Millersylvania Morning

Jason took a few days off work and ended up with a 5-day weekend for various activities and adventures.  Saturday morning I thought that it would be fun to recreate a fun activity I remember doing with my family when I was a kid: outdoor breakfast.  We packed up the camping grill and some breakfast yummies and drove to Millersylvania Park.  Jason had never been and there are some nice picnic tables by the water and the dock.  Since the whole process involved delaying breakfast and helping prepare the food, the boys were not enthusiastic at first.

Josh begrudgingly helped cook the bacon.  It was quite an imposition to cook one package of bacon, especially since he cooks pounds of bacon when he camps with the scouts.  So much moping.  So much resentment.  The teen years are guaranteed to be so much fun!

Then there were some technical difficulties cooking the pancakes.  The pan tended to burn the pancakes on the ends of the pan and leave the ones in the middle raw.  We'll get some of the kinks worked out, but Jason still managed to make a lot of pancakes for hungry bellies.

g

When all was done and on their plates, the boys were happy with the results.  Of course, who can be upset when eating pancakes cooked in bacon grease and covered in real maple syrup?

While the middles and Jason were on KP duty, Josh and I followed Isaac to the dock.  We found out on Wednesday that not only is Isaac a flight risk, he is also a dive headfirst over the side risk.  That meant we had to keep eyes and hands on him and I, now more than ever, need one of those kid leash things.  (Okay, I know they aren't called leashes, but the concept is the same and it would make it easier to keep him from playing with the fishes in the seaweed.)

It is beautiful on the lake.

Saturday was not about the lake, however.  Saturday was about hiking.  In case you are wondering, I adhere to the school of thought that if you make kids do something often enough, they will love it.  Because that works, right?

This was Jason's kind of forest.  Dark.  Mossy.  Ferny.  Full of huge trees.

The boys warmed up to hiking after a while.  Jason has a gift for finding wildlife and cool plants.  He usually wins them over in the end.

The one kid who didn't need to be won over was Isaac.  He was exhausted after spending the morning throwing rocks in the water and trying to get in the water.  A nice ride on Mom was just what he needed to lull him to sleep.

If you ask of some of the boys (ahem, Michael, Ben, and Isaac if he could talk), the best part of the morning was the blackberries.  We finally were able to get a reasonable amount of them off the bushes at a time.  We still didn't manage to bring any home since little mouths were desperate for the juicy berries.  I asked Josh later in the day if he likes VA or WA better.  He still picks VA.  I figure it may be too late for him.  But, I also figure, if nothing else, we will be able to win the rest of them over with summers of berry picking.

Camping is still a daunting thought with Isaac being so little, but outdoor morning breakfasts bring us one step closer to enjoying more of the outdoor benefits of our new home.

Mount St. Helens

Yesterday was one of those days when I am 100% certain that we made the right decision to move here.  It is just amazing in Washington state in the summer.  Today was actually a little hot for my taste, but the sunshine and views were beautiful.  I am so glad that happens on a day when we have plans to drive a couple of hours to visit National Parks.  Our Rainier trip a while back ended up being a little disappointing in that regard, but yesterday we had great views of Mount St. Helens.

It turns out that there are multiple visitors centers on the way up the mountain.  Jason did some research and found the Forest Learning Center which boasted of beautiful views and kid-friendly exhibits.

The views were rather spectacular.

Inside we watched a short video about the eruption.  I have seen video of it before, but it is still shocking each time.  The cloud billowing out of the mountain looks like solid rock even as it is rising into the sky.  The boys were stunned.  Michael studied the eruption in school this year and was our family expert, but I don't think this movie was one they showed in the schools.  Afterwards we found our way to the discovery room for some hands-on fun.

The people working in the discovery were very knowledgeable and happy to share their passion.  Unfortunately, the boys were far more interested in getting their hands on all the cool stuff like rocks that float and bones that can be attached to their heads than in listening to any explanations.  So I had some lovely chats with the staff and snapped some shots of the boys at the same time.

Josh's first kiss.

Josh's first helicopter flight.

Outside of the center was a short, but steep, path displaying the wonders of a new growth (ie since 1980) forest.  While the sun was already getting warm, the forest was so cool that I am convinced that shade is nature's a/c.  Well, here anyway.  In VA, shade is just a place where the heat and mugginess is just darker.

I LOVE WA!

What we didn't love so much today was the construction traffic.  Intellectually, I understand that the weather here dictates that the peak tourist season is also peak road construction season.  In reality, hanging out for looooong periods of time (without a/c) on the road waiting for a pilot car (the two most hated words of the day) multiple times on our way up and way back was very trying.

But back to the fun stuff: we drove to the Johnston Ridge Observatory to get a great view of the spot where she blew her top.  Disturbingly, she has a bulge with a "belly button" in the crater left by the 1980 eruption.  Fun to visit, but I am okay not living too close by.

While taking in the sight, a nice lady offered to take a family picture of us.  And, yes, this is the best she got.  

Then Jason took over the camera and we have some pretty cool shots.

Since many of us had dressed for warmer weather (curse you weather website!), we opted out of doing a hike by the observatory since the hikes in that area had no tree coverage and some faces (see above) were getting a little bit pink.  The nice park ranger (such helpful people!) recommended a short hike down by Coldwater Lake, so we backtracked down the mountain to spend some time near the water.

We had a little snack at the picnic tables and meandered over to the lake.  On our way, we found a new friend.  Thankfully, this little fellow was quicker than our toddler, and so returned home unscathed despite Isaac's multiple attempts to pet him.

The walk by the lake had several boardwalk detours that afforded us several opportunities to check out the water.  Isaac was so fascinated by the water that he tried to take a dive.  And when that didn't work, he chucked his shoe in.  Jason was able to retrieve it, but Isaac lost his shoe wearing privileges for the rest of the day.  The rest of our time by the water was enjoyable, but relatively uneventful.

Jason getting creative with reflections.

On our way down, we stopped to visit a friend of Rachel's.  She sent us a pic last time she visited the area and we had to do the same.

And then we got home and spent some quality time re-hydrating after our fun trip.

Mima Falls

Lesson learned on this hike: trust the description of hike distances over eyeballing it on a DNR map.  Otherwise a 3-mile hike turns into a 5.5+ mile hike.  

Haha!

So, truly, this is not a big problem for me.  I love to hike.  And, based on some of the reviews I had read, I had an inkling that this might happen, so I had the boys bring an extra snack.  This time we told the boys it was going to be a 3-mile walk, and some of them actually still thought that was the case at the end of it.  

Haha!

However, it was long for Ben's short legs and at one point he told me that the only reason he was on the hike was for the blackberries.  It was also long for Isaac's legs, but he took the easy way out and rode the entire way on the back of his parents.  Isaac was also along for the blackberries.  Luckily for both of them, there were several bushes along the way that accommodated their blackberry habit.

The first part of the hike was littered with several chopped trees.  Some of which had letters (initials?) carved into them.  While it didn't seem to matter all that much on the way out, the boys took note and it proved helpful on the way back to figure out roughly how much farther we had to go.  When you're tired and sore, you need every bit of encouragement you can get.

As per usual, things started to get a little silly when I started taking pictures.  Michael so badly wanted to photobomb that I just took a straight on shot of his silly face.

At which point I had to take a picture of Josh's silly face.

And Ben, whose face was not silly, but his bright green soccer socks that he wears everywhere kind of are.

Michael wasn't particularly successful at photobombing, but Ben was. Hi, Ben!

Just when I thought all was lost, I managed to get a picture of Jason and the older boys when no one was paying attention to what I was doing.

Finally at the falls!  I don't know that I would have described this as a "falls" so much as a semi-horizontal meandering creek, but it had a nice picnic area and you could climb down next to the water.

A quick break to eat snacks and let Isaac stretch his legs afforded the boys another opportunity to pose for some more pictures.

Another great hike and I was glad that we got some more miles in than we've done recently.  Three miles is about what I like to do if I don't have Jason along to help, so it was a nice treat to have him with us for the day.  Now all we have to do is work on Isaac's stamina....

Cub Camp

What is absolutely exhausting, a ton of fun, and only lasts four days?  CUB CAMP!  Michael and most of his pack attended cub camp this last week and they had a marvelous time.  Both the boys and the volunteers who went with them gave this camp positive reviews.   Which was wonderful for us, because this is Michael's last year to go and I don't think he went last year.   I am sure they did a ton of different activities, but as far as Michael was concerned, the main point of camp was the slip and slide (actually carved out of a hill) and the BB gun/archery activities.  He even decided to skip out on exploring the SWAT truck that came in order to spend extra time shooting things.  

Since Isaac is still too little to tag along as a junior camper, I wasn't able to come along as a volunteer on any of the days.  However, Thursday evening the parents were invited up to bring their scouts dinner and watch some of the activities.  So I packed up the other boys, dinner and Joe-Joe's (TJ's oreos) and drove up to camp.  Now, when I was going to camp as a youth, I was living in Houston.  As we were driving up to the BSA camp in our area, I discovered that I definitely got the short end of that stick.  It is beautiful up here.  

The cubs were all divided up into groups of a manageable size and given a tribe name.  Michael was a ClacKamas.  Apparently the theme was Native Americans, but that was one that I haven't heard of before.  We still have a bunch to learn about our new home state.

The first activity we watched was the egg drop.  The boys were supposed to design and build a device that could catch a raw egg dropped from a cherry picker without breaking it.  Luckily, the boys were covered in trash bag smocks, goggles, and a helmet because this got messy.  Michael was not very interested in putting much time into his egg catcher.  The fact that both Jason and I were fairly busy and couldn't help him much probably didn't motivate him.  After convincing him that he couldn't use anything we'd have to wash later (because something sitting in raw egg for a few hours in the summer heat before we could wash it did not sound at all appealing to me), he put two black trash bags in a yogurt box from Costco and called it good.

I managed to get a shot of the first egg dropped to him in this picture.

But it hit the ground without making it in the box and landed with a big splatter.

I missed taking pictures of the second egg, but it landed in the box and miraculously did not break.

It was at this point that his dehydration caught up to him.  ::Irene banging her head on the wall over and over again::  Michael and dehydration are long time friends.  So he sat out the box car race while we plied him with water and salt (potato chips).

As he recovered, he perked up and watched the other scouts put on skits.  They had some pretty creative skits and the youth leaders had an unbelievable amount of enthusiasm and got the kids really involved.

Then it was time to pack the food and kids and head home.  A lovely end to a very successful week of camp.  And I think Ben is pretty sold on day camp, which is good since his turn to go comes up next year.

Adventures in Hiking

Sometimes hiking is relaxing.

Sometimes hiking is exhilarating.

Sometimes hiking is exhausting.

Sometimes hiking makes you wonder if the fates are entirely against you.

Yesterday was the last one.

It started off well.  Lovely weather.  Quick trip to Trader Joe's on the way there.  Ben was anticipating blackberries, so he wasn't complaining.  Josh knew he had to go in order to play on the Wii later, so he wasn't complaining.  And Isaac was so excited to go that he brought me one of my shoes and one of Michael's to help me get out of the door.  (And Michael was at camp, so he wasn't complaining either.)

We got to the trail head and I decided I needed to use the facilities, such as they were.  They were an aromatic set of pit toilets.  As I got off the one, I heard the ominous sound of what I thought was something falling out of my pocket and landing in, well, landing.  And since I knew for sure that both the keys and Isaac's pacifier were in my bag, that left only one horrifying option.  After dragging my kids away from the blackberry bushes in the area, we scooted back to the car where I felt physically relieved when I saw my phone sitting right where I had forgotten it when we got out of the car.  I don't know what that sound was, but now I don't really care.

Ben and Isaac were elated when we discovered several bushes along the trail with enough ripe blackberries satiate their little tummies.  Josh was the hero of the day with a gift to find the ripe ones, and since he doesn't actually like them, to his brothers went the spoils.  I was also fairly adept at picking berries until I discovered that I am allergic to the thorns.  After several run-ins with the pointy parts of the blackberry bushes, welts formed where I got poked.  And they stung.  And they continued to sting for several more hours after the welts disappeared.  I love me some blackberries, but I can buy some at the store that won't cause me any pain.  Josh was generous enough to take up the slack, but we made fewer blackberry stops.

The highlight of our walk occurred as we were leaving a particularly large patch of blackberry bushes.  As I was making sure I had everything with me, I heard Ben yell, "NO! ISAAC, NO!"  It turns out some thoughtful dog owner had left dog poop on the boardwalk and Isaac had taken his hand...and yes I know you are cringing as you read this...had taken his hand and grabbed a handful of the stuff.

Gag.

Ugh.

Seriously, dog owner??? Seriously????

I didn't have a lot of wipes with me, but I had just enough to get it all of off his tiny hand and then I used a copious amount of hand sanitizer to finish the job.  On my hands and his.  So much sanitizer.  So much.

The rest of the hike was blessedly uneventful.  Isaac was very keen on getting his hands on every kind of berry he could find once he figured out what were doing.  We were successful at keeping anything else out of his mouth and the promise of eating their goodies from Trader Joe's once we got home kept his older brothers motivated to finish the hike.

It might be a little while before we go there again.

First Haircut

I finally caved.  

Jason and the older boys have been harassing me for months about how long Isaac hair has been getting.  I didn't care.  I love his messy curls.  I don't even care that he has been mistaken for a girl several times.  (Seriously?  We're never going to see random strangers again.  They can think whatever they want.)

I was strong.  I held firm in the face of their combined opposition against his wild hair.

Then came the rat tails.  Suddenly the sweet curls became not so sweet anymore.  His curls were lovely after his baths, but given some time to rub his head on things and sleep, it began to look tacky.  I don't do mullets.  I don't do dreadlocks.  And I don't do rat tails.

Of course, when I told Jason he could cut Isaac's hair, Jason suddenly seemed significantly less interested in cutting Isaac's hair.  I don't blame him.  If the underlying, and unspoken, assumption of a good haircut is that the subject sits still, the outlook wasn't so great on a haircut for Isaac.

We chose to do it outside so we could get 360 degree access during the procedure.  After we convinced ourselves that hair is a renewable resource (well, for most people), we picked a hairstyle and got to work.  I say "we", but really, my job was to keep handing things to Isaac to keep his attention off of the clippers on his head.  Also, we thought it would be easy to sweep up, but the wind took care of that.  I can only hope that some bird is able to make a curly nest of his hair some day.

I am not going to lie, it was a little painful to watch the first curls drop onto the ground.  His crazy, curly hair has been quintessentially Isaac.  As if his strong-willed personality was made manifest on his head for all to see.  (Although, admittedly one doesn't really need his curls to see his crazy.)

But, I repeat, I don't do rat tails.

Below are the before and after pictures.  Jason let Isaac hold the clippers a bit so he wouldn't be scared of them.  Isaac thought they were great fun and even tried to touch up a few spots when Jason was done.

Afterwards, Jason asked me if I like it.  I am not sure yet.  It seems like a drastic change.  I may need some time to adapt.  The boys like it though and Isaac doesn't seem to notice a change, even though I am almost certain he lost a pound or two.