7.25.12
Indian Beach
Brent decided to try surfing his little white water kayak in the shallow waves. I liked it because it feels a lot safer to me than being on the river. He liked it becasue it was, well...fun! I think we have a keeper!
all ready to shove out to sea
It was Oliver's first year really getting to *play* at the beach. Last year, he was hardly mobile and we kept him in a pack and play for safe keeping. This year he LOVED it. Absolutely. And it is the lowest stress activity to do with all our kids. We set up camp and stay put, and they stay put and can play for hours. Easy! This is Ollie playing at the little stream, which flows across the beach into the sea.
Here Brent was pushing the kids around in the calm, ankle deep water.
a little more than 3 weeks old here
we set up the small tent on the beach this time, and that was the best idea ever!
Ollie eating snacks in the tent, not such a great idea.
This was about as close as Toby would get to being in the boat and the water. Maybe next year?
7.21.12
At almost three weeks postpartum, I was feeling pretty good and was wanting to get out for some fresh air and even a little exercise! I asked Brent to find us a little hike...somewhere we've never been before (a challenge!).
Cape Horn:
The Washington side of the Colombia River Gorge...beautiful!
Breastfeeding + hiking = double calorie torcher
most of the trails we have been on in the Gorge are pretty easy, quick jaunts to a waterfall or an overlook. NOT so much with this hike. It is a pretty long, pretty steep, pretty rocky switchback hike...but with GREAT views. NOT what I was expecting for us to do at 3 weeks postpartum. I didn't bring water or diapers or anything!
It ended up being about a three mile hike, which normally would be a great family hike for us...
if we were prepared. But also there was no signage on diverting trails, and so it wouldn't be too difficult to get lost. From what Brent read online, it was supposed to be a loop to an overlook, a waterfall, and then back to our car. We kept hiking and never found the connecting trail back to our car. We could have kept hiking for while and ended up down the busy highway from our car, but we decided to forgo the loop, and just head back to our car the way we came...even though it ended up being longer. At least we knew where we were going and when we were going to get there! Ah! Only stressful for a moment there until we decided to go back the way we came. But overall, a beauty of a hike.
we found the waterfall...almost no water this time of year.
Toby in front of Cape Horn overlook (the actually geological feature)...
I took a few pictures of the kids with my dslr camera...more practice!
Cape Horn
Uh oh! What's going on here? Deep thought? Boredom? Impending adolescence??
I'm a little worried. :)
the toddler is a very determined hiker...but hiking up a talus field is just too much for him.
...so he will ride on Brent's shoulders instead!
another serious shot of our big laddie
and our medium laddie
I really wanted to get a picture of Ollie's big round eyes, long lashes, beautiful lips and baby curls (before they were cut off).
Like I said we had a very lovely time on the hike, despite the moment or two of worry and stress...but the funniest part of this story happened the very next day.
Brent subscribes to this Portland hikers online forum, and the next day there was a review of this hike on the forum...which was obviously done by someone who passed us on the hike because they wrote about US!! Haha! Here's what they had to say:
"But I mentioned this is a new trail, right? Ouch! The rocks are pretty loose. Poles tend to be useless, as they plunge into the cracks with each plant. And some genius even designed one segment with seven or eight switchbacks down one of these slopes. I saw a family coming off that, two kids walking, each parent carrying another, one parent seemingly ready to scream at the other for "getting them into this mess!" "
Here's the link if you want to read it yourself! Which, by the way, I wasn't made at Brent for "getting us into this mess", but I think that either Brent or I may have been worried at that moment that we were not going to find the right trail back to our car. It was shortly thereafter we decided to go back the way we came. Still funny though!
The incredibly talented
Tara has done it again. At two weeks old, Milo had his pictures taken...and I LOVE the way they turned out!
Here are some that I took with my dslr...I thought I'd try to learn a thing or two from her:
I don't have photo shop to touch the pictures up the way she does,
but I think some of mine turned out pretty swell!
Tara also took some pictures of her little guy, and I wish she had them posted somewhere public for me to link to because they are absolutely breath-taking!!
7.11.12
Just a little more than a week after Milo was born, we finally got to have a family beach day. It was beautiful, fun and relaxing. We love the beach!
Milo & I
an instagram self portrait
The kids played, we had a picnic, and I planted it on a blanket and watched it all.
Fun times were had by all!
It's kind of amazing to look at these pictures now and see how much Milo has already grown! I thought he was big then...wow! He looks tiny.
cutest little pudgy toddler foot EVER!
Someone took an accidental swim...and it wasn't too warm!
I love the bold, bright colors!
Our first pictures together with baby...how did we not get any earlier?
Indian Beach, Ecola State Park.
A new favorite...mostly because it is the absolute closest non-city beach.
And also because someone was playing the bagpipes up on a cliff above the beach one time.
