La Wis Wis

We spent the weekend at La Wis Wis Campground, located in the lovely Gifford Pinchot National Forest, right next door to Mount Rainier National Park. It was an absolutely beautiful place, and unfortunately, it rained all weekend, but we still managed to have a great time.  

All the kids as we started our walk down to the Blue Hole.

The Miller's, minus Doug

The Diener's

The Heitzmann's

The Burbank's

Climbing the big drift log

Beautiful Maddy - the only one willing to pose for a picture.

Looking toward the "Blue Hole"

Favorite past time - filling pockets with rocks and throwing them in the river.

building rock cairns

looking back toward the campground

The "Blue Hole"

Some sort of Goldfinch - only with a red head!

Ours and the Heitzmann's camp site

The Miller's and Diener's site - where we spent campfire time - Randy and Scott MacGyvered the tarp over the fire.

Maddy and Frances

Us

Lucas and Dylan having fun in the giant rain puddle

The hike up to Purcell Falls

Not much of a falls, but still beautiful.

We need to come back to this place again sometime when it's not raining. There was so much to do, and so many places to explore - However, it was a great time, as usual, hanging with our friends.

California

The kids and I spent this last week in sunny California. We flew down to help my parents with their classroom liquidation sale - the big event that finally put my mom's preschool to rest. Most everything is officially gone! Time to move into full retirement! Way to go Mom and Dad!

Ready to go!

Spending time in the pool

Yes, I'm having fun

We worked hard for 4 days getting everything ready - This was day 2. The sale was a great success!

Sunday, after the yard sale, we had a big family reunion at my cousins house in Sacramento. Lots of family and lots of fun. Frances really took off in the pool learning how to swim with her water wings!

Playing in the pool

splashing around

She also loved the little pool :)



Cousins

Last day in Merced - hanging out by the pool having dinner.

Heading home - we sure missed Daddy!

It was a great week of purging stuff, swimming, and hanging with family. Can't wait to see what the "Classroom" eventually turns into!

Mother and Son

Awwwww, the professional picture from the dance. Love.

Redwood Camping

We just spent a glorious 4 days camping in the Redwoods. Our site was right on the beautiful Smith River in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. We hiked amongst the tallest trees, swam in the crystal clear river, explored the pristine tide pools, star gazed, and enjoyed the start of this very busy summer season!

Playing in the river

The tube got lots of use.

Floating away the day.

Our site 

The best one in the entire campground.

Watching the river from my camp chair

Our first day, we spent exploring the tide pools at Enderts Beach. It's a half mile hike along a cliff down to the beach.

Starting our hike down to the Beach

The view

The end of the trail

Happy

Mommy and Baby

Found a ladybug - of all things.

Watching the ocean.

We watched this crab molt! It was very cool.

Saving Frances from a wave

Giant drift wood at the mouth of Nickel Creek

Course we had to climb on top

Heading back

Leaving the beach

A perfect morning at the beach

The next day we walked the trails of Simpson Reed / Peterson loops.

Walking on top of a nurse log - Lucas has his Jr. Ranger book open to the nurse log page :)

It was a big nurse log

Baby and the Tree

We joined her

Lucas climbing high

The Rainbow Big Leave Maple

The day after - we hiked the Hiouchi Trail, which is a 2 mile trail along Smith River (on the other side of the campground) to Stout Grove, where some of the biggest trees grow. The kids did an amazing job hiking this trail. It had a lot of poison oak and Lucas was quick to always point it out to us. In all, we hiked about 3.5 miles - I was very proud of my little explores.

The little beach on the other side is where we spent our evenings playing in the river. 

Our campsite - That's Jana waving at us.

My little hiker

But, really, this is how she spent most of the hike.

The end of the Hiouchi trail at the mouth of Mill Creek - we had to walk through the creek to get to Stout Grove.

Made it!

While in the grove - we ran in to some nice folks who offered to drive us back to our car so we wouldn't have to back track - It was just about a mile to their car - much closer. We were very appreciative :)

Lucas getting his Jr. Ranger badge

Our last night of camping we went out to dinner in Crescent City and had fish and chips and clam chowder!

Walking Crescent Beach after dinner.

The next morning we packed up camp and headed up the Oregon Coast - such a beautiful drive.

Being Highway 101 - there is always road work - this was one of the constructions stops somewhere. 

We finally stopped for the night in Yachats - just south of Newport - at a beautiful little hotel on the beach called The Adobe. It was perfect.

The sunset

Exploring the beach

The view looking south from our room

The next morning

combing the beach

climbing the rocks

Last stop before heading inland to go home - the beach at Lincoln City

It was a fantastic vacation - with lasting memories - the Relaxing River - the Beautiful Trees - the Spectacular Coastline - Makes me not want to mention the downers of the trip - me submerging my phone in the River - the truck breaking down about an hour from home and having to finish out the trip riding in the back of a tow truck.... Oh well, what are ya gonna do.. It was still worth it.