {which I don't think we'll be seeing...not into thrillers}. But it was kind of cool to see that process.

This picture was on our way out. Since we didn't have jackets, Brent brought this blanket for Toby to wrap up in, and that pretty much did the trick. Don't call CPS on me, the baby was bundled up, I promise! Everyone was fine. The only thing is we could've enjoyed it more with better gear.

On the way from the cave to the main road there is a picnic wayside called A Trail of two Forests, with a little trail that leads to some pretty awesome lava casts of trees!

inside a lava cast of a tree is a series of tunnels that you can crawl through!

Our last stop on this day was a little hike into gorgeous lava canyon. Calling it an amazing hike would be an understatement. We were very disappointed to find that our camera stopped working only a little way into this hike(!). Our new little pocket-sized Sony Cybershoot. {Thankfully it was under warrenty.} We were understandable upset about not being able to document this amazing hike, so we set our minds on coming back VERY soon with a working camera...and better equipment for cave exploration!

On 8/31 we decided to go back. We had returned from a quick trip to Utah, and my mom rode back with us to visit for a week. On this occasion we met up with my oldest sister and her family, and we showed them all this amazing little place.

This time we were wearing jackets and sturdy shoes, AND Brent brought our propane lantern which totally made the hike more enjoyable.

there's our gang underneath "the meatball"

when we reached the point where you could not go on without ducking, Brent kindly took the kids who wanted to crawl to the point where you could go no further.

Next we stopped and had lunch at the Trail of two Forests