Lots of updates!

Lots of things over the last month so I'm going to play catch-up!  There are a lot of pictures so I split them up into quite a few posts (16 or so, so what you see initially isn't all! Everything in the August archive section is new!) Forgive me for forgetting details and things.  I've got some pretty bad Mommy brains right now.  I can't seem to remember anything...

Snake River

We went to this park a few weeks ago.  It's about 20 minutes from our house, I didn't know something like this was that close!  Anyway, it kind of stank in a few places as we walked down from the parking lot, like something had died...

On the bright side it's a nice park but the swimming area (unfortunately) is kind of gross...

Main pavilion as you walk down from the parking lot.

The water comes in from the Snake River under this train track.

Nick was trying to teach Aviendha how to do a thumbs-up sign. This is her concentrating face.

The guy sitting at the front of the boat was fishing with a bow and arrow!

Aviendha actually drank a tiny bit of the water.  EWWWWW!  But hey, are we really surprised?  Nope.

I love her little tush in this swim suit!  Super cute!

For some reason, every time I try to take a picture of her on a spur of the moment thing, she's got food around her mouth.  Doesn't matter how many times I clean it!  Oh well..

This adorable little man slept the whole time we were there :D  Don't you love his double chin?!

I like the bark on this tree!  Isn't this exciting?!  LOL

I thought this was kind of neat.  It doesn't look like much but it's pretty huge!  There's a boat driving on the right of the picture.  It looks like an old pyramid or something.  The close up makes it look like 3 pyramids...I know, I'm a dork :D  You can click on any of the pictures for a bigger view.

Here's the close up!   So neat!  Anyway, it was a fun little day trip!

Settlers Day

We went to the Settlers Day parade for Deer Park.  I didn't take any pictures of the parade...If you want to know how redneck it is I can tell you that a truck broke down in the middle of it and they actually had to pop the hood to fix it real fast!  HA!  Hows that for irony?  Redneck aside, the get together in the park after was a lot of fun!

This is the most genius idea for little kids!  It's called the Penny Pick-up.  They pick up pennies (though there were also some dimes, nickles, and quarters) and what do they win?  A lot of change!

Here are the boys getting ready to race.  I won't disgrace them with the outcome...But doesn't that look like Maranda's Lance in the middle???  Or am I crazy? Click on the picture for a closer look if you're not sure...

This was a race for 3 yr olds.  Let's just say running is not Aviendha's Forte'.  Lane on the other hand smoked her!

Here are some pigmy goats they had at the petting zoo, so cute!

Here's Aviendha very cautiously trying to pet a pig.

She's saying "Pee-Ewww! They're stinky!"

We had a lot of fun and went home around 2 or so.  She fell asleep almost the instant she hit her seat!

Uneventful Start

This is the start of our vacation to the Hood River area and the Oregon Coast.  The drive over was barren and very uneventful.  Am I weird or do these power line stands look like stick people?  And there are some angry ones towards the back with their menacing "v"!

And the other exciting thing?  The giant wind turbines.  Woo hoo!

Wild Animals

This is how we started the Hood River fair.  This is either a reticulated python or a yellow anaconda.

I think this one might be the python...

I don't remember what kind of snake this was...

We got to go in and pet a baby tiger...I don't remember how old it was.

Tekara got in trouble for putting her fingers in his mouth because apparently they are already able to bite fingers off if they want. She did have fun wrastling around with it!

Corbin and Aviendha were excited to pet it! But they weren't allowed to go near him while he ate, again for safety reasons.

We got to hear him do his growl!  It was cute and a little disconcerting at the same time.  It sounds a lot like little Simba on the Lion King except with a little more umph behind it!

Hood River Fair

This is how we started out the ride portion  of the fair, happy and hot.

This is a for shadowing of things to come...

Goofy smile :)

It's a good thing this only cost a dollar because I think she only ate like 4 bites!

This is her first time on one of the horses by herself.  I did sit next to her and touch her arm so she wouldn't freak out.

This was her next ride.  She did this one alone and was the only girl on it.  After this she demanded going on EVERY ride she saw.  We even took her on the gravatron.  She made the height requirement EXACTLY. I started second guessing myself as we got on, wondering if I was going to have a terrified little girl on my hands.  I didn't realize that the panels on the side go up as you're moving so Tekara and I are holding on to her hands but we can't look down at her because everything is sucked back onto the panel.  I thought for sure when it ended she would be scared and not want to go back, I was even expecting her to cry!  When it was done and I could look at her she was a little stunned but when we got off she wanted to do it again!  Crazy kid!

Of course they did the slide!

Corbin and Aviendha were amusing the guy operating this ride by holding their hands up and screaming as they went around.

Here is Corbin casually flirting with the girl sitting right behind him.

Here they are at the top of the fun house, you can see the tired face creeping out of Aviendha...

Holding hands before the ride, awww!

They had to stop this ride in the middle because there was a little girl screaming and bawling her eyes out. 

This little guy was a trooper!

This was the last ride they went on because....

Exhaustion finally kicked in!

Caves and Bridges

This is the ice cave near Mt. Adams.

This is Nick after he slipped on this insanely icy floor.  You can't see it but there was a sheet of ice all over the main entrance which happens to be the largest part of the cave.

More ice...

and more ice.

This is considered a natural land bridge.  You  can go over the top of it or under and there's a small room behind it.

We only had one dim flashlight and 3 people.  Luckily we were all wearing tennis shoes at least!  There was NOT a clear path through this thing, it was awesome!  Aviendha stuck around with us until we got to where it was getting pitch black then she wanted to go back up top.  Corbin didn't even want to go down the stairs to get into the cave.  After the kids gave up, Carisa stayed up and watched them so we could explore!

There was lots of juggling the flashlight.  All of my pictures were done holding very still and only with flash!

Tekara didn't want me to put these pictures in because her pants crept a little low so instead of not posting them I censored for you :D

Here's a place we had to squeeze through, after you squeeze through it drops down several feet.

After climbing down you have to crouch real low to get out because the ceiling is low.  This is the other end of the cave!

These are Nick's knees after our expedition!

After that we visited the natural land bridges.  These were pretty amazing, there's trees growing right out of the sides of many of them.  There were 3 or 4 bridges in a row!

There were also a ton of huge huckleberries!  YUMMMMM!  I'm sad we didn't have any thing to put some in...

This is the view of Mt. Adams coming from the ice cave and land bridges.

This is the full view as we drove back to Carisa and Tim's place.