First Day of School (E)

Yesterday was Elizabeth's first day of third grade. Thursday (day after tomorrow) is Suzanne's first day of kindergarten. For me, this is not a big deal. For Barb, this is monumental. Both of her children will be in school six hours a day. Can't wait to see what she does with all that time!

Here is Elizabeth before mounting her bike and heading off to the first day of third grade. Yep, she's wearing a cloak. It was a bit chilly, and we encouraged her to put on a sweatshirt. She chose the cloak, because she's Elizabeth.

Saturday

Last Saturday we spent some time at the park, then went to Noah's and Shelly's (Noah and Shelly's?) Housewarming Party. They have a big house, and two sons, and a labradoodle or golden doodle or some kind of poodle-hybrid. They have a hot tub and a trampoline. They also have a lot of friends, and we are lucky to be counted among them.

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Last Gasp of Summer

The first few days at Kingfisher were lonely (in a good way) and cold and drizzly. Note the difference in attire between the sensible adult and the crazy children. Also worth noting is that Barb is sitting in a child's chair and the children are sitting in adult chairs. Both girls have decided their very cool purple camp chairs (with deployable awning!) are unacceptable.

How long have we been attending Teresa's end of summer blowout at Kingfisher? Four, five, six years? Every time it's great. The campground host this year told us that some families have been camping there annually for four, five six decades. I believe it. It's a special place.

This year we were the first family to arrive, and the only family that stayed a whole week. (Some families, however, stayed past the Sunday that we left; we weren't the last to leave.)

While we were alone in the lonely campsite, we took the short drive to Bagby Hot Springs and did the beautiful, 1.5 mile hike from the parking lot to the springs. The trail is littered with fairy dust, and there's a hollow stump that sometimes contains treasures bestowed by the fairies. Elizabeth put her hand in the hollow (those of you of a certain age will be reminded, as I was, of a scene from the 1980 Mike Hodges movie Flash Gordon) and retrieved a Monopoly bill. Suzanne found a penny. Not a bad haul. Thanks, fairies!

At the springs, we got a tub right away, which is unusual even for a Monday morning. It was wonderful to soak, though the girls had a low tolerance for the hot water and periodically took breaks to go play in the nearby coldwater stream.

On Tuesday, Brian and Riley arrived and we went for a hike to Pansy Lake. Brian, a Pennsylvanian, took issue with the taxonomy and reclassified it as Pansy Pond. He pointed out that on the West Coast it seems that any body of still water bigger than a mudpuddle is called a lake. Barb said it was akin to the way every bar and restaurant (in Oregon, at least) is called a cafe. It's weird. On the hike to the "lake" both of the Larrison girls complained of the cold. Two notable things about this: a) it's August -- why are we cold?; and, b) duh, you're wearing a leotard and not much else.

In any event, the hike was gorgeous and serene, through towering Western Red Cedars and Douglas Firs. It was a bit misty, or "socked in" as Brian put it, which added to the dreamlike nature of the landscape. At a backcountry campsite on the shore of the lake Barb discovered a hatchet buried in a stump. Which was serendipitous to an extreme, as I'd just that day broken my hatchet (an awesome Marbles, boon from Uncle Mark). But as soon as I got back to the campsite I broke the found hatchet, which probably explains why it was left behind.

The broken hatchet is a good segue to the bad stuff. Elizabeth took a fall on a downed tree and got scraped up pretty good. Barb and I escaped to a hike (leaving Teresa in charge of the kids), but during the car ride to the trailhead I got an unprecedentedly excruciatingg headache. I almost never get headaches. So we returned to camp and I rested for a few hours and was fine thereafter.

Worst of all, though: Elizabeth and Riley were exploring the far side of the Collowash (our river), when they stepped on a wasp (or yellowjacket?) nest. Riley got away with one sting, but Elizabeth got stung multiple times (she claims 24, I'd say 15+, but who's counting?). Barb was on the beach when it happened, but it wasn't (naturally) clear to her what Elizabeth was shouting about. Elizabeth shouts about a lot things.  I was on my way back to the beach when I heard the screaming. We got Elizabeth safely onto the campground side of the river and Barb got the first aid kit and we plucked the numerous stingers from her skin. Dr. Brian miraculously got her to take a benadryl. Barb gave her a couple of ibuprofen. I spent two and a half hours with her zipped into the bugproof tent reading to her from The League of Seven.  After that, she was pretty much fine.

And the rest of the trip was idyllic. The weather turned paradisaical, the balance of adults and their attendant kids showed up. The Underwear Girls cult was reformed. Anson and Alder, amazingly, visited from Seattle. Barb, Alder, Brian, some other men, and I climbed Whetstone Mountain. Anson exposed the squares to a lot of cool music. We swam in and floated on the cold river.

It was great, and I'm already looking forward to next year.

The lucky positioning of these trees allowed us to set up our old hammocks next to each other. All the kids (not just Suzanne and Elizabeth, pictured) took advantage of this, treating the hammocks as swings. Riley is reading to the girls. He was a great companion to them while they were the only three kids on site.

Sophia, Suzanne, and Livia as captains of their own destiny. Suzanne really bonded with Livia on this trip.

Elizabeth and Houdini.

Anson photobombing Elizabeth and her triple-decker frog sandwich.

A typical day on the river.

This frog and salamander pen was built while Barb and I were climbing Mt. Whetstone. It was the work of Elizabeth and a parent named Jason. According to Anson, who bore witness, Jason got started with Elizabeth, having no idea how inexhaustible she was. Thus the complexity of the works. It was probably people like Elizabeth who built the Giza Pyramids, Stonehenge, and the like.

"Backpacking"

We went backpacking for the first time since Elizabeth was born, and it was great! In the title of this post I put the word backpacking in quotes, because compared to our pre-child adventures, this backpacking trip was nominal. But post-child, it was an exciting expedition into the trackless wilderness!

Everyone, including five year old Suzanne, had to carry their own stuff on their backs for about one mile before we reached camp.

There we met our neighbors Jeff, Jordi, Anni, and Kiki, and our friends Dan and Vanessa and their twins.

We had a great time with those families on Friday, then on Saturday they took off and we had the riverside campsite to ourselves.

Night was when we realized what was really different about backpacking: no neighbors. When car camping, there are usually parties to your left and your right. There are campers all over the campsite. Backpacking, you enjoy solitude. You see no other camp fires, hear no other voices. It's nice.

Hiking out, the girls weren't quite as excited as they had been on Friday. I ended up carrying Elizabeth's sleeping bag and Barb carried Suzanne's backpack.

Still, everyone is looking forward to next time.

Feel the excitement as we get ready to set out.

The water was really cold, but the girls were having too much fun to care. Note the sandy riverbed where the kids are standing. That's coming off a sandy beach. That mossy rock on the other side of the river was a good diving platform into a 10' deep crystal clear pool. Basically, the perfect swimming hole.

Hiking out. Both hiking in and hiking out, we got separated into two parties because Suzanne practices Extreme Articulated Walking: the world's slowest possible pace. When walking with her, one must consciously enjoy one's immediate surroudings. It's a sort of meditative practice, hiking through the woods with Suzanne. (I measured her pace on one hike -- it was a tad shy of one mile per hour.)

Just after breaking camp, before hiking out.

The campsite.

Family portrait. The helpful hiker who took this picture suggested we use it for our Christmas card.

Here's one of the reasons why Suzanne hiked so slowly: she always insisted on carrying a burdensome load of firewood to camp, no matter how far away we were, or how plentiful wood was near the campsite. I cetainly couldn't blame her for being industrious.

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Easter Portraits

For four years we've been going to Grandma Charla's (Aaron's mom's) house for Easter. She must be friends with Peter Cottontail, because the Easter baskets are amazing: toys, candy, coloring books, stuffies, dental hygiene tools, you name it. And scattered around their large property are countless eggs, some obvious enough for a toddler to discover, others so fiendishly well hidden that they won't be found until next year, when it is more likely that they are smelt than seen.

The living room of Charla and Dell's house is full of light, and therefore good for portraiture.

Although Lily and Elizabeth claim to be best friends, Lily gets along a lot better with Suzanne than she does with Elizabeth.

Master Kai Charles Wheeler-Kay.

Suzanne enjoying a handful of pecans and a glass of sherry. My don't they grow up fast!

Elizabeth.

Pensive Aaron. If those aren't Easter trousers, I don't know what are.

Good eggs.