The Ape Cave

I can't believe it's September already!! *sigh*

Fall is only 21 days away!! 

Though I think its already started, it just won't be here "officially"until then.

Last Friday, or family went to hike the long way in the Ape Cave up by Mt Saint Helens for the first time!

We went to short easy way 2 years ago I think it was, and finally went back to do it again!
It was so much fun!! Climbing over 27 big rock piles in a 1 1\2 mile long lava tunnel under ground is exciting!
Though there were times I wondered if we'd ever get to the end. ;)
Then once we got to the exit, we had hike back down to the parking lot. 

Which again was lots of fun and I enjoyed every minute of it! I love hiking!

Wish we were able to do it more often. The area and views were beautiful!!!
Here are some pictures I took while we were there. :)

One of the neat rocks in the cave, and one of only three times my flash worked!

This is what it looks like in the cave when the flash doesn't work. ;)

A skylight in the tunnel, kind of a let down when you think it's the end of the trail but it's not. ;)

And this is the exit. Yes, we had to climb a ladder from the bottom to get our that hole, very steep!

Start of the hike back to parking

Isn't it beautiful?!

I love this area!!

A really cool looking stump along the pathway!

Wild red huckleberries! Didn't eat any as my hand were dirty....

More forest beauty!

Next up, I want to go hike to the top of Multnomah Falls!
Anyone want to join us? :)

It has cooled down this week. Started raining yesterday, which is nice because we needed it!
Hope it doesn't stay this way the rest of the year, I'd love an Indian Summer!
If any of you haven't guessed, Summer is my favorite time of year. ;)

Hope you all have a great holiday weekend!

Summer Heat & Weddings

This last week was REALLY HOT!!!
We went to the Kite Festival at Long Beach on Friday for Megs and Mom's birthdays.
It was 100 at the beach!!! At least there breeze made it feel a little cooler. :)
Here are some pix of some of the kites we saw:

Then on Saturday, the girls went to the Fort to hang out with friends an interpret in a few buildings.
But by lunch it was too hot, so they all went to the park across the street and played Frisbee all afternoon!!

I went and helped my professional photography friend Sarah photograph a wedding.
My first time doing photographs at a weddings!! :D
Here are a few of my favorites I took while there. :)

The Bride and Bridesmaids Boots

The Bride and Bridesmaids :)

The most adorable little flower girl!! Isn't she precious?! She posed for me!! :D

100 degrees isn't the best weather for a wedding, everyone was SO hot!!
But it was fun, and I was able to get quite a lot of good photos.
Maybe I can do it again soon..... We'll see. :)

This Saturday an electrician is coming out to redo our very outdated, non-breaker-blowing electrical panel! :D (did I confuse you?) ;)
And the plumber is coming to get the new shower base in the front bathroom hooked up.
Yay! I love progress!! :)

Hope you are all keeping cool in this hot weather we are having!
Have a great weekend everyone!

Summer Busy-ness

Megs birthday was this week! On her birthday, us girls and mom all went to IKEA since we hadn't been there in forever since Megs was wanting to go.
It was fun! Found some stuff we might get as we remodel the house. :D

The other day, Kai and I got some cute pix of one of our baby bunnies.
So thought I'd share. :)

I'm so excited this week because the Virtual Goat show I'm in charge of is finally done!! :D
If any of you are interested in what it looks like, here is a link to it. V-show
I have to put everything together, website, I had to resize every goat picture, then put everything together for the judges.
It's fun but can be a lot of work!
None of our goats are in this time, but I hope to enter a few of my goats this Fall. :)
One of our goats babies (now grown up) that we sold, won Best in Show though!
Her name is Sweetie's Spirit and she is so pretty!!

Yesterday Megs and I went down to help out at Fort Vancouver's costume shop/sewing department.
We helped start on making aprons for some of the girls dresses so they will be ready for the new school year. :)
After two attempts of attaching the shoulder straps to the apron bib, I finally got it right and looking nice! (yeah, shoulder straps only work when they go up, not down) :-P
And I also got a really cute 1940's outfit for Promenade in Sept!! :D

Ok, so I thought I'd share another favorite song song by "Celtic Thunder". :)

This Saturday, Megs and Kai will be down at Fort Vancouver volunteering.
I'll drop them off in the morning, but I have a wedding to help photograph.
First time! So we'll see how it goes. It's supposed to be 100 on Saturday!!! Ahh!

Have a great weekend everyone! Keep cool!

Fair!

Last Friday Dad, Megs and I went to the fair. Kai and mom stayed home as they woke up with the cold I just got over. :-/

It was hot but fun, got to see a lot of interesting things and see some friends! :)
Here are a few pictures I took while we were there.

Herefords from a farm in Ridgefield, they also have a feed store. :)

Angora goats!

Look at the size of this guys head!

Cute sheep. :)

I know the lady who makes and sells these fun 18"doll outfits!

I really liked this cool fort! Great job James! :D

Right after the fair, everyone but me had the respiratory cold! Yuck.
But everyone is almost over it now!

A happy thought, blueberry picking season is almost over! I'm hoping next week will be the last. ;)
It's been kinda fun, but I'm glad it's almost over.

Megs birthday is coming up next week! Not sure what we're doing yet, but we'll see what she wants to do. :)

How was your week?

Summer is Half Over!!!

I had a very relaxing boring weekend/first half of the week.

Last Saturday morning I woke up with a respiratory cold.  Yuck.

So after 3 1/2 days of resting in bed, I am up and back to normal!!!

I did get better just in time to because tomorrow the the Fair opens!

We've been going to the Fair opening for the last few years. (since 2012, only missed one year, 2014) :)

It's really fun seeing all the things folks enter in the fair.

I need to remember and enter some stuff for fun again next year.

For this post I share share some pictures with you all. :)

Took this of some flowers in my mom's planter box of flowers a few weeks ago. :)

I was thinking back over the events of the month, and then started thinking over what happened in July of last year.

Last year was fun as we got to go to the beach TWICE in one month!!! :D (not excited about that or anything) ;)

So here are some pictures I like from one of those visits. :)

This is one of my favorite pictures I took of one of the creatures at the Haystack Rock tide pools. :D

Oh so pretty waves and rocks!

Megs, Kai and two other friends walking on the beach, we went with/met their family there to see the tide pools. :)

I LOVE the beach. I think it might be my favorite place in the world. :) <3

One of these days I have to spend the night there!

On another note, my friend Sarah's little girl is getting big! Here's a picture Sarah got of her a week or so ago. :)

I found a new favorite song this month and I'd like to share it. 

It's called "Ireland's Call" and is sung by Celtic Thunder. (they are SO good!!) :D

I'm actually listening to it right now! :P ;)

Hehe, and when I started this post I thought I had nothing to post, now look at it!

Congrats if you made it to the end! What do you think?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Can you believe that Summer is already half over! No!!!!

1860's Base Ball

Nope, I didn't spell that wrong, Baseball started out as two words until NY Times changed to one word (baseball) in 1884. :)

Last Saturday we went to Fort Vancouver's yearly 1860's Base Ball game!
Us girls got to wear hoop skirts!! Such fun!
 And our team, the Occidentals, won for the first time in years!! 23 to 7! :D

So here are some pictures from the game. :)

 Anyone see the photo bomber?? ;)

So, that was our excitement for last weekend. :)
Tomorrow we clean out the barn for our new hay that is coming next week. yippee.

Keep cool in this warm weather!

Last Week

Okay, so the reason I didn't post last week is....... Our grandparents were here!! :D
We were so busy I didn't have time to post! We took them somewhere pretty much everyday!
But on Thursday we all went to the beach! :D <3
My favorite beach ever:

Found what I think is a jelly fish. ;)

Cannon Beach!!

While we were there we stopped at a coffee shop where they roast their own coffee beans! So yummy coffee!!

We also stopped by the museum and saw:

The Cannon beach cannon!
It came off of none other than the USS Shark!! :D (those at Fort Vancouver know what that is) ;)
They actually have a model us the USS Shark!

May 17 1821 - Sept 10 1846
Sank in the mouth of the Columbia river. :(

On our way home we stopped for some fresh Tuna fish and chips. So yummy!
Then we went to the Astoria Column. We ate our fish there. ;)

162 steps to the top!!

Isn't the view beautiful??!?

I like the colors in the water. :)

Then I took this really cool picture with my new cell phone! (yep, I finally got myself a cell phone) ;)
I took it through the hole of one of those giant binoculars you put a quarter in to use. :D
I'd have used my camera, but it didn't want to focus through the small hole.

So that is why I didn't post. :)
Hope you enjoyed all the pix! Have a great week everyone!
Hope to see a few of you at the Fort Base Ball Game! (hopefully will post pix of that next week!)

Memory Lane

Today, 10 years ago, we lost one of my favorite childhood horses. Precious.
She was a beautiful bay Arabian mare. She was 19 years old when she passed.
I didn't get to find a lot of pictures of her, besides I think most of the really good ones are film and packed. :-/
Anyways this is Precious, also known as Preshy. :)

These are of her in her winter coat. Wasn't she beautiful?!

Then about 6 years ago we lost Preshy's sister Angel.
Angel was a race horse when she was younger and was "Race Mare of the Year" in 1994 and 1995!
She was undefeated, well, unless she raced against her stablemate boy friend. ;)
I'm serious, she would see him coming up behind her on the race track and slow down so he could pass so would end up coming in 2nd instead of 1st!
I only have a couple pix I took when I was little, I didn't get enough time to look for the disks with photos as most of her pictures are packed in the storage shed along with Preshy's.

Wasn't she beautiful too!?


Also about 8 years ago, we lost everyone's favorite pony. Galloper.
His name was Gallagher (sp?) when we got him, but us girls were little and couldn't say that so we changed his name to Galloper. :)
My mom used to give riding lessons and most of the kids rode him when we lived in Yacolt and had an indoor riding arena. :D

Sweet boy!

Ben C. riding Galloper

Sarah C. & Josh C. with Galloper

I loved to ride him around bareback in the pasture. :)

These are my childhood horses that I grew up with.
Though one of them is still around, Poppy and he is 33 and doing amazing!! :D
He is the best horse ever too!!

Have a great week everyone!

  P.S.
I have a good reason for not posting last week, honest!
I will share it with you all on Thursday. ;)