Clear Lake

Teresa in the water keeping an eye on Elizabeth and Riley in a floaty.

We went to a great place called Clear Lake with the Long-Loughrans a couple of weekends ago. Great, except it was a bit trashed. The beach was rife with broken glass -- kind of a nightmare with Elizabeth and her general dislike of shoes (if not clothes in general). We also visited a part of the shoreline removed from the campground where a group had set up camp, including a pooping-place that consisted of nothing but an area four feet from the trail: no pit, no nothing but poop and toilet paper on the surface of the earth for all to see and smell. It was actually kind of depressing. Even schoolkids in a Lord of the Flies-type setting know enough to dig a pit. Who just poops on the ground and leaves it there for all to see (and, at the risk of repeating myself, smell)? Savages, I guess.

But that may not be an appropriate subject for a blog about cute kids.

The campground was nice. The weather was great. The lake was Oregon-cold, but not kill-you-in-two-minutes cold. All of the adults swam at least for a minute or two, which is about all you can ask of Oregon water.

Elizabeth and Riley played beautifully together. On the beach there was a "playhouse" made of two huge stumps overturned so that their roots interlaced to form a roof over the space between the sawed-off trunks. The kids spent most of their time at the playhouse, "working" on the house with sticks that doubled as hammers, saws, screwdrivers, and paintbrushes. It was great to watch, except for the nerve-wracking times when they were on the "roof," clambering over the spiky, dessicated roots. One slip would have resulted in a nasty poke to the ribs or worse. But the kids survived relatively unscathed.

Suzanne had a good time, too. She loved watching the big kids run around. She enjoyed Charlie the dog. Plus, she really liked the beach as she is very much into sitting on the ground and running her hands through the gravel/sand/dirt/whatever. It's a blast for her, but hard work for the parent who has to constantly be on guard against her shoveling said gravel/sand/whatever into her mouth.

By the way, as of this writing Suzanne has three teeth!

Suzanne is the one appropriately dressed in this photo. Daddy is under-dressed and cold and toughing it out.

Brian and Riley: as a baby, Riley looked exactly like Brian, minus the beard.

Notice which child is wearing shoes and which child is content to run around in her footsy-pajamas.

(Clockwise, from left) Barb, Suzanne, Teresa, Charlie, and Elizabeth, after a pretty steep mile-long hike up a trail to this logging road. Elizabeth, I believe, is pretending to be a rabbit.