Back to School

 

The time has come!!  To head back to school

Here are John and Emma heading to the bus stop on the first day

Grant heading to the bus

And the high school kids heading to the bus

After the kids had all gone to school Scott and I went to hike Beacon Rock

It was beautiful

School sports wait for no man - and were not impacted much by the strike as the coaches are under a different contract.  So cross country, soccer and tennis were already in full swing by the time school stared.  Here is Grant at a cross country meet.

Matthew at tennis - on the left in red

Anna at soccer - nearest in white

I took John with me to girl scouts on this day - and he was grouchy about it

Emma always wants to bake

More cross country

Trying to get John accustomed to wearing a white shirt and tie to church.  He will be a deacon and can pass the sacrament in the new year.  He's not digging the white shirt thing - I've usually let him wear a polo shirt in the past and he thinks that is overly restrictive.

Another off Friday another hike with Scott.

We hiked Cape Horn - the full circle.  I think it was close to 7 or 8 miles.

Doing some puzzles!!

More soccer

John is trying to convince me all the time that he needs a new video game

More baking

A very wet cross country meet today - the kids ran almost straight to the car after finishing the run

Lots of activities that day and driving around - cross country, Emma's soccer practice, getting Anna and and Matthew from their sports, then activity girls / boys and young men / young women

So busy!!  I take my school work in the car and try to work on it while we are going all over.

Grant left his hoodie at the cross country meet so we swung back and got it after activity girls / boys.  I'm glad we found it - it was very wet.

Scott and I got to go to lunch one school day

Emma getting into the fray at soccer

Puzzles and watching general conference

Scott and I went to a jazz event in Portland

Lots of fun

Emma's tidied up bed!!

Hiking Cape Horn again

Homecoming - Matthew went out to meet his friends for dinner and then went to the dance - they went in a group

Anna and part of her homecoming group

They had fun at homecoming but were quite tired by the end of it

Mt. Hood

We went on a little family vacation to Mt. Hood a few weeks ago.  We had so much fun.  Here are a lot of pictures from our week.

Our Rental Condo

We rented a condo.  It wasn't very crowded - I think those condos get more use during the winter, so it was pretty peaceful.  There was a statue of bigfoot in the condo.  Some people were afraid to walk by it in the dark.

Living room

Kitchen

One of the bedrooms

It was a nice place.

Timberline

Here we are at Timberline Lodge.  I'd never been there before.

The architecture was very interesting.  And lots of little details like door knockers that were unique.

Great views and thin air.

This is where Matthew had started his backpacking trip a week or so before.  We hiked around the lodge area a little bit and I felt pretty winded right away.  Such a high elevation!

Close up Mt. Hood

We saw lots of "through hikers" or hikers who are hiking/backpacking a long distance and stop at Timberline for food or rest.  The Pacific Crest Trail goes right by the lodge.

We hiked a little ways and then the girls wanted to turn back.  Anna wasn't feeling her best that day and Emma just gets tired easily so we turned back and the boys went on.

Boy hike!  Matthew probably felt like an expert on hiking by then.

The Timberline area was really cool.

Trillium Lake

We went to Trillium Lake one day.  It was so beautiful!

We hiked a little bit

Soaking up nature!

And then we swam and kayaked and paddle boarded

I think this is me and Matthew in the kayak and Anna on the paddle board

After the lake we got ice cream in Government Camp

Yum!!

Ski Bowl

We went to do all the activities at Ski Bowl one day, starting with the alpine slide.

Riding the ski lift was scary the first time for some.

But pretty soon we were all old pros.

We had to take turns going alone since we had an odd number.

We went on the alpine slide a whole bunch of times.  So fun!

Then on to other ski bowl activities.

The little race cars

Aqua ball thing

Whatever these are

Bungee trampoline

We did a few other things like the summer sledding hill, mini golf and the maze.

It was probably only 80 degrees but I felt so warm and dehydrated after just a short while out there.

We fed the horses

And some went for a little ride

We were so hot we went and got more ice cream and went swimming.

Swimming

Every evening we spent 1 1/2 to 2 hours at the condo pool.  Scott had a bunch of work he had to get done so he was able to work on it for a few hours each evening while the rest of us swam.

There were these inflatable tigers at the pool which everyone had fun with.

The kids just swam and swam - usually the pool wasn't too busy.

Little Lake Hike

This was a short hike near our condo.   I went running there one morning - a truly terrible run.  The scenery was beautiful but I was huffing and puffing so much at that high altitude.  Hiking there was nice and easy though.

Lots of fun to explore

Enid Lake Hike

Another short hike where we found a lot of wild blueberries and almost got hit by bikers several times.  Gotta be careful!!

Emma packed her own luggage and I didn't check it.  She forgot a hoodie or light jacket and had to borrow mine most of the week.  That's why she is swimming in that coat.  She liked picking blueberries.

On the way home from Mt. Hood we stopped in Cascade Locks and got ice cream.

It was a great trip!

Goodbye Bigfoot!!

Maybe we'll see you again another year!