Summer Recap - Hiking

I did quite a bit of hiking this summer.  We did Bridal Veil Falls, Wallace Falls, Barclay Lake, Lake 22, and Bear Lake with the kids.  Cynthia and I did Wallace Lake, and Floyd and I did Mount Dickerman.

Quick Recap:
Bridal Veil Falls- Cool water fall, fairly flat trail till the last bit.

Wallace Falls - Popular hike not too far away.

Barclay Lake -  Nice flat hike to a beautiful lake, but farther away than I remembered it being.  You have to go quite a ways on a forest road to get to the trail head.

Wallace Lake - Longer hike that avoids some of the crowds heading to Wallace Falls.  Parts of the trail are logging roads and not a ton of elevation gain.

Mount Dickerman - This is a tough hike and one that I did before when it was covered in snow.  This time we did it Labor Day weekend and there were wild blueberries on the trail that were ripe and very tasty. Unfortunately it was cloudy so we didn't get to enjoy a view.

Lake 22 - This is out on the Mountain Loop Highway.  The hike has very well maintained trails, but the terrain is still pretty rough.  There is some water on the trail, you go through a rock slide so there is a part with a lot of shale, but the kids did great.  It is 5.5 miles and the scenery is gorgous.  Tons of large old growth cedars and douglas firs and lots of moss and skunk cabbage.  There is a fancy boardwalk around a significant portion of the lake and there are some places with beach area to wade. I was excited when we did this because I spotted a random geocache. :)

Bear Lake - Pinnacle Lake is the main destination for this trail head, but despite its short length the trip reports say it is fairly hard.  You have to take a long forest road (7 miles) to get to the trail head, so we ended up parking a mile away from the trail head and then just doing the short Bear Lake trail. It was very quiet and peaceful, with really large old growth cedars.

Summer Recap - Racing

The girls did quite a few races this year.  There was a 5k fundraiser for Selena's school in May.  Every year we do the Swedish SummerRun for Ovarian Cancer research and we did that again this year. Selena was running around 33 minutes for most of her 5k's.  Pretty fast!  Allie isn't quite up for running a 5k but she did do a combo of running and walking.

The girls did the Mill Creek Kids Fun Run.  Allie did both the 1 lap and the 1k.  She initially wanted to do the 1 lap, but then it didn't quite seem long enough so she did the 1k too.  The combo seemed a bit too long though.   Selena did the 2k and looked good.

Selena also got really excited about doing a triathalon.  She had just learned to swim so she was super excited to do the kids tri.  It was at McCollum park.  It was a 25 yard swim, 1/2 mile bike ride, and 1/8 mile run.  The swim was the biggest challenge.  She can swim, but isn't quite able to do a consistent crawl stroke. She can do a crawl stroke, and flip to her back, then flip to a crawl, etc.  The race day came and she had had a fever the night before so I wasn't sure if she should do it.  I was worried if she did, she might get really sick.  She decided to at least go and watch and if she felt okay then she would do it.  She ended up doing it, but decided to just stick with a straight back float for the swim and did great on the other two legs--and she rested the rest of the day, and didn't get really sick.

The girls also did a community run hosted by my cousin's high school cross country team.  Selena did the 5k and Allie did the 1k.  I wasn't there, but heard that they did good.

Unfortunately we didn't make it to any of the all-comers track meets this summer.  We will have to remember to fit that in next year.

Summer Recap - Canon Beach

We went to Canon Beach with my family during the first week of August.  My parents rented a house just south of Canon Beach and my brother and his family drove up from California.  My grandma came from Texas, and my sister was there too.

We went to the Tillamook Cheese factory and I discovered cheddar cheese curds.  Yummm! Apparently Beecher's makes them too and sells them in the grocery stores.

We were a bit south of Canon Beach which was nice because there were less crowds, but there was a weird mico-climate that made it foggier and windier than it was in town.  But we made lots of sand castles, explored the tide pools and went on plenty of runs on the beach.

There was very little light pollution at night, and a hot tub on the deck, so we could sit at night and look at the stars.  I think that was my favorite part.

I know we took some group photos, but they must have been on someone else's camera.