More Amazing Jeff News

Jeff just got his grades for this last quarter and he got straight A's!!! This is the first time in his entire life that he has reached this accomplishement. I am super proud of him!!

Good job Jeff, you're amazing!

The Last Hike Of The Year?

Since Jess and I went up to do Talapus Lake, Aaron has been wanting to check it out. It really is a very beautiful hike past two great lakes. I was hoping to go up and get a few late Huckleberries. No luck on my part :o(, it's just too late in the season.

Jeff is on break in between quarters this week, so he came up with us. This is suppose to be our last nice day so we wanted to get out quick. Fall is suppose to be coming full force now, so we more than likely won't be getting out too much more this year. Things are going to get soggy. Hopefully we can get out one or two more times, but I'm not going to hold my breath. It was a great morning!! I'm glad we got to go. We topped of our day with going and seeing "UP". I love that movie!

Jeff's Awesome Quarter

Jeff just finished up another quarter. He has three more to go. Wow! This was an exceptionally great quarter for Jeff in two of his classes. He finished the quarter with having written an entire movie script that he is very proud of. Even his teacher, who has been a big wig in the movie industry for decades, was very excited about it. Jeff is hoping that it will be his fortune some day :o). In a nutshell it is a story of a German kid who befriends an American captive after the battle of Dun Kirk in World War II.

Also in his character modeling class he designed a character, modeled, rigged and textured it so at the end of class he had a complete character that he created from beginning to end. The last day of class the teacher wanted to put two or three of the final projects in the hall for display. Jeff's character won the class votes hands down. Good job Jeff!

Below is a copy of his character. It is just a screen shot, so you won't get to appreciate it in it's complete glory. It actually is rigged and everything so that it can move around in a 3-D world - walking, fighting, whatever Jeff wants it to do. It is so amazing to watch him work and the things that he can do now. He is very talented.

Click over to Jeff's website if you want to see more of what he has been working on.

Birthday Dinner

Last night I got to go out to dinner for my birthday with a few of my girlfriends. It was way fun to just have a girls night. I never really get to do that and I think it should become a habbit.

Thanks for the great night girls!! I feel super blessed to have such great friends. It was a great birthday this year!

Mason Lake

Time for our weekly hike while the weather is holding here. Today we took the Ira Spring trail to Mason Lake. You are right Amy in the fact that Lakes do abound here, especially the Alpine Lakes. There really is one around every corner. All that rain has to collect somewhere - we have to have something good come from so much rain and cloud cover!

Ton's of moss everywhere. Another side effect of lots of moisture.

Of course, just about every hike you go on has a waterfall too

And tons of lush underbrush! It is beautiful, I'm not going to deny that.

This was actually a pretty demanding hike. I would say it was at least as hard as Mt. Si, if not more so. VERY steep all the way up, and hardly any switchbacks. See I-90 down below. We weren't far from there when we started out on foot.

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We started the climb up Banderas Mountain because there were suppose to be good blueberries up there and a great view. Well, since the clouds rolled in half way up, view gone, and it appears we were a little late for good berries, so we changed our minds. We headed back down and decided to go the other way to the lake.

The clouds came in pretty quickly

*Sigh* - my husband is so mature. He wanted to show everyone the boy tree we found.

Mason Lake

*Sigh* - Again showing off his maturity level

Take two - my favorite

Take three - whatever, I give up!

There are so many places on this hike for kids to explore and climb. Boulders abound here. I don't know if it has to do with glacier degree or what, but it's kind of cool. Too bad the hike is really too hard for kids.... well, small kids. I apparently had one with me today, and I actually had fun climbing on the rocks.

"The Meadow!", But no Bambie

Grandma Rocking Jonny B. Good

Everyone is getting in on the spirit of my new drums. Believe it or not we even got Grandma in on the fun. Yes, Grandma did get behind the drums and learned a basic beat. Don't believe me? Take a look.....

Poo-Poo Point

Poo-Poo point is close to home, just in Issaquah, and a super fun hike to do, and since we didn't have a tone of time with obligations in the morning and evening it was perfect!

Just starting out at the trailhead.

Since this trail was made for paragliders to get to the jump site, it is VERY well maintained and easy to hike on. As a matter of fact, when we came down someone was working on it. Don't let that fool you though, it's 1 1/2 miles strait up! By the time we got to the top we were both drenched in sweat and breathing like we just went for a fast 4 mile run. A VERY good workout, that's for sure!

The view of Issaquah from the North jump site.

We decided after a rest to keep hiking for a while since we had never been past the jump sites before. So, we kept going and started hiking on the other side. Not much to see view wise, but a very beautiful trail through the forest! Up until I ran into some stinging neddles - ouch!! I hate those things!

We spent the rest of the time up top on the South jump site watching the paragliders take off. There must have been some huge group up there together that day doing tandem jumping, as they all seemed to know each other, and with the exception of a small handful, they were all going double. Hmm.... sounds like fun, I wonder how much that costs? Next family reunion anyone? Group date?

I wanted to get one of the jumps, because it is so cool how they watch the wind, catch it in their shoot and take off. I got a couple, but this one was SO funny I had to share. This poor woman was going tandem and was pretty much at the disposal of the guy who was doing the actual jump - she was just along for the ride. Anyway, when he caught the wind, she was lifted off the ground. He kept yelling "run, run, run" and bless her heart, she was trying......

My 39th Birthday

I had a great birthday yesterday. Everyone got up and made me a yummy breakfast of french toast, one of my favorites! While Jess was working and Jeff was doing homework Aaron and I went for a close hike, one of my favorite things to do. It was definitely a workout, but it was fun and I was spending time with my favorite person.

After we got home and got showered we took off to the Foster's house for dinner. Shayla and I are almost birthday buddies, her birthday is the day before mine, so we had a shared birthday dinner. Lasagna, french bread, Caesar salad, and of course cake and ice cream. We sat around all night visiting and playing games. It was a very enjoyable evening.

I got calls and many birthday wishes on facebook from most of my friends and from many of my family members. I even came home to a huge Elmo singing balloon on my front porch from - me. I think that might have been Francine, my visiting teacher, but don't know for 100% sure.

Thanks to all who made my birthday great! One more year left before I hit a new decade. That's okay, you're only as old as you fee, and most days I feel a good decade younger - and look it according to most people :o)

New Drums

One of my life goals has been to learn to play the drums and be in a band with Aaron some day. We even have a band name picked out and everything :o). I tried to learn a few rhythms on a drum pad because I could afford that and a drum kit is just too expensive.

Well, Aaron has had his eye on Craig's List for a while now, unbeknownst to me of course, looking for a good deal on a set. Apparently he found one, because I got it for an early birthday present. I'm excited but also a little overwhelmed. It's a little intimidating sitting behind that thing, but I'm sure I'll catch on. Jess's friend, Becca, plays and lent me a beginner book.

ROCK ON!!

Yakima Retreat

Originally Aaron and I had a great weekend getaway planned. We had reservations in Port Angeles for two nights - three days. We were going to go over there and do some hiking we have been wanting to do for years. Sol Duc Hot Springs, Hurricane Ridge, La Push Beaches, etc. We were actually very excited about this and had been looking forward to it for weeks, until the weather forecast started turning really bad. It is the rain forest, but we didn't want to hike in the rain, especially Aaron. So, we had to come up with an alternative.

Yakima it was. Not our first pick, but we figured if we got over the mountains we would have a better chance of sunshine. We researched a couple of hikes and headed over, and our three day excursion turned into two.

Our first hike was called Cowich Canyon. When we first got there we were a little nervous and though that we were in the wrong place. I had to take a pic of the parking lot. We totally felt like we were in the middle of redneck ghetto. Broken down cars littered the yards of broken down houses. And, you guessed it, it was raining. But, Carpe Diem, we just bucked up and headed out. Please, please let our hubcaps still be on our car when we return.

The canyon was lined with these really cool layered rocks throughout the whole thing. Very interesting to look at for sure.

Of course it being tail end of summer, coming up on fall, the colors were really starting to come alive. A ton of low vegetation on this hike. A very flat, ex-railroad grade, hike. Nothing special, but we were together and that's what counts.

Just kind of what the more "canyon" parts looked like

Okay, so we were starting to get board. Just walking and walking, well we could do that at home on the Soos Creek trail, so we did some off roading. About halfway through the hike we some some caves up on the hill that just needed some exploring, so up we went.

We quickly discovered what all the teen Yakimaites do with their dates during the weekend..... We called this the "Love Cave". Um.... a little dirty, but does have a little bit of the adventuresome, you could get caught appeal. Did we try it out - maybe if I would have brought that blanket..... who knows.

We were almost to the top, so we just kept going for that nice 360 degree view. Once on top we could see a lot of vineyards in the distance. Too bad we are not wine drinkers being in the wine capital of Washington.

At the top

Just part of the view from up above

More of the cool layered rock after we got back down to the bottom.

A cool "Halloween tree" See the face in it?


THE NEXT DAY

Our other hike, that we did on our way out of town, was the Snow Mt. Ranch Hike. I guess some rich orchard owner bought this old ranch and is turning it into a hiking destination for people in the area. Very generous of him. I have to say though, there is a lot of work to be done here. This was a very frustrating day for us - but again, we were together, and that's all that mattered. And, it was actually sunny on this day!!! That's what we really came for.

The hike started out actually very pretty. It was following an irrigation canal, so there were a lot of trees and pretty brush. Lots and lots of sage. Aaron was really having a lot of nostalgia with the smell. There must be a lot of sage in Idaho where he grew up. He was enjoying the smell immensely. I think that's what he liked the most.

Just a little hitch hiker

Here is the first place where things started to go wrong. Here is a trail marker, but then the trail branched off in two directions and we didn't know which to take. Hmmm. So right we went. We discovered after about 5 minutes that right was wrong. The trail just ended. We wandered around trying to pick it back up again to no avail. So back we went and headed the other way. That ended up being the correct way.

This was pretty much our hiking terrain. Sage brush, dry grass and sage brush. I hope Aaron got his fill of the smell, because that's all that was around.

Here was our second hint that things were not going to go well for us. A complete dead end. We hiking along, probably about 2 miles at this point, and dead end. An old cow salt lick. We wandered around forever trying to find the trail. We picked up a few here and there, but they never went anywhere. We came to the conclusion that there are thousands of trails up there that go to nowhere. Probably old cow trails. Fortunately for us it's really flat, no growth over your head, and we were on a hill so we could see for a long time. We knew which direction the car was at all times, but we could never find the blasted trail.

We spent the next 90 minutes just wandering around sage brush on a mission to find a trail. Find them we did, but again, they just disappeared. Finally we just gave up and started heading the direction of the car. Very interesting. When we did finally get back, two seconds later it started to poor down rain. Thank goodness we got back to the car when we did otherwise that hike would have just pissed me off.

We came to three conclusions on this trip. 1. Yakima sucks and there is nothing to do there 2. you pretty much have to be Mexican to live there and 3. It doesn't really matter as long as you do it with someone you love to be with. We still had fun being together.

Nolte Park

We had a super nice and relaxing Sunday this week. No one was really in the mood for a hard hike and just wanted to chillax. We decided to just pack a picnic and head to Nolte Park.

We love this park as it has everything. A beautiful lake, a small hiking trail, a field to play catch and Frisbee, picnic tables on the water.... it's great. We just ate lunch, played catch and sat by the water reading books. Jess and Jacob came too, but they spent a lot of time on the dock, and Jacob went swimming.

I think everyone really enjoyed the day!

Green River Gorge

Aaron had last Friday off, and since Jeff didn't have to be to work until 6:00, we decided to go for just a short, relaxing hike.

Now, we have tried to find the Green river Gorge before without success. I know a lot of people go there to swim and stuff, and we wanted to know where it was. Finally, after a few frustrating turn-arounds, we finally found the trail we wanted.

A VERY steep climb down to the river. Not bad going, a little sweaty coming back out. It was a nice pretty place to have lunch and relax. We mostly just sat throwing rocks into the river. Nothing amazing though - don't know if it was really worth all the work to find it. I know the Gorge is long though, maybe another spot is better. Don't know if we will take the time to find out though.