Pumpkin Patch

Our traditional fall-time adventure to the pumpkin patch.  👍🏻🎃

Box Canyon Camping

Skeptically inflating our tent.

The babies of the families.

The view.

Tinfoil dinners and s'mores done right.

An intense round of Memory

Eating the chips the kids dropped in the dirt. Yummm

The weekend before Maisie started Kindergarten,we went camping with our good friends and their five kids. We decided that we would go for a more "real" camping experience and actually be further than 5 minutes from our houses. Sidenote: last year when we went camping we were literally a couple miles away from home, but I was 34 weeks pregnant, sooo yeah, better safe than sorry right? Anyway, we headed up to Island Park (about 45 minutes from Yellowstone) to find a camp site that could accommodate our large party. We ended up finding a nice spot in Box Canyon right above Henry's Fork river (world renowned for trout fishing and some of the best fly fishing in the states!) AKA hardcore bear territory-good thing we had bear spray! It turned out to be a great weekend to go because with all the forest fires plus wheat and hay harvest, the air where we live was thick with smoke and dust, so we got into the mountains just enough to get out of it. This trip we also decided to for-go our usual go-to camping food (hot dogs) and instead decided to do some tinfoil dinners and make use of some cast iron skillets and dutch ovens which was quite delicious. Breakfast turned out awesome too, we made pancakes and breakfast burritos. It turned out to be a really fun, albeit short, camping trip. Next year I want to camp at LEAST two nights. 

p.s don't trust an inflatable tent... ever! haha

Big Springs

with the pluggie...

after I pulled the pluggie out. haha! So serious!

See the trout?

After Mesa Falls we traveled another 20 or so minutes to Big Springs near Island Park, to feed the wild trout. Unfortunately the fish were a little shy and so we were only able to see a handful of them rather than the normally large amount that frequent the area. Even though the fish didn't show up the place was beautiful! The water was crystal clear- plus it almost looked like clovers were growing under water (reference trout picture above).

I'm glad we were able to see so many different things in Idaho before the weather turns for the worse. Making friends with locals has really changed our outlook on Idaho. It truly is a beautiful place with so many things to see and even when we get homesick for our beloved Oregon, I am still happy that we live here right now.

Lost Lake

On our way out of Hood River we decided to find a place called Lost Lake. It wasn't on our way home or anything, but we wanted to take advantage of seeing as much of Oregon as possible before we move. So after a slight hiccup- a flat tire and a longer than anticipated stop into Les Schwab for new tires, we were finally on our way. The drive was more than worth it- maybe not for the faint of heart or one who is prone to motion sickness, but beautiful country roads with breathtaking views of Mt. Hood was a nice precursor to the amazingness that is Lost Lake. Austin and I couldn't get over how incredible the place was. We were kicking ourselves that we didn't have any camping gear with us, or we would have stayed the night on the spot. The lake was the perfect temperature, no motorized boats so it was crystal clear and quiet, cheap paddle board, paddle boat, canoe and rowboat rentals, fresh Oregon cherries and did I say it was incredibly beautiful? Austin and I made a vow to come back before we move to camp for a night or two, but unfortunately it might not work out as previously planned. Dang us and our procrastination- those boxes won't pack themselves you know.

Unfortunately, I didn't take very many pictures, but for good cause- we were having too much fun paddle boarding of course, but we did stop to take a few...

Austin paddle boarding.

Fishing @ Minto Brown Park

Maisie loves to go pretend fishing. Every night before we put her down to sleep (in California) she would cuddle in bed with us for a few minutes and would pretend our bed was a big fishing boat. She would (with a foxtail remember those things?) catch "mama" and "dada" fishes. Which required us to get off the bed swim/crawl around on the floor and wait for her to throw in her "line" and we would take the bait and she would reel us in. We aslo had to jump up, flop on to the bed and wiggle around while Maisie would excitedly yell "I caught a big mama fish!"Let me tell you, it's quite the exercise pretending to be a fish especially when your toddler keeps saying "I'm going to catch another mama fish" when it's clearly dada's turn. 

Ok sweet girl, but are you sure you don't want to catch a BIG dada fish this time?

So after our move, Austin made her a makeshift fishing pole out of a stick, some string and a magnet. We also cut out fishes from cardstock put a paper clip on them and let her fish all around the house. She was in heaven. She wanted to take the fishing pole everywhere, but due to the safety of everyone's eyes we had to limit the places she could take it. Like the car, shopping cart and any sort of store. She even asked for it to come take a nap with her.

I remember Katie and I being obsessed with making our own fishing poles when we were little. We would ask Mom and Dad for some bread/cheese/whatever and beg them to take us to Minto Brown, actually convinced we would catch something. We never did. But after remembering this, I wanted to take Maisie to my old "fishing spot" and let her have a try. No hook, no bait, no bobber (she did ask for one though haha) and let her get the feel for it. She needed no tips from us she knew exactly what to do. She flung in her string (and magnet) bobbed it up and down, pulled it in slowly and threw it back in. I'm convinced she would have stayed there all day if we had let her, but we had a bag of stale bread waiting to be devoured by some gluttonous ducks.

Phone Pictures:

On the end of her line is the mangled remains of a paper fishy.

Silver Falls Revisited

It took less than two weeks of us being back in Oregon to make a day trip to Silver (Creek) Falls to test out our new toddler hiking pack. Maisie loved it. She has never minded being carried in a pack, probably because we wore her fairly often in her first year of life- mainly doing dishes and cleaning hah. But at least now, with the hiking pack she has a better view!

Remember our last trip to Silver Falls? Look how bald she was!