Welcome 2015!

I wanted to do a better job of getting on here to document the big and little moments of our life, but obviously I'm not doing so well!

We celebrated the new year by playing games at the Nichols family abode.  We toasted along with the east coast.  A 9pm celebration is much better since all the kids are all under 6!  But my favorite moment was Levi reading books to Addie when the kids got their jammies on.  We have a true reader at our house!  And I think Addie really loved Levi reading to her too!

We've already had our first camping adventure of 2015!
On New Year's day, we went up to the Washington coast and camped at Cape Disappointment State Park.
We explored lots of lighthouses.  Both the North Head lighthouse and

the Cape Disappointment lighthouse...from a distance.

We learned about Lewis and Clark at the interpretive center.  And explored the remains of Ft. Candy.

We might have a future ornithologist.  Here's Levi getting a closer look at the great blue heron at the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge.  We also saw two bald eagles on our drive to the wildlife refuge.  Amazing!

And we enjoyed lots of walking and biking the Discovery trail!

The rain chased us home a little earlier than planned, but since everyone had to head back to school and work, coming back into town a few hours ahead of our planned time gave us a needed chance to get things ready for the normal routine.  We are looking forward to lots of fun in 2015!

Silver Falls: Family Reunion

Over the weekend we went to the reunion my dad's side of the family has every summer.  This year the reunion included my grandparents...and all of my dad's brothers (his sister and her kids and grandson live in Hawaii now so they didn't make it)...and most of their kids...and even the grandkids.  In addition, two of my grandma's brothers and some of their kids were there.  Reunion for the Girard/Rhoten crew means we camp, we eat, we laugh, and we listen to stories of all the crazy things my dad and his brothers did when they were kids.

We also play games.  Beer frisbee was the popular choice for the young men.

We hike...well some of us do.  Since this year the reunion was at Silver Falls State Park, the activities included some hiking.  So glad our family from Nashville is here visiting and was camping with us.  (Even though all my pictures of Sawyer look like this one.  I guess I know where Levi gets it from and that unfortunately the smiles won't get better any time soon!)

Here's Levi with his big cousins under the South Falls.

And four girls.  It's been over two years since my sisters and I have all been together.

We cool off after hiking in the water.  And cute Coen easily manages to convince a stranger to let him use their little raft for awhile.

We play card games too.  The men in the Girard family love pinochle.  The youngest generation of males started their training this weekend.

It was a great weekend with family.  Both immediate family and extended family too.

Morrison, West and Osbourne grandkids with their great Grandparents.  These great Grandparents have 3 more great grandchildren not in the picture.

My dad with his parents and three brothers.

Clackamas Lake

On Friday we were very excited to take our first camping trip to Mt. Hood since getting our little trailer.  We love Mt. Hood, but all the camping up there is on forest service land and the sites are primitive.  (Meaning they have no hook ups...and we've become pretty spoiled having running water and lights in our trailer.)  So when we saw smoke billowing from between the trees as we approached, we were concerned that our blissful weekend on Mt. Hood with friends would be over before it even started.  The paved road we were suppose to take was blocked.  The fire crew was concerned the fire was going to jump the road.  So they detoured us on a forest service road with gravel that hasn't been maintained...ever?  It was slow going hauling the trailer over washboard and huge pits in the gravel.

And we arrived at our camp ground to this:

Three helicopters were using the lake at our campground to fight the fire we had just driven around.  It was very cool to watch, but we left the trailer hooked up to the car just in case the campsite had to be evacuated and we needed to leave quickly in the middle of the night.

Levi spent most of the weekend "rally racing" on his bike around the two campsites and the trail in between. We went over and played in Timothy Lake for a while.

It was nice to just relax with friends around the campfire.  We love camping!  Sadly, the last camping trip of the summer is coming up this weekend.

Mt. St. Helens Mini Vacation

Since Gabe and I are taking the big vacation this summer by ourselves, we wanted to do a little something as a family.
Off we went on Thursday up north to spend a long weekend exploring Mt. St. Helens.  The camping was fun.  Levi met lots of friends to play and ride bikes with.  And we finally made ice cream!  It was way too hot to have a fire and make s'mores.  So a cool treat was perfect!

We explored the northwest side of the mountain on Friday.
We took in lots of amazing views!

And we did some hiking.  2.5 miles was more than Levi could handle.  The hike on the Hummocks trail had him in tears because his "legs hurt".

Saturday we explored the east side of the mountain.  It was a lot of driving, but the views were worth it!  And we stretched our legs with a little more hiking...without tears over tired legs.

The amount of logs in Spirit Lake is still pretty amazing.

At Windy Ridge there are 367 steps up to a view point.  Levi and I conquered all those stairs together.  I was able to convince him that he could do it if we took lots of breaks.  And lots of breaks we took!  But he did it!

And the view was amazing.
From the top of the view point we could see Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainer.  Here's Mt. St. Helens with Spirit Lake.

And here's the view to the north with just the peak of Mt. Rainer.

Levi and Gabe took the trip down together...and more breaks were taken.  Mt. Hood is in this picture, but barely visible because of the high noon sun.

We learned lots about the 1980 eruption. 

It was lots of family fun...although I could have done without the mosquitoes.

Foster Lake

First camping trip of the summer happened over the weekend!

We went down to Foster Lake and camped at Sunnyside County Park.  It was a bit cool Saturday morning so we decided to do some "hiking" and waterfall viewing.  We hiked around at the falls at McDowell Creek Falls park.

We had a very nice picnic lunch at this winery.  The glass of wine and the view was great.
When the afternoon started to warm up, we decided to take a swim at the lake.  Even though it was the perfect sunny day, the lake was really cold.  Couldn't get Levi to get off the inflatable.

We are excited about many more camping adventures next month!

Memaloose State Park

I feel the itch to get out of town at least once a month.  It's hard during the school year to leave town at 5:30pm.  So we've been trying to discover "close" spots that we can get to in under 2 hours.  We came across Memaloose State Park.  It's in the Gorge between Hood River and The Dalles.  Beautiful views of the river but lots of train and traffic noise.  It's met our under 2 hour goal but didn't deliver in enough other ways for us to head back any time soon.

So we did some wine tasting outside Hood River.  Had lunch at a brewery in White Salmon.  Did a really cool hike through the tunnels of the old gorge hwy.

Levi and I doing our silly Lewis and Clark pose.

It was a beautiful weekend!  And it ended perfectly.  On the drive home we overheard Levi in the back quietly saying, "I love camping."  I think we all do!

Spring Break: part 1

We made plans a while back to head down and spend some time at the coast with Tom and Joanne for part of spring break.  All the traveling we did last year (Nashville, California, Chicago) really drained our savings account!  It's always nice to spend some time with Grandpa Tom and Grandma Joey.

Highlights of our break to the coast included...

• lots of sunshine (and later some thunder and rainstorms)
• a morning walk on the beach

• lots of digging for pirate treasure in the sand
• attempting (somewhat successfully) to fly kites

• big fires and great food

• agate hunting

• giggling about goofy grandpa Tom (AKA "Bucket Head")

• a visit to the Oregon Coast Aquarium
• warm bowls of clam chowder
• salt water taffy from the candy shop

Gabe is back to work tomorrow, but Levi and I plan to continue enjoying our spring break.  (After I get all the laundry done!)

Cape Lookout & Pacific City

We packed up the trailer and headed out of town on Friday evening!
This was an awesome way to wake up and spend Saturday morning.

We did quite a bit of "treasure" hunting.  Levi's favorite finds were all the little jelly fish he picked up with the razor sharp shell he found.  Here's the crab shell he was pretty excited to find too.

You should have seen how excited Gabe was to find a whole sand dollar.  He swears he's never found one before!

We decided to head into Pacific City for lunch.  Gabe really wanted to try the food and beer at Pelican Pub.  Before a tasty lunch and drinks, Levi wanted to climb up the big sand dune.  I sent Gabe and Levi up and stayed with the sand toys.  Gabe and I were pretty impressed at how far this kid made it!
(You can just barely see them in this photo I took from the beach.  Levi has a red shirt on and Gabe is starting back down carrying all of Levi's peeled off layers...and boots!)

To make a great weekend even better, we made a quick stop in Tillamook at the cheese factory for lunch, ice cream and cheese curds on our way home.  Sure wish we could spend every weekend like this!

Birthday Weekend

I wanted to get out of town for my birthday weekend.
So, we drove 45 minutes south to Champoeg State Park to camp and celebrate my 35th birthday.
It was great!

We spent a few hours tasting wine at a couple wineries.

Enjoyed a sunny picnic lunch and a nice bottle of pinot gris.

Our time at camp was spent napping (me-since my shin splints are still healing), and hiking to the river (Levi and Gabe-so that I could nap in peace).

I think the cookies we baked in our "oven" in the trailer were Levi's favorite part of the weekend.

Of course, Gabe and Levi made my requested carrot cake with cream cheese frosting when we got home this afternoon.

I sure do look exhausted in this picture.  I guess a week spent on crutches and not being able to work out really caught up to me.  Hopefully this isn't how 35 is always going to look on me!

It was an awesome weekend.  Lots of quality time with my guys...just what I wanted.

Check back tomorrow or Tuesday.  Levi has his first day of PreK tomorrow!