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A Day w/ my Friend, Mary

 
 
 

We planned to spend the day discovering Olympia and found this little shop.
Mary did something creative, I made polka dots!!
We had lunch at the always fabulous Wagner's bakery.
We get to meet again this Wednesday to pick up our stuff.

My 52nd Birthday

I don't care how old I get, I will always look forward to my birthday! I'm just like a kid when it comes around, eager to see who thought of me and what my present is!!!
 

Arlo really outdid himself this time and made me a cool cupboard to sit under the T.V. I love it!!! Also, we spent the day together driving around to some of his bldngs. Throwing in a little fun stuff too. Like riding a funky ferry across the Columbia River. Eating in a cool little Cafe in Rainier, Ore. Seeing lots of beautiful scenery I've never seen before. We even stopped in to an Amish furniture store!
 

Later we had dinner w/ our empty nester friends and instead of cake I got this wonderfully delicious almond apple cheesecake! Yummmmm
I had a beautiful day ~ the best part of course was hearing from my kids and grandkids!

Lookey who's turning 3 TODAY!

 
If you guessed Boston you are RIGHT!!
 

He loves life outside and wants to be out as often as he can!! He loves things that go and he's pretty much Evil Knievel reincarnate!!! We caught him doing belly flops into the hot tub. He is so sweet and especially loves his Grampa Arlo. He has such a charming smile. We Love you Boss and are very glad you're in our family!!!

LOOK WHO turns 3 today!!

It's Lukey boy! And boy oh boy is he!! He loves life and lives it. He can figure anything out and loves things that GO! He can be reverant and sweet, but loves being outside and active!! He calls us He-Pa and Mimi and he has the boomingest voice EVER! (I think he'll be a very successful opera singer)
We Love you Luke and are very glad you are in our family!!!
 

Well, Here Goes

I'm going to attempt to put this hike into words.
Mt. St. Helens. Remember 30 years ago about 1800 ft of this mountain blew off and spread itself all over the place.

Yeah well, at the invitation of some friends we decided to hike this very mountain!! We had to sign up in February because they only allow 100 people a day to climb. We were determined to get ourselves in shape (for what exactly we weren't sure, nobody could have prepared us for this) Well, time passed a little too quickly and the shape we were in when we headed out on the trail probably wasn't the shape we should have been in!!! Really, from start to finish it's a 10 mile hike...........Pretty easy eh?

The first 2 miles you follow a happy little mountain trail.

The next abt 2 you climb piles of boulders

and when you get to the top of the pile........ there's another pile

and another pile to great you :)

Cindy, Arlin, Russ

The view behind us as we climb the boulders

Then you trudge through a mixture of sand, schale and ash ..... step forward slide back for the rest of the hike.

When we got to the top I was completely exhausted!!

I'm sure it had to do with a mixture of the altitude, the climbing over boulders and the overwhelming-ness of the last part of the climb!!!
Once we got up there and started looking around I just couldn't believe what I had done. The veiw was spectacular, Exhilerating, Breathtaking!

The best part about it though is "the spouse"......... Nearing the end I kept saying "just leave me, plz just leave me, you go up there, I'll watch, I can see the top from here!!!"

But Arlo WOULD NOT. He just stayed behing me and quietly encouraged me to keep going, I could do it, I would be sad if I didn't......... That's how he always is for me, at my hardest times he encourages, I'm so very thankful!

When we got in the car to go home I said "I will NEVER do that again" today is Tuesday, 4 days after the hike and I'm thinking 'when Jesse gets home I may do it again' Funny how time skews your memory......
Thanks for inviting us dear friends, it was a great day!

 

The last car of kids pulled out at 7 a.m. and now we're back to just Arlin, Cindy & faithful Ducati! We can't complain though. We've had a month of visits from our fabulous kids and grandkids with a reunion thrown in there to boot.
More pictures to come!!!!