Mt. St. Helens

Last weekend we decided to make the trek to Mt. St. Helens. We took the roads to the eastern lookout which was a beautiful drive and the roads wound back and forth a lot. Luckily none of us gets car sick, but by the end I was ready to be done with those roads. As we were driving up the road to the lookout we noticed the devastation from the blast, there were lots of old trees lying on the ground and they all pointed in the same direction. There are lots of shrubs and flowers growing back and the tallest trees were maybe 15 feet tall, but it was nothing like the forests we saw on the drive up. They were THICK. So I can imagine how devastating the blast was to the area. We got to the lookout that was accurately named Windy Ridge. It was very windy. Then to get a better view you climb up these man made stairs. Logan had to be carried, otherwise we would have been climbing all day long-there were a lot of stairs. It's amazing to see the crater the blast left.

As you look out onto the lake near the bottom of the volcano, you see this pile of dead trees at the far end of the lake:

As I was staring at the volcano I noticed there was a white spot that looked whiter than the snow on the volcano and realized it was smoke coming out. I didn't realize it would still smoke. Luckily we brought our bigger lens for the camera and I got a good picture of the smoke rising from the volcano:

As we were leaving Logan and I had a cute conversation in the parking lot. He has seen volcanoes on Little Einsteins and those volcanoes have hot lava spewing from them. So we are walking to the car and he says in an upset voice:

"I want to see the volcano."

"It's right there." I say pointing to it.

"But I want to see it." he says.

"It's right here." I say pointing again.

"But I want to see it." he says again, this time getting more agitated that I don't understand.

So I stop and say."Do you see the mountain with the snow on it? That is the volcano, but it isn't erupting now. If there was lava, it wouldn't be safe for us to be this close."

"Oh." was his reply.

It was so cute. He thought we were going to see a volcano spewing lava like in his shows. He was terribly disappointed.

It was a very fun activity to spend the day doing and the kids enjoyed getting out and seeing something new. Next time I think we will go the opposite way to the visitors center and see what it is like.

Trip to Utah

Soon after Logan's birthday we flew to Utah for a few days to visit family. While Ty was golfing, the kids, grandma Rule and I went shopping for birthday presents at Build A Bear. Logan picked out a green dragon, which was no surprise, he is fascinated with dragons and dinosaurs right now. I asked him what the dragon's name was and he said "dragon." I said "How about Firebreath?" (the dragon has fake flames coming out of it's mouth). He said, "No, Swimmin Breath." (because the dragon had on swimming trunks!). So Swimmin Breath it is. Alex's pick was no surprise either since her favorite color is pink. She picked out a pink bear. I had to convince her to pick out something for the bear to wear that wasn't pink too.

Here are the finsihed products:

After that we went to Chuck E Cheese where we had a blast playing with Aunts and a cousin. Logan especially liked riding on the monster truck. Alex had fun playing the games.

After a little rest at Grandma's house we went to Thanksgiving Point's Farm Country to see the animals and have a horse ride. There were all sorts of animals to feed and see. Logan wouldn't get his fingers too close to the goats, he ended up throwing the food at them. But he did surprise me and actually got on a horse for a ride. Alex got to ride a horse too and she had a great time. She also got to milk the cow which was pretty cool.

The rest of the trip was lots of fun too, we spent time with Ty's family playing games and catching up. Ty's brother had just bought a house and it was neat to see their new place. The trip ended with a huge surprise. The day we were to fly out, we woke up to SNOW, in late May! It wasn't just a dusting of snow, it ended up being around 3" of snow. Luckily we weren't flying out until the afternoon and it warmed up and all melted by that time. The kids went out and made a small snowman with with Grandma and caught snowflakes on their tongues.