Northern Getaway: The First Part

Here are some pictures of our recent getaway to the northern end of our state.  We had never been there before, and we really enjoyed our time in this remote and secluded area.

Here's a cafe where we ate on the way.  It had sticky tables but yummy sandwiches.

The younger kids took short snoozes on the way, but not usually at the same time.

We had to stop at Costco, and Cookie Monster needed to be buckled.

This is the first place we went for a hike.  The weather was chilly and foggy - a welcome reprieve from our normal summer weather.  The weather was perfect on this trip.  We were happy to wear jeans and long sleeves in August.  And it was easy to pack because all our long sleeves and jeans were clean...untouched since the last time it had been chilly at home.

You can see how foggy it was in a lot of our pictures from this day.

In one of the smaller trees.

We saw a few of these on our walk.

We happened upon this creature in the burned-out tree that you see below.  We couldn't decide what it was...one creature eating another, maybe?  We finally decided it was an insect molting.  And it was pretty gross.

I took a lot of pictures of the kids walking with Jeff.  There's something very sweet about watching them.

Learning about this grove of trees

I love ferns...they are so beautiful.

A family photo attempt in the fog

A cool spider web.  I wasn't sad to miss out on seeing the spider.

My boys

One fun development on this trip was Jonathan's growing ability to amuse his siblings.  This particular walk had several numbered markers along the way, numbered 1-12, I think.  Each number corresponded to a point of interest on the map, which Jeff, of course, was reading.  Jonathan had the brilliant idea to lead the younger kids in searching for each number, sneaking up on it, and scaring it.  To adults, it might not sound very fun, but the kids had a great time searching for each number and taking turns roaring at it when they found it.  And they never got tired or whiny on this walk.  It was great!

 And I have to include this and brag on my girl a bit.  She isn't a reader yet, but she's trying really hard. Figuring out which vowels are long and which are short is giving her a lot of trouble.  (English is so complicated!)  But, she sounded out the "parking lot" sign all by herself, and I was so proud of her.  And she was proud of herself.

More pictures to come...