29 August 2010

Our family had some pretty good reasons not to go backpacking. First of all, Gibson is 3 years old. Secondly, we don't have the gear. But we do live in backpacking heaven and listening to others describe their adventures, we were anxious for our own. We carefully selected a short hike in the Trinity Alps Wilderness area and planned an overnighter. We found 2 backpacks on craigslist and filled in the rest of the equipment with things we already had. The photo shows us ready to go at the start of the trail.

We hiked about 2 miles up a gorge to Long Gulch Lake. Guidebooks rate this trail as heavily trafficked, but we only saw 2 other hikers. The hike was beautiful-- evergreens, ferns and wildflowers, myriad butterflies. We crossed a shallow stream at one point. Brandan carried Helen across. 

It took us 4 1/2 hours to reach our campsite at the edge of the lake, just in time to set up the tent and eat dinner. The lake is nestled in at the base of the romantically named Deadman's Peak. 

After dinner, we stuffed all our food and toothpaste into the boys' backpacks and tied them 12 feet up in a tree about 100 yards away from our tent. The Trinity Alps are not known for aggressive bears, but we didn't want to lure any wildlife into our campsite.

We woke Saturday morning to rain falling on our tent. Thank goodness Brandan and Sophie put the rain fly on as an afterthought just before we went to bed. The rain was a light drizzle and caused steam to rise off the surprisingly warm lake.

Sophie was cold so she got dressed over her pajamas. Three cheers for our sherpa, Brandan, who packed our 8 man tent along. We were super dry and comfortable.

Glaciers carved out the mountains here and left behind a wonderland of big boulders to climb on. 

A flat rock and a pocket knife made a good kitchen for lunch on the way back down. We ate in a beautiful alpine meadow.

Here we are at the end of the hike. It took us 3 1/2 hours to get back down, mainly because Gibson hikes the same speed uphill and downhill. Brandan and Abe took their packs down and then came back so Brandan could give Gibson a shoulder ride.     ~     We are hooked on backpacking! We're all looking forward to another trip next year. The views were exceptional, the mountains majestic, but the loveliest part of the hike is the family unity we returned with. Every person did the most they could and each person contributed to the ability of our whole family to make the trip together. From Brandan and his super full pack, to Becky coordinating the trip, to Sophie carrying 2 sleeping bags and telling stories, to Abe making up animal calls to keep us together, to Helen carrying Gibson's pack when he was tired, to Gibson having a pocket full of Jellie Bellies to share. It was a little bit of heaven.

22 August 2010

Brandan has been eager to go mountain biking since we returned from our trip to McCall. He's been looking for bike trails close to home and took Sophie along for a ride. They realized Sophie's derailer was broken, so they stayed on level ground riding through town.

After six weeks of rehearsing, the Suessical opened on Thursday night. Sophie was one of the Whos. We all went to see her perform at the Saturday matinee and loved the show-- very colorful, very cute, lots of singing and dancing, wonderful characterization.

Sophie had late nights every night of the week so she made this sign next to her bed. The sign didn't stop Abe from waking her up at 8 am one morning while chanting, "Harry Potter! Harry Potter! Harry Potter!" (He was looking for book 5 which Sophie had been reading the night before.) Sophie loves the theater lifestyle-- staying up late, living on adrenaline and sleeping in. 

All three shows were sold out-- a performer's dream. 

Sophie's friend, Ireland, was also in the show.

15 August 2010

After swimming lessons, Abe, Helen and Gibson like to go to the park next to the pool and play.

There's a splash pad at the park so they can get a double dose of water. Gibson stays far away from the water, but he likes to push the buttons that turn the sprinklers on. Abe and Helen are making great progress in learning to swim. Abe can thrash through the water pretty well doing a front crawl. Helen goes completely under water at least once a lesson. 

Sophie gave our zucchini a little personality before Becky grated it up and turned it into zucchini bread. Does that make it vegicide?

We love using our fire pit, but we don't always feel like roasting super sweet marshmallows. This week we looked around the kitchen for alternatives and tried roasting a sliced peach. It was pretty tasty-- the water content kept the peach from catching fire and the skin crisped up nicely while the pulp got warm and juicy.  Sophie put a marshmallow on the end of her roaster to keep her peach slice from falling into the fire. 

Thursday and Friday marked the high point of the Perseid meteor showers. We slept outside Friday night, hoping to catch a glimpse despite the ultra bright street lamps in our neighborhood. We didn't see any meteors Friday night. Brandan and Becky woke up before dawn on Saturday (Becky got cold and woke Brandan up) and we saw several meteors shoot across the sky. Pure magic. 

8 August 2010

This photo may explain why Gibson didn't take a nap on Tuesday. It's hard to sleep when your brother is spraying water in your window.

A big hip, hip for Sophie mowing the lawn this week.

We took advantage of an unscheduled weekend to go camping. Our goal is to find our favorite local campground. At our current rate of overnighters, we should have one picked out in about 30 years. Becky bought some really enormous marshmallows to roast-- maybe 4 times the size of regular marshmallows. They're really too big to roast or eat. Most of them ended up in the campfire after a bite or two. 

Perks of the campground were easy access to hiking trails and the Rogue River. We spent lots of time hiking and a little time playing in the river. Helen carried this very sticky pine cone for a couple of hours before Brandan convinced her to abandon it-- he didn't want tree sap dripping into his hair while he gave her a shoulder ride. Gibson carried his backpack the entire time. It only had apple slices in it, although his siblings tried to slip their sweatshirts in when he wasn't paying attention. 

The trail along the river was beautiful-- shaded, lush, easy to walk along. Becky remarked on the loveliness of the trail repeatedly until Brandan smiled and quoted, "the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without milestones." --Yes, that's it! The perfect description of this trail!     ~      It was a good object lesson for the full quote from The Screwtape Letters, in which the devil Screwtape teaches his nephew how to deceive humans and lead them from "the Enemy," which to a devil is God: "But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one -- the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts." Becky was a little jarred by the image -- hiking to Hell, that's us.

1 August 2010

We tried something new this week. A group of local farmers have joined together to offer an online farmers' market. We ordered our vegetables on Tuesday and picked them up on Thursday at our favorite specialty grocery store. The vegetables were delicious and we enjoyed being able to comparison shop and plan ahead. In the photo Abe is holding kale and Helen is holding golden beets.

Helen has cracked the code! She's been able to pick out words for quite a while, but this week her reading has taken off. Saturday morning she and Gibson sat on the couch while she read him fairy tales-- her favorite kind of stories.

We had some cute dancers from BYU-Idaho stay at our house Friday night. They were in town as part of a tour of the Northwest. Their show was amazing-- 2 hours of ballet, tap, jazz, ballroom and modern dance with lots of gorgeous costumes. They had delightful personalities and we enjoyed their short stay very much.

Sophie spent the week at Girls' Camp and had a terrific time. She said she wasn't homesick a bit. Favorite memories are a polar bear swim, getting caught in a hailstorm, pulling pranks with her cabinmates, a solo hike and being with friends the entire time. In the photo Sophie is wearing the beads she collected at camp.