Pumpkin Patch

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

Oregon Part 3 - Drift Creek Falls

We wanted to sneak a hike into our trip somewhere, but with the heat in town, it didn't seem likely until Austin's Uncle and Aunt from Arizona came into town and we decided to squeeze a nice hike in. I used to hike this trail fairly often when my family still lived in Oregon. It's beautiful and has always been a favorite of mine. A swinging suspension bridge? Sign me up! At first Maisie was a little leery of the bridge, but eventually she saw the fun in it. Ellie was a trooper in the Babyhawk, it did get a bit warm and sweaty- she's quite the little space heater, so hiking with her strapped to your frontside is.... toasty.

I'm so thankful we got to enjoy such a nice hike with so many of our loved ones. It was quite the hiking party. :)

p.s I have pictures of other members of the family, but I didn't want to post their pictures in case they felt uncomfortable about it.

Oregon Part 2 - Lincoln City

After a few days in Salem, we were desperate to cool off and in the Northwest that means only one of a few things, but mostly it means heading west to the coast. Oh, and it was much needed. The cozy fog, the wind with trace amounts of sea salt, the shops with unpredictable hours and of course the fresh seafood... hello halibut and clam chowder!

We finished the day off with s'mores roasted over a bon fire and with all the cousins playing in the sand- complete with copious amounts of sand in their every crevice.

S'mores and sandy crevices... all you could ever want. haha

Oregon Part 1 - Silver Creek

In late July we last minute headed west to Oregon for 10 days. There were a combination of reasons for the shortly planned trip, I'll name a few: Austin's parents were planning on moving Dental offices and Austin was wanting to help, my Grandpa was sick and in the hospital (he's home now after more than a month, thank goodness!), Austin's family from Southern Arizona was up visiting, Miranda was due to head back to college and won't get another break until Christmas, Andrew had a week break after taking the bar, Maisie was dying to see her cousins, oh and Oregon tap water. Our time was jam packed with family, but it felt good to see everyone we could. Sometimes visiting our home town becomes super stressful because we try to squeeze so much in and try to see as many people as possible, but this time we saw who we could and kind of left it at that. I was dying to stay a whole week more, but austin had to get back to work and we had to return the rental car.

So as our luck would have it we happened to visit during the hottest week of the summer. It was over 105 a handful of those days and let me tell you Oregon is not built for that kind of heat. It gets heavy and uncomfortable quick, but at least drinking copious amounts of water is a treat because the water tastes so good (am I right?). I was born and raised in the Northwest and I can count on one hand how many days were over 100 while growing up, but in this one week EVERY stinking day was crazy hot. It made coming back to our high desert climate very refreshing.

On one of our first days in town we decided to take the kids to Silver Creek Falls, where we were hoping would be a slightly cooler, but it was still hot. Too hot to hike that's for sure- especially with children. So we stayed by the creek portion of the park. The creek felt so good to wade around in (yay for melted glacier water!). Maisie had so much fun going chest deep into the water and turning over rocks in search of crawdads (no luck though). Then there was Ellie, who kept trying to dive in head first and give her Mama a heart attack. That little girl is fearless. She just goes and deals with the repercussions like a champ, even if its a nose full of water. I like that about her, but it's all fun and games until she ends up going to the ER with various broken bones or some other injury.

As you could tell, it was beautiful, but don't let the beauty of the cool lush forest fool you, it was HOT!

Hiking "R mountain"

Ok, it's really called the Menan Volcanic Butte, but around these parts it's called "R mountain" because of the massive R painted on its side. People pretend it stands for Rexburg, but seeing how its not even located in Rexburg, no one really knows.

Anyway, we have always wanted to hike to the top, but there was always a reason it wouldn't work out. Maisie, seeing how she is still so physically little, gets tired easily and we didn't want to get stuck having to carry her. So we wanted to make sure she could tough out the duration of the hike before we planned it out. 

Our friends called us a couple weeks ago and asked if we wanted to go with them and their kids that afternoon. We thought Maisie being with other kids who were also hiking would motivate her to keep up and distract her from getting too tired. and we were right! Maisie was a champ and only getting a little uneasy on the slippery parts or when she had to climb up or down the steeper parts. There were parts of the hike that were REALLY steep, like have to put your hands down and climb steep, but that was mostly because of the route we took -we unintentionally took a more difficult path to the top, but live and learn right?

Seeing how we live in the desert it's not entirely uncommon to see a rattle snake so we were all kind of freaking ourselves out with the chance of stumbling upon one, but then Maisie said "Don't worry guys! I know an ancient song the puts the rattle snakes to sleep." Haha where did she come from?

I am excited to go back and hike it again, but we need to wait until all of these evening thunderstorms end (good for the farmers and crops, but bad for any outdoor activities). 

(I didn't bring my camera because we didn't want to carry it, so all these pictures are from our phones.)