Summer Photo Dump 2

Sitting here in the beautiful weather taking a break from decluttering (and just finished cleaning up a shattered glass of water from the patio so I need a little downtime!).

We have had an amazing year for early summer gardening. Lots of beautiful heads of broccoli and cauliflower, and more kale, chard, lettuce, peas, and berries than we can eat! Tomatoes are just getting started, and we have some beautiful peppers growing, along with green beans starting to blossom. Our plum and nectarine fruited for the first time this year, so I'm excited for them to ripen up.

We made our first trip of the summer to Glacier. John is hoping to make another...I'd love to go again but not sure we have the time. It's such an amazing place. I can hardly choose which pics to include because every single one is so beautiful (even though the pics don't begin to do it justice!). This year we camped with some friends who have property right on the edge of the park. The kids had so much fun hanging with their friends (and we did too!).

There was still snow at Logan Pass. Brrrrr.

This pic is courtesy of Archer. It's a little blurry but I love it!

We had a good amount of rain while we were there. Here we spent some time drying off at a restaurant with fries and milkshakes.

The "weeping wall" was more like the gushing wall!

One of the more memorable moments of the trip was when we were headed down from Logan Pass and it was SUPER foggy - as in we were driving about 10-15 mph some of the time because it was so hard to see. Well, some rocks fell down onto the road ahead of us and John slowed down even more because of the small rockslide...and then a softball sized rock hit our hood! Thank goodness for the Linex paint job, and we were also very thankful it didn't hit the windshield. 

Photo dump

Because what else can be done to catch up 2 months of craziness??

We have done lots of gardening, biking, kayaking (not as much of this as I'd like!), camping, swimming...there is just no way I can catch up! So instead, I will start with the last day of school:

Fun Day at school

And the first day/last day comparison:

We celebrated Archer's birthday early with his friends (because he wanted to be able to hand out invitations at school to make sure he wouldn't leave anyone out!)

He had a Dino dig party that was so much fun! The kids got to break open Dino eggs and dig for dinosaur bones.

Mountain biking

Our first camping trip of the summer:

Our little explorer

Summer's Last Hurrah

We went camping over Labor Day weekend and let me just say, it felt like FALL not Summer! Ick. I was cold the entire time, and add to it the fact that there was still a campfire burn AND we got some (much-needed) rain and it didn't make for the best time.

The kids didn't seem to mind, and they found plenty to do rain or shine, but the adults were a bit bored since we didn't enjoy playing in the rain quite as much as the kids!

I am not ready for Summer to end! I was wishing for a nice long summer again this year, but it's not looking promising. 

Oregon!

John had a couple of days scheduled off from work to make a trip to South Dakota - we were going to go to Mt. Rushmore and whatever else we could find to do. But when it came down to it, we didn't really want to drive 13+ hours one way, and we were tentatively planning a trip to Oregon in a few weeks anyway, which would mean another 8 hours one way in the car...so we decided to scrap the SD trip and make a longer Oregon trip.

I happened to find a last minute reservation for a yurt at a state park along the coast (which seriously never happens! You have to plan a yurt trip months in advance!) and after visiting family for a few days, we went to the coast. The yurt was super fun - kids loved it, and I loved that we didn't have to set up/tear down a tent, plus the mattresses were actually pretty comfy...and bonus: there was electricity. It was a super short trail to the beach, and if it hadn't been so windy, we would've spent our entire time ON the beach. As it was, we still spent quite a few hours there, so no complaints except that I was cold the entire time. It's kind of a shock to go from 90-100 degrees to high temps in the 60's or low 70's! 

Now we are home. I don't even want to look at the house or the mountains of laundry! The kids are already fighting and beating each other. But it feels good to be home!

Smoky sunset as we were driving to OR. I don't know if you can tell from the pic, but the sun was actually setting behind a gigantic wall of smoke!

Whale watching center at Depoe Bay...we didn't see any (real) whales though.

On the beach with friends

Inside the yurt at bedtime

Trying to keep warm in the morning...brrrrrrrr!

Everyone uses a machete for that, right?!