Monday, September 29, 2014

Happy birthday to mom

After a fantastic weekend with the fam at MSH, I had a working birthday teaching the kids, going to soccer practice and watching a water polo game.  It was all good!

I had requested a molten chocolate cake which Stevie made for me.  Emmy, however, decided to decorate it and in honor of our recent trip, she decided to make it MSH's!

How did she do?  She took a chunk of cake out of the side to represent the blast and then went crazy with the red gel frosting.  Love her creativity!





Sunday, September 28, 2014

Mt. St. Helen's

Ok, so do you remember where you were when Mt. St. Helen's blew?  Can you believe that was 34 years ago???  So if I admit I remember the news reports, I guess that blows my story about it being my 29th birthday, right?

If you don't remember, let me give you a brief history lesson.  Early in 1980, MSH started making some rumblings - sending smoke in the air and such.  And then in April, scientists started recording earthquakes.  At first a few and then hundreds.  They were kind of getting the inkling that something was going to happen.  They evacuated the area, although one or two stubborn people refused to leave and set up watching camps.  At the beginning of May they started noticing a bulge on the north side of the mountain that steadily grew by 5 feet a day!  Still waiting, people were beginning to become impatient when on the morning of May 18th, within seconds, the whole north side of the mountain began to slide downwards and then, KABOOM!, the whole side of the mountain blew off.  Crazy!

Inside the blast zone everything was leveled and a quickly developing mudslide took out everything in its way including wiping out an entire town.  The landscape around there was changed forever as were the lives of many people.

Now, the whole area is a national monument and a new road winds through the area once devastated by ash and rock.  There are several visitor centers along the road which give a great history of the explosion and offer great views of the area.  When we woke up Sunday to cloudy skies and I thought, "Oh no, how are we going to see the mountain?"  But the camera in the first visitor's center off the highway assured us that the mountain was in clear view because it was above the clouds!

This is the view from the Hoffstadt Creek visitor center.  The wide flat plain is the path of the mud slide.  MSH is in the far background.


If you ever wanted to know how much a tree grows in 34 years, just look at all the even height trees.


From one scenic overview.


This one shows MSH on the right and Mt. Rainier peeking up over the left.  MSH is about 8,000 feet while Rainier is about 14,000.


E and L basking in the sunshine
 Inside the blast zone, there is still scrub and few trees.  If you look closely, you'll see giant "toothpicks" - the remaining trees that were felled by the blast.


The mountain!  That's what you would call a blasted off side.





There was a trail that ran from the final observatory to a scenic parking lot so the kids and I hiked it while Stevie drove the car down.  This trail looked kind of benign at the beginning, but it actually was a bit treacherous.  The ground is scree - so you're basically walking on loose gravel.  The tricky part was that it was a steep drop off just on the side of the trail!  Good job I have fearless kids!


Looking back at MSH from the trail.


This was one of the splintered tree stumps left behind.  You can get an idea of how big the tree was from the size of my foot.


The kids walking on the trail through a graveyard of sheared tree stumps.


Driving back, we stopped for lunch and had an awesome lunch basking in the sunshine eating elk and bison burgers while overlooking the volcano.  Not a bad way to celebrate my birthday.  Not bad at all!


Saturday, September 27, 2014

Ape Cave

We've been told that one of the many distant mountains we see from our living room is Mt. St. Helen's.  That's both kind of cool, and a little scary given the events of 34 years ago.  Nevertheless, for a while I've wanted to see it up close and personal and I thought it would be good for the kids to learn a little about recent US history.  I find that if you don't meaningfully put something on the calendar, then time passes by and it never happens.  So in honor of my 29th birthday, I planned a family trip to Mt. St. Helen's for the weekend.

The first stop on our getaway was Ape Cave.  I read an article about this fascinating hike shortly after we moved to Washington and I've kept it tucked away in the back of my mind as a must-do.  Formed 2000 years ago, Ape Cave is located on the south side of the volcano and is the largest lava tube in the Western hemisphere.  The tube runs for over 2 miles underground!  One part is a scramble-over-boulders kind of hike, the other is a more family friendly route, but both are very cool.  We started on the more difficult of the two but changed course when we came to the first rock pile.  After Cannon and I scrambled to the top and couldn't see a clear route, we decided that maybe the family friendly route was the better option.

About to descend...

Going down

Emmy with her head lamp.  We were sure to pack extra batteries and flashlights!
 Once inside the cave, the scenery was surreal.  A lava tube is formed when molten lava flows under a hardened surface and the result is just like the name - a tube!  It is also complete and utterly dark.  We all had head lamps but we were able to convince Emmy to turn hers off for a split second so we could experience total darkness.  It was intense!

It was so dark that even with our headlamps shining on the surface, the camera could barely register enough light to take a photo.  These are some of the few I got.


It was also cold - a constant 42 degrees.


Of course, the 42 degrees was heaven for Stevie!





We made it!  Heading back out.  Can you see Cannon's breath?


After we returned to the surface, Cannon, London and I headed off on one more hike.  From the Ape Cave parking lot, a brand new trail, just opened that day, headed up the hill.  We ended at the top with a fantastic view of the south side of Mt. St. Helen's.




This is one of my favorite shots of the trip - it's rare to see the two of them together.
Brothers
After our hike we back up the highway a bit to stay the night in Kelso.  The kids always love a hotel stay - especially when there is a pool!

Monday, September 8, 2014

Emmy's birthday

Happy birthday to my baby girl!  Seems like she's been celebrating this birthday for a while now since we started early when Grammie was here, but today is finally the day.

She woke to breakfast of her choice and then opened some presents.


A dinosaur from her brother.
  
Mean old mom made her still do some school work, but don't worry, she also had time to play.  Stevie was off today so we were all able to go out to lunch at Emmy's choice - Moctezuma's, a Mexican restaurant.

After school, Emmy got to have her first horse back riding lesson.  She's been begging for a lesson for a while so was thrilled to finally get a chance.  A friend of ours has a horse that she lets Emmy ride and use for lessons.  Emmy did great on her first lesson and was quite natural, albeit a little reluctant to go faster than a walk.  But I was proud of her when she finally did trot Jazz.  What a great way to spend your 8th birthday!

Emmy and Jazz

Heading out to the field

Working with Ms. Barb

Leading Jazz back to the barn
We ended the day with her favorite meal, lasagna, and a special Toothless (the dragon from "How to Train Your Dragon") cake made by mom.









Saturday, September 6, 2014

Soccer

Just back to school and I'm already shuttling all over Gig Harbor for sports practices, piano lessons and youth groups.  Ahh, the life of a soccer mom...

London is playing soccer again this fall and he loves it.  And he's good at it!  He's so much fun to watch when he takes off down the field after the ball.  He's on a good team with a dedicated coach and having a ball.  They've got these electric green uniforms this year so you can't miss them - especially when the sun is shining (which, fortunately, it has been doing a lot this fall).

Go Lightening!  Go London!




He's making a header shot here.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Back to school

September 3, 2014

Back to school for all the kiddos!

Cannon headed off to school as a sophomore at Gig Harbor High.

Cannon - 10th grade

Emmy and London were excited for their first day of home school.  London is 5th grade and Emmy is 3rd grade.

London - 5th grade

Emmy - 3rd grade

Of course, no backpacks for them this year!  After the photos, we turned around and headed inside for our first day at "Coats Academy".




I'm looking forward to a great year for all!