Saints Cross Country Camp

We hosted the Saints at our house last week and drove school vans to various trailheads in the State Capital Forest for our 2 x day training runs. The athletes LOVED all the trail running only minutes from our house. My sister and I LOVED having lots of college students around to play with during their free time!

 The athletes set up 4 tents and a few hammocks around our property for a true "camping feel". We also brought in a porta-potty to add to the "rustic feel".

 The weather was great so they were able to eat meals on our back deck and in our back yard.

 We went with the team to the WA coast where they ran barefoot on the beach in Westport, played in the water, and did a service project picking up almost 20 bags of trash.

 I tried to be on the top of their pyramid!

 Notice the silly string. The men "attacked" the women with it and started a string of fun, unexpected pranks.

 Our new assistant coach woke up one morning to find his car covered in saran wrap. He was a good sport!

 We started one of our morning runs a little late as the women woke up before the sun came up to hide the men's running shoes all over our property. It took an extra 30 minutes to find them all! :)

 Our last morning of camp, the athletes woke up at 5:30 a.m. for a "sunrise run". It's hard to see, but we had a beautiful view of 3 of the Cascade Mountains along the horizon.

We love our Saints! Good luck this XC season!



Happy Birthday Grandma D!

We hope your birthday is special today!!

Thanks so much for all your help with XC camp last week. We also had fun on our adventures to the WA coast and Tolmie State Park during your visit.

Fun Fish Craft

Determined Lil' Hoopster

Olympic Peninsula for Mama's Birthday Weekend

 We had a special weekend visiting the Olympic Peninsula to celebrate mama's birthday.

 We loved exploring and hiking through the trails of the Hoh Rain Forest in the Olympic National Park.

 This temperate rain forest gets 140 to 170 inches of rain a year which creates an amazing lush, green canopy...and lots of "spooky trees" as we call them.

 I had a blast climbing on nurse logs and trees on our hike.

 We visited the interpretive center and each held an elk leg.

 We also got a kick out of visiting the Olympic Game Farm again. I was brave feeding the animals wheat bread this year!

 Karen squealed..."Mama, a zebra outside our window!"

 We were glad there was a fence between our truck and this bear.

 Sometimes the animals were a bit aggressive sticking their heads in our window to get some bread! We had LOTS of laughs.

 We found a beautiful, small campground overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca. This is a view from our tent. We had the beach to ourselves and had a blast when the tide went out in the morning!

 My sister had to learn to return this sea star to the rock she found it on. She really wanted to bring it home to our fish tank.

More biking on this camping trip!!!

 We explored and went wading in the Hoh River .

 Here is a little bug I found at our campsite. I named him "Blackie".

 We went hiking near Lake Quinault and found this waterfall in the background.

 We of course had to cool off and go swimming in Lake Quinault after our hike. The weather was a lot warmer than when we visited this lake in the winter!

 We also explored Ruby Beach along the WA coast. It had really cool sea stacks, boulders to climb, and lots of drift wood.

 I made a "sand angel" instead of a snow angel!

We're so thankful for the many special memories we made this weekend!! We're sad the camping season is coming to an end for our family as the cross-country season starts next week...but we're excited for that too!