Week 10

MONDAY: Pacific Science Center

Our friends were kind enough to share their guest passes to the Pacific Science Center.  Since it was in Seattle, we made a day of it and had a fabulous time.

There was music.

Dinosaurs

Water cannons

Josh was the only one who weighed enough to do the weighted bike.  Michael was only 4 lbs shy and so sad to miss out.

Big, heavy ball

Me on the bike

So much wind

Yeah, 78.9mph

Tinkerspace

IMAX

Butterflies

Afterwards, we spent time at a huge playground and then checked out the musical fountain.  Michael and Ben and friends slid down the sides of the fountain over and over again.  To the point that Michael had a hole in his shorts.  We're lucky it didn't go all the way through!

Last, but not least, we hit up Dick's hamburger joint.  I couldn't speak to the burgers, but the GF fries were delicious!

TUESDAY: Hicks Lake 

 No pics, but this was the only day with the temps up in the 80's before school starts.

WEDNESDAY: Evergreen Trail
A nice paved trail with some good blackberry access.

THURSDAY: In the neighborhood

Mostly, the day was spent getting Josh ready for school and oriented to his high school.  However, we did get a little bit of outside time.  Sadly, I planned poorly so we ended up with no stroller.  He didn't seem to mind his alternate ride.

 FRIDAY: Downtown with Dad
Someone (who will remain nameless) made it to work without his lunch.  It seemed like the best solution to that problem was to bring the whole crew downtown.

It turns out the salmon are in the middle of their annual run upstream.  Poor things.  However, one animals desperate drive to reproduce, is anothers lunch.  It is pretty cool to see the seals chowing down.

We took the opportunity to take some pictures of the boys with a nice background.  I got about 12 like this:

I love these crazy people.

Alas, all good things must come to an end and Jason had to go back to work.  The rest of us went to go get some playground time in.

And that is the end of the last full week of summer vacation.

Goals

On our hike today, the boys and I talked about what the kids would like to do in this life.  Here are some of their answers. 

Josh: Beat everyone in the world at Mario Kart.

Michael: Scam people out of money.

Ben: Have people pay him for telling them really gross things.

Isaac: Be a frog.


Should I be worried??

Never Say Never

I said we wouldn't do it.  I told friends, family, and admiring strangers on the streets that we would not cut these curls.  But, then poor Isaac has been getting so frustrated with the hair in his face and began begging to get it cut.

Also, I have almost an entire summer's worth of photos of him looking not unlike Cousin It.

So, I caved.  But I couldn't stay to watch.  

Jason did a great job and he is still our cute, crazy boy.

Week 9

And another MISERABLE week of unseasonable heat and tragically horrible air quality.  We had a brief break on Thursday and Friday morning.  It was just enough to get out of the house and go blackberry picking twice.  

Braces

Tuesday was the painful day we'd all been dreading.  Well, financially painful for me, physically painful for Josh.  Tuesday was the day they turned Josh into metal mouth....er, they put on his braces.  Josh was a champ.  I was getting a little twitchy watching all the tools they were using on the mouth of the kid next to us.  

I think it is safe to say that I will not be going into dentistry when I grow up.

Josh was kind enough to allow me to do some documentation for posterity.

Before

During

After

Temple Trip

August 9th was a temple trip for the youth.  It was the first time Michael had gone, so Jason took the day off to go with the boys. 

Mt Ellinor, or the dumbest thing I've ever done

A few months ago, my friend and I decided that we wanted to do a kid-free hike.  I did one last summer with a different friend and had a marvelous time!  This year, we looked toward Olympic National Park and decided on Mt Ellinor. 

Small problem: all the hiking I have done this summer was with the kids.  And hiking with Isaac means that nothing I did this summer prepared me for this.  Also, I may not be in the best shape.  (Shocking, I know.)

  

(some pics are from my friend, some from my Mom's camera that she left here)

The trail started in the shade.  Glorious shade.  We got to the trailhead at 8:30am in an attempt to take advantage of the cool morning temperatures.

Which we needed because soon shade would be scarce.  At one point, we crouched by a bush just to get a break from the sun.

 We needed a break, because this is mostly what we did for about a mile.  Only, the next three pictures were of the easier parts of the trail.

There was, however a beautiful, albeit smoky, view.  I may have neglected to mention that we have moved to Southern California...or maybe Southern California moved here...

Ignore the chubby woman at the top; she's there for perspective.  This is more representational of the trail.

It is at this point that I must say that I have been blessed in this life with people who are willing to take me on cool adventures and then are unbelievably patient with the snail pace that appears to be my maximum speed.  One of those people was my friend who did this hike with me.  I had a great time with her, but I think I added a couple of hours to the time it took to do this hike.

One online description of this trail is "character-building"!  That should have been a red flag!  Ha!  I reached a point that I was fairly certain was done and found a bush to chill under while my friend went for the summit.  After about 20 minutes to allow my body temp and pulse to normalize, I decided to take on the Stairs From Hell (my words, not theirs).  Do you see that faint diagonal line on the mountain?

It looked like this up close and personal.  I think the average pace for most hikers was a break every 10 steps or so.

I did actually make it up the stairs (woohoo!) and was rewarded with this view.

 My friend was kind enough to share some pictures from the top.  Apparently, there were some goats hanging out.

And beautiful wild flowers.

And then we got a picture together on her way back down.

The hike clocked in at 3.1 miles with over 3,300 feet in elevation change.   The first mile or so was a slow, but consist uphill.  The next mile or so was switchbacks.  The last mile or so was like a stairmaster made of boulders.  I'd like to be dramatic and say that it was uphill both directions; however, in some ways downhill was much, much worse.  Uphill was cardio and it turns out that the legs were willing, but the heart and lungs were weak.  Downhill was strength training so the heart was chilling and the legs were fighting collapse.

There were many times that I seriously questioned our decision making ability.  I regret a little that I didn't make it to the top, but as strenuous as it was to get to the top, I knew that it would be really hairy getting back down.  I couldn't give 100% to get to the top if there wasn't a zip line or tram to get back to the bottom.  Also, there was no smoothie bar at the top.  Which I really think would improve this hike.  As it was, my legs were pretty wobbly on the way down.  Thankfully, I only slipped and fell three times.

This way, I have something to aim for next summer.  I am sure that I will have forgotten about how much pain I am in today by then.