Day at the Gorge

Kelly, John, and the girls Annabelle and Lucy have been here this week for a visit.  We all went up to the Gorge for a fun day at the waterfalls.

Larkin behind Latourell Falls.

Joshua found a fun hiding place on the way up to the bridge at Multnomah Falls.

The kids all made it over the log jam at Oneonta Gorge without much help this year.  They're getting so big.  We startled a snake eating a salamander.  Noah thought it was pretty funny when the snake pooped on me which was pretty entertaining for all the people around as well. 

We got to the falls pretty dry having scaled the walls, but all got wet swimming at the falls.

The kids trying to get to the falls.

After trying to talk the kids into it I figured I'd better do it.

Some guy took some awesome photos of the kids dancing under the waterfalls.  I gave him my email and hope he gets around to sending the pictures.

Snow Day's

We had a nice little snow storm come in yesterday and it's snowing again pretty good right now.  One and a half days of no school.  I've been working from home too and playing in the snow.  We've got about six inches of snow out there now.  It's been quite a few years since we've had good snow like this here at home.

 Bear loves the snow.  He's like a little child out there eating all he can get.

 What a good boy.

The kids have been out in the snow on and off all day having a lot of fun.  Wish we had some snow toys and a hill.  Joshua spent a lot of time out back making a snow fort to protect him from the snow ball fights.  

What's your favorite thing about the snow?

Joshua: Building a fortress
Arwen: That we get to throw snow balls at people.
Larkin: That we could have fun, eat the snow, have snow ball fights, and that we have fun, and get to have hot chocolate with marshmallows, that we get to play with the snow, eat the snow, and that we get a sled in the snow, and we get to eat the snow from the sky, that we got sooooo fun.
Sarah: I like snow days more than I like Christmas. I like being with my family, eating treats, and having fun, and playing outside and then getting cozy afterwards.  Bear has made it especially fun this year.
Noah: I don't know...making snow fortresses.
Aaron: I get to work from home and play with the kids in between meetings and work. 

 So fast.  We brought Bear to the park and there was another dog there he played with.  It was fun to see him being so wild and run so fast and not even be able to keep up with the other dog.

Because poor Aaron didn't make it into the fun family picture above...(Sarah here...don't his eyes look so pretty?  Jealous!)

Christmas Vacation

Santa made his visit and the kids loved it.  Santa's my oldest brother David.

Joshua's pet inch worm he found at the wharf in San Francisco. 

Sourdough bread creations on the wharf.

Larkin's street.

Haight and Ashbury looking for treasures for the kids.  

Instead of lot's of stocking suffers we gave them cash to spend "wisely" 

Us and the puppy out by the chicken coop.

The kids were excited to get a dog.

Here's a picture with all the cousins.

And another.

A hike at round valley.

Noah at Round Valley.

Arwen beat me and all the other uncles at target practice.  She's pretty good.

Day at the Beach

After Larkin's soccer game on Saturday we took off to the beach.  We rolled into Tilllamook around noon and had some lunch and ice-cream at the cheese factory.  Then headed down to Cape Kiwanda to see how the kids fared at climbing the dune.

We "raced" to the top and Larkin won.  Later she came up to me and said something to the effect of "Thank's Dad for letting me win, but I know Dad...I was going to die I was so tired"  

Noah and Joshua spent a lot of their time hunting jelly fish.

Joshua's prize jelly.  We "pickled" a few of these this morning in a little spice jar I had sitting around.  They look cool but we couldn't get air into them to make them float.  

The 2nd time we all went to the top of the dune I sat down and watched them play on the rope swing and thought that'd be a great picture.  "Hey kids," I said, "I'll be right back...well, better give me 15 minutes or so."  I talked Sarah into coming back up as I grabbed the camera.

Noah swinging off the edge of the world...

And Joshua...

And Sarah!

Arwen did it too but I only got video of that.

I was running down the hill at a thousand miles an hour when I looked off tho my left and here comes Noah zipping past me.  I speed up and fumble with the camera.  The end of the dune was approaching and I couldn't get enough distance between me and Noah to get the shot so I flipped it on and blindly pointed in his direction and took a few shots and got lucky.  

We did one last climb and run before heading home for the evening.  

It was a perfect day at the beach.

Zombie Apocalypse Run

Sarah and I ran in the Zombie Apocalypse Run yesterday evening.  It was full of helicopters out "hunting" for zombies, people in hazmat suits, and military out to keep survivors safe.  There were even 3 huge machines out showing off their impressive "punkin chunkin" skills.  It was awesome!

You could choose to be a Zombie or a Survivor.

We chose zombie.

All survivors had velcro flags around their waists and if they crossed the finish line with a flag they survived.

 It was a little over a 5k and the survivors got a 2 min head start.  It was a trail run and was gorgeous!  We went through the spooky woods, corn stalks and farms.

It was a lot of fun growling and having people scatter when you caught up to them.  I'd chase some of them down for a while till they tired out then go for their flags.

Both Sarah and I got a few kills under our belt and had a great time.  One of Sarah's kills fought back, got his flag from Sarah and ran off course into the fields.  (Sarah here--Aaron is being modest.  He got lots of kills and I almost had 2.  Aaron was one of the very first "zombies" in.  We went to Olive Garden after to re-fuel.  You should have seen the looks and heard the comments.  One old man was disgusted and had some choice words for Aaron.  It was great.)

First Day of School

Joshua was totally excited that he got a Mario backpack this year.

I can't remember ever being excited about school.

They have a new school location this year that they are all excited about.

Joshua and his backpack hook.

At his desk. 

Noah's still excited. 

 Arwen has an awesome underground tunnel to her dungeon classroom.

Which looks like a normal classroom once you get there.

Here's our 12 man Hood to Coast team.  We were team Mustache.  Each van has 6 runners and we all run 3 legs to cover the 199 miles from Mount Hood to the beach at Seaside.

Here's our Van the morning of HTC.

And again up on the mountain.

And again on the start line...just a few more minutes to go.  Sarah's getting nervous, so are the rest of us.

Sarah's first leg was a Very Hard due to the rapid 2000 foot elevation drop over 5.64 miles.  The scenery is beautify though.  She did great.  The 2nd leg is the worst because you just ran your heart out and then sit in a car and your muscles tighten up.  It's hard enough to walk let alone run your second leg.  Sarah's 2nd leg was through the middle of scary downtown Portland for 7.3 miles at night, she handed off the baton at about 10:00 PM.  I finished my leg that night at 1:30 in the morning.  When we were all done with the 2nd leg we drove to the next exchange point excited to maybe get an hour or two of sleep before we started up again on our 3rd leg.  I was falling asleep at the wheal and turned the driving over to Bethany, we only had a few more minutes to the exchange.  But there was traffic problems and it ended up taking an hour or so.  We spread out a tarp and got in our sleeping bags or just sprawled out in the car for a little sleep.  Somehow the few minutes we got were enough to feel a lot better when Sarah started our 3rd leg off.  The 3rd leg was pretty exciting because when you were done, you were DONE!      

We relaxed on the beach and waiting for the other van to finish their 3rd leg so we could all run over the finish line together.  The weather was perfect.

The whole team at the finish line.  Our total time was 28 hours 56 minuets.  That's an average of an 8:43 min/mile over 199 miles.  Pretty awesome.     

We started talking "next year" on the way home.