Rio Secreto

So it has been a crazy month of September! One of these days I will get around to blogging about all of it, but for now I am just posting one picture from our cruise. This was our favorite adventure. We put on some sexy wet suits and hard hats and hiked and swam through the most amazing caves I have ever seen. We loved every second of this! It was so beautiful and such a unique experience. The only sad part was the price of purchasing photos. So we only left with one. But a good one if you ask me.

Mt. Hood and Opal Creek

I have really not been a dedicated blogger lately. I am going to blame that on the fact that the sun is out and not on the fact that I have just been a bit bored with blogging. Ty and I have tried to make the most out of every sunny weekend we can. His 6 week break has begun and after some serious studying we now have his board exams behind us (whew!), our 5 year anniversary done and gone (FIVE?!), and a week long rotation complete. It has been a busy summer but things are mellowing out now and we are prepping for our much awaited (3 years awaited actually) cruise.

But in the mean time here are some photos of a few things we have been up to lately. We did a little camping at Mt. Hood a few weeks ago. It was beyond gorgeous and just what Ty and I both needed. We love pulling out our camping gear and sitting around a fire all night. The Jacksons were kind enough to join us (unfortunately their daughter didn't cooperate in the wee hours of the morning and I am pretty sure Steve will never camp again). After they headed for home and their beds, Ty and I did an awesome little hike with sweeping views of Mt. Hood and amazing wild flower meadows. I was in heaven. I cannot get enough of wild flowers.

This past weekend we revisited Opal Creek after over a year. We have been wanting to swim in the pools and we picked a nice hot day for it. This is about a 7 mile hike, but it is nice and flat and absolutely gorgeous. The water is crystal clear. We could see to the bottom even in the 30 foot range. Tyler did lots of diving and swimming. I waded and photographed. It was a fantastic day.

And now the countdown to cruise time begins.

Summer Shenanagins

My sweet baby Caroline came to visit me. A came too. So all in all it was a fabulous weekend. We had so much fun playing at the pool, going to the coast, eating, shopping and all things sister weekends entail. To say I am obsessed with C, would be the largest understatement ever.

And can you blame me? She was crazy about the beach. It was the most perfect day I have ever experienced on the Oregon coast. It took C a bit to warm up to the sand, but once she did there was not stopping her. Yummy.

It was awesome to get to be there for C's first ocean expereince. She squealed and laughed the whole time. We basked in the sunshine.
We had a girls lunch at the OG. C and I are BFF now. As long as my mother isn't around she likes me best. But who can compete with grandma anyway? I will gladly take 2nd place.
Family portrait under the Morrison Bridge. {Okay, hurry everyone...make your comments about how we need to have kids stat.} We had a nice little run in with a meth head woman. Fun times. C told her off. Then we enjoyed dinner at Montage.
After hanging with A and C I decided to head home for the weekend. Hopefully I can round up some pictures from that. I love being home. I got to see my parents new gorgeous house, celebrate C's 1st birthday and Danny's 16th {WHAT!?}, and as always I got spoiled by my parents and pretty much never lifted a finger. I also got to go to lunch with these beautiful ladies. It has been over a year since we have all been together. They are 3 of my oldest and best friends. We have been friends since we were little and now we are all growed up and having babies {Carly}. That was a strange moment for me. Realizing that one of my cloest childhood friends is a mother. Wow. Anyway, it was wonderful to see them. I love them dearly. It was a busy week, but a wonderful one.

Costal Daycation

A few weeks ago we took a spur of the moment daycation to the coast. We have now officially driven the entire Oregon coast and stopped in nearly every (maybe every) town along the way. We love the coast and had such an awesome day just doing whatever we felt like doing. I love a day with no plans. We were prepared for serious hiking, but again we were lazy and ended up just doing some mini hikes and a nice long walk along the beach in Seaside.We had never been to Seaside or Astoria so we spent some time in both locations. I really enjoyed Seaside. Once we got into Astoria we decided to cross the giant bridge over the Columbia to Washington so we could visit "Cape Disappointment." Again, I am not a lover of things over water, so this was a slightly stressful 4 1/2 miles for me. But the view was amazing so I tried to enjoy myself. We stopped at one of the best lighthouses I have seen on the coast. It was beautiful. It was awesome to be able to look out to one side and see the ocean, and out to the other side see the Columbia with the beautiful coastal mountains. Our final stop for the day was at the cleverly named Astoria Column.We climbed the bajillion stairs up to that top platform. The view was incredible.
Here you can see the awesome bridge we took across the Columbia. Those three distinct ridges you can see in the distance to the left in the picture above is our next big hike. I believe it is called Saddle Mountain and I am already afraid. We have found that the coastal mountains are a bit steep. Rather reminiscent of the Wasatch Front...{shudder}It was a beautiful day and so nice to get out and about after a lot of rain. Portland is making me frustrated this summer.

Luckily there is always something to do or see, so we manage to keep busy and ignore the crappy weather.

Summer Time

We have always wanted to play tennis at the Rose Gardens, so a few weekends ago when the sun was out we headed up to try and snag a court. We took a stroll through the gardens first and were amazed at the flowers. It may have been the best we have ever seen it.

The roses we in full bloom.

After our little walk we found a court and had a fun time remembering how to play tennis after a long time off. We had a pretty shaky start, but loved playing none the less. Plus the courts were beautiful. We only lasted about an hour before it was so hot we gave up and headed for the pool.

The 4th of July is one of my favorite Holidays. It is always hard for me to be away from my family on this day. Growing up I loved going to my annual neighborhood breakfast followed by swimming and movies and fireworks. It was always my favorite day as a kid.

So, in hopes to make it awesome, we spent the 4th of July day in the Gorge. We had lofty plans of big hiking but ended up just doing a mini hike that proved to be incredibly worth it. We drove most of the way which was okay by me. The view from the top on a clear day will show you all 5 of the major volcanoes in the area. It was pretty awesome.

Mt. Hood (below), Mt. Baker (above)

Mt. St Helens, Mt. Rainer, Mt. Adams

As always, the pictures just do not do the scene justice.

We also did our favorite mini hike, Onionta Falls. If you live around here you really have to do it. It is a short little hike where you hike up a river to get to the waterfall. But you have to swim part of it. It was a perfect hike for a sunny holiday.

For evening fun we drove to Lake Oswego for fireworks with the Smiths and the Cornings. It was a beautiful night and the park we were at was only moderately crowded and the fireworks were awesome. It was perfect.

We had a wonderful 4th of July in the Sunshine.

Tyler wore his shirt featuring the Canadian flag, so to counteract his lack of patriotism I painted my nails.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday.