After visiting the Hoh forest (which has an awesome 16 mile hike up to the glaciers on Mt. Olympus ... alas, another day) we stopped along the Hoh river which turns a brilliant blue in the faster rapids portions.

Liam enjoyed throwing rocks int the river while Caleb and Kathy cheered him on from the shore.

We headed back home on Saturday afternoon as the boys were very tired from all the driving and hiking. There are still tons of places that we'd like to visit, but we'll have to save them for next time. The whole place is definitely an untamed area of the world that is worth checking out. Just like there's tons of open desert in all the open spaces of the map in southern California, there is just miles of dense forest and hills in the open spaces of the western Washington map - so many more lakes, waterfalls, mountains to conquer! Even once we got home, Liam tiredly repeated one of his favorite questions: "I go my hiking?"

We drove back down the ridge and further towards the coast, circling around the beautiful Lake Crescent. There were lots of great camping spots around the lake as well as some posh lodge locations - definitely a fun place for some family reunions of the future. We continued on and spent the night in Forks, about 15 miles from the pacific coast.

The next morning we drove to the Hoh rainforest, a pacific northwest style jungle that gets about 140 inches of rain a year and an addiitonal 30 inches just from all the mist floating around. Hiking through the forest was sweaty work since it was so humid and there were plenty of mosquitoes feasting on juicy boy flesh.

Both boys enjoyed the trails and were very ambitious in their explorations and exclamations.

After visiting an outdoor arts and crafts festival in historic Port Gamble, we continued on to the 17-mile drive up to Hurrican Ridge in the National Park. The views were great and the hiking was awesome, especially for the boys who took turns riding in the daddy backpack and being carried by the mommy mobile.


We saw deer resting in the shade about 10 feet away. There was even a black bear far down on one of the slopes foraging around for food and/or stray toddlers.

We visited the Olympic National Park on the Kitsap Peninsula this past weekend. It's about a 2-3 hour trip from our house: we got on the Kingston ferry on Puget Sound about 10 minutes from our house. The boys loved the ferry ride with all the cars, motorcycles, sail boats and wind.

Caleb took his first unaided step this week and did three more consecutively today. Of course, it's still just the three quick steps as he falls onto his mother, but still fun nonetheless. Liam is responding by requesting to do steps too ... but it's a little more difficult when he falls on to his mother.

Fun with Family

The last month or two have been pretty busy with family visits, trips to the beach, and a visit with the cousins (in addition to that whole moving in thing that Andrew mentioned).

In June, the boys and I went to stay at the Olsens' in Puyallup and Liam had a great time playing with his cousins. I think his favorite part was washing the cars...they might have only gotten the lower half of the car clean, but they had a lot of fun. :) Then Allison and the boys came up to stay with us and we all went to Alki Beach for Memorial Day.




In July, Andrew's family came to visit (and build a fence - thanks again, Robert & AJ!) and Alexander went with us to Snolqualmie Falls.





Liam loves his new yard, but mostly he loves water in his new yard, and always wants to play in the sprinklers.

This is a full view of the backyard - the trees start at the edge of the ravine which slopes down to the creek. Liam already likes to explore down there ... signs of much trouble to come. And I get to mow all 3000 square feet of this every couple weeks! I love home ownership!

Well, we're mostly moved into the house now ... still a couple boxes to unpack, but we're already starting to paint the walls so I guess that counts for something. This is me and the boys at the summer solstice. We decided to celebrate traditional-style by roasting food on a fire in the back yard. The boys didn't really get the melted marshmallow concept, but they really liked eating the chocolate.