Hiking the Olympics

Updates On What We Have Been Up To In May

episode 2 of 3

No, not in China.

We went to the Olympic National Park earlier this week. I felt like I was walking through the forests of Endor in The Return of the Jedi. The trees were impressive, the greenery beautiful, but you don't have to take my word for it.

MaryP is a hiker at heart. We drove about two hours to get to our first hike, passing an incredibly beautiful Lake Crescent with its teal glacial fed waters surrounded by steep mountains entirely covered by pine. Unfortunately we have no pictures of it. We got out of the car and put MaryP in our backpack carrier and hiked to Sol Duc Falls. It was raining (it's a rain forest) so we cut a hole in a garbage bag and used it on MaryP for a poncho. She couldn't run around, but she loved looking around, seeing the sights as we hike. I don't think I've ever heard her complain on a hike. I think that is saying something considering the two hour drive just before.

We then headed back to the Pacific Coast Highway (US 101) and headed through Forks (watching out for Vampires, Volvos, Quillute Werewolves and rusted pick-up trucks) to the Hoh Rainforest. There we saw a forest never touched by lumberjack saw or axe. Trees growing upwards of 300 feet in height.

This tree was a measly 190 ft tall when it lost its battle with gravity.

I was also able to go hiking up the Duckabush River Trail on Memorial Day with my old room mate from when I lived in South Carolina. It’s always fun to get out especially as a family and enjoy the wondrous natural creations around us. There have been neat things to see in Utah, Colorado, South Carolina, New York, Connecticut, and Washington. I hope that as our family grows more we can still get out hiking or camping to see these National Parks and appreciate God’s creations.

Gardening

Updates On What We Have Been Up To In May

episode 1 of 3

Yesterday Woodine, MaryP, and I visited Woodine's grandparents. Her grandma mentioned we hadn't updated our blog and she's right. So here goes:

I haven't had to work for the last few weeks. (Kind of a reward for having to be at sea for a while) So Woodine and I unpacked our last tenaciously lingering boxes from our move. We also started a garden on our deck. We live on the second story, so understandably our garden is in planters. Our friend the Masked Mallard did some things with square foot gardening, so we decided to make a little square foot garden of our own. Our big problem (for gardening) is that there are big trees around our deck, and it faces west. Though not as bad as facing north, we get limited sunlight. Our solution was to put wheels on the bottom of the planter to we can move it around to the sunny spot as the day progresses.

We also determined that hanging plants on the southwest corner would get hours more sunlight than plants sitting on our deck. So we got two tomato plants and planted them upside-down in the hanging pots and put strawberries and chives in the tops of the two pots. We also planted flowers and herbs on planters hanging from our railings. We were anxiously awaiting our seeds to sprout, and a few days ago, most of them did. We are still waiting on the carrots and herb seeds, but our lettuce and spinach are looking good. You can watch our video tour of our garden below.




Other interesting events, I met a man with the same name as my brother, man. He was in the MTC at the same time as B. He remembered seeing her there. I called B up and she confirmed the fact. He is the son of the BYU Linguistics professor with the same last name as us and he lives in a neighboring ward to us.

Hat Hair

Chatty

Here's a cute clip of our chatty little girl. She loves to talk to herself or whoever will listen, which is cute and encouraged, except during sacrament meeting. We're working on that one. :) She and I talk and talk throughout the day. This became evident to me when I went to the grocery store by myself (Wood had the day off) and caught myself talking out loud. "How many tomatoes should we get?" "What kind of cereal should we get?" "Oooh, this looks good." Etc... I tried to catch myself, but the people around me probably thought I was crazy. Oh well.