Labor Day Weekend

We celebrated Labor Day weekend with a day trip to Mount Rainier. I can't believe that we've lived here for 5 years (and Justin grew up here!) and have not been yet. It's a truly phenomenal and gorgeous place. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

On the way there, we noticed the temperature dropping. Little did I know that this photo would not be the end of the low temps (at the lodge, it was 36 degrees and snowing! In August!) Can you tell by Justin's face that we were pumped up to get out of the house for the day?


Jack was decked out in his new Chuck Taylors (and a bag of cheese ritz bits, apparently) for the event. Must look snappy.


We stopped for lunch at one of the visitor lodges. The kids met a bear.

A short walk was taken, rocks were balanced on, nature was inspected.


The highlight of the trip was Christine Falls - absolutely gorgeous! Above the falls, the river comes crashing around a corner and has carved a graceful arc out of the rock. Really spectacular. I spent a fair bit of time freaking about how easy it would be for someone to fall off the cliff though, as Justin pointed out. Hands were held tightly.




It was a lovely day, we'd do it again in a heartbeat. Next time we'd like to camp out one night so we can spend more time there and see more! The wildflowers were still in bloom at the higher altitudes, so I'm sure in mid-summer the park is unbelievably beautiful when they are in bloom in the meadows.

Colder than Siberia!

So relieved to know it's not in my head... we are having the coldest, wettest, most winter-like spring you can possibly imagine. It's snowing in the mountains and raining and freezing here... the Seattle Times had this graphic on the front page today. I don't know whether this makes me feel better (that I'm not crazy thinking it's awfully cold) or worse (accepting that our weather really truly does suck.)

So glad we have Hawaii to look forward to.

Where in the heck is Spring?

The trees in our backyard as of about 5 minutes ago. Gray skies and rain.

Living in the Seattle area, I do know what I signed up for with the weather. But at this point, it's Memorial Day Weekend and my thermometer says 49-point-something and the drizzle is pouring down and I'm sick of it. I want to plant flowers and vegetables and take walks to the park with our puppy, who's just had his final round of shots so he can finally GO for walks. At this point, our weekend is shaping up to be 3 days of same-old, same-old, here at home. BLAH. Can someone send up a message to the weather gods? We need help!