2013 Part 3

We haven’t been backpacking in years and we decided to go again this year. The weather this summer was perfect and we found a place just south of us along the Lewis River near Mt St Helens. It was gorgeous! It was the first time we’d been there and we will be going back!

To see more of the spectacular views along the trail and the story of our trip, go HERE and HERE. We also visited Ape Caves, which you can read about HERE (next time you see me, you can ask to see the scar on my knee… LOL)

For the first time we have THREE boys in college! William is now at Lower Columbia College finishing up his last two years of high school and Zack and Andy are at Western Oregon University. We moved them into their apartment at the end of September.

This also means that for the first time in a very long time, we are a family of three at home. Very quiet and very hard to get used to. It helps that the boys have been home nearly every weekend since they left… :o)

You can read about the big day HERE

 

Chris teaches for an on-line homeschool academy based in North Carolina. Every fall they have a teacher’s conference and this year we got to go! That meant we got to go to North Carolina for the very first time. And since all those southern states are so small, we also got to go to Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky for the first time, too! It was a fantastic week and we can’t wait to go back again someday!

You can read and see all of our trip: Day 1 & 2 , Day 3 & 4, Day 5 (part 1), Day 5 (part 2), Day 6 (part 1), Day 6 (part 2) and Day 7

 

This year, Chris and I started running for the first time. Running stinks! So in order to make it a little more fun, we registered for our very first 5k race. There was bacon in the name, it had to be great, right?

It was! It made all that miserable running worth it and William even came to run with us! He had a great time and finished fourth in his age category! Not bad for not training at all beforehand.

We all got medals and bacon, of course! We are already looking forward to next year!

 

I’ve always wanted to see how cranberries grow. We found a u-pick cranberry farm on the Long Beach peninsula with cranberries for only $1/pound! After school, Will and I drove out and got 70 pounds of cranberries and got to see a real cranberry bog for the very first time! Then we made a whole lot of cranberry sauce!!!

You can read the whole story HERE