July 2010: The Long Drive Home

Okay. I have a good excuse for not blogging for the last six weeks, including having to pack for a month long trip, not having access to the internet, and not having an iota of motivation. Please forgive.Also, please forgive my scant, grammatically incorrect, and somewhat flippant writing... it's late at night and I just want to get the photos up with some sort of explanation. For better and more complete writing, please visit my sister's or Jonah's sisters' or mom's blogs. They are all fantastic and well worth the read.
IN ADDITION, I also have the excuse of being pregnant! I just found out... JUST found out that I'm probably about 16 weeks pregnant (due in January...again...)! I had been ill with my back injury and some other issues so I didn't notice I was pregnant until I made a stop into see my mom's ex-husband who is also a GREAT doctor and he said basically, "Nope. No other problems anymore. Just pregnant." I had even taken pregnancy tests that were negative. But, there's a strong (what I think sounds like a girl) heartbeat and lots of movement and now my pants don't fit, so it's got to be a baby, not a tumor.
Anyway, here is the last of the blogs I've done tonight, which go all the way back to the middle of June. Leave many comments if not for anything except to add some substance to these malnourished blog posts.

After 16 days at Bear Lake, we somehow packed up the car and the chicken one last time and said our goodbyes.

The car had many bugs on the windshield. Those mats under the car carrier are our camping mats.

On our way back, we went through some awesome Oregon Trail sites. Since we basically travel half of the Oregon Trail every summer, we try to hit four or five new Oregon Trail historical sites each year. This year, we stopped at Soda Springs in Idaho and camped at Farewell Bend on the Snake River at the base of the Blue Mountains in Oregon.

OH, and on the way through Boise we picked up some friends for Ponyo since we knew she'd be lonely when we got home without all the family members around to keep her company. We got her a mangy rooster named Mr. Mouth and two little full grown blue bantam cochin hens named Diaria and Squirt. They weren't as good as travelers as Ponyo (they didn't have as much practice), they were NOT potty-trained, and we couldn't let them out to roam around like Ponyo does, but they all got home in one piece, so it worked out okay. Ponyo did have to give up her traveling basket in the car and ride on the headrests, though... which I think she actually preferred.

For our last night on the road, we serendipitously found this brand-new forest service campground on this lovely river at the base of Mount Rainier. It was the perfect campground-- absolutely clean, lots to do, and no one else around. Plus, our fire pit already had firewood in it! Too bad we forgot the marshmallows!

It also had an old fashioned well that the kids enjoyed figuring out.

It was also close to a lovely alpine lake appropriately called Clear Lake.

When we came to the Mount Rainier viewpoint, there was an old couple taking family photos with their two little farf dogs, so we couldn't resist doing a family photo with our farf chicken.

Mount Rainier is only a few hours from our house, so we took our time driving back because we knew we'd have to hit the ground running. Sure enough, even though our house/pig-sitter was amazing, perfect and wonderful in every way, there was still a lot to do. We hadn't even been home a day and we had to pick up food for the pig (and ourselves), fix fences, start moving the 36" tall grass, remove two large mouse nests from the tool shed complete with several baby mice, remove a number of swallows from inappropriate favorite perches, watch out for a number of swallows nests with large baby birds swooping over us, kick the chickens and sheep out of the house a number of times, get a month's worth of mail from the post office, do laundry, unpack and put away everything (still not done), repack all Ana's stuff for her week-long horse riding camp, pick up our new kitten that has been waiting for us, drive Ana two hours away to horse camp, drive a further two hours away to Portland to pick-up/drop-off car parts and camp in a new friend's backyard there before driving four hours back home, and cut out an exterior wall of the house to be able to put in a new window that has also been waiting for us (the window isn't in yet so there is a 5x7 hole in our living room wall). And we haven't been home a week yet. Luckily the weather has been heavenly, so we've had a good excuse to cut out on our chores and walk to the river and go fishing, ride our bikes to the beach, and play with the new kitten.

The cat belongs to Cam and we've had it picked out since it was born two months ago to a friend's cat. She is an outdoor cat (well, she is now, though she wonders why she can't come in our house even though she was born and raised indoors...) and we got her to help with the mouse problem we have in our shed and cars. She's still too little to do anything but bat the little mice around, but we have high hopes.

Oh, and she's Cam's cat (even though he won't hold her closer than arms length away), so her name is Legotron. Full name: "Princess Legotron Chewbacca Cat I'm a Kitty Cat Dance Dance Dance, Dance Dance Dance."

We also have enjoyed seeing how much the garden and roses grew while we were gone!

And I've loved getting the kids back to work. And getting myself back to work. On this blog. And now its done!

So, until next week... or month...TTFN.