Brother, Brother

Our summer of visiting and visitors continued last week when big, bad brother/uncle Greg (that sounds like some weird polygamy term but I PROMISE you, I don't mean it that way) came 'round the mountain.We dragged him hither and yon (including to five fun-filled mornings at the pool for swimming lessons - wahoo!) during his week o' fun in the summer-personality-challeneged city of Seattle (where we had temperature swings from the low 50s to the high 70s). We had chilly trips to the beach and warm afternoon bike rides (those go something like this: Molly pedals ahead and waits for us. Jack rides two feet and then wants to get off and we carry his bike. Molly runs back because we're slow -- note that she does ride back, she drops her bike in an inconvenient spot and hoofs it back. Jack stops and smells every-mother-loving flower in the path. It's amazing...ly slow). We made him pick blueberries again. We celebrated his birthday (and gave a shout out to Nana and my great Aunt Tid on the same-day birthdays. All the rabble-rousers apparently are born on the same day). But most of all, we just had a great time and it was especially nice to have company while John enjoyed the east coast last week. My kids are officially tuckered out and need a to go to bed at 4pm for the next month. For a final hurrah last weekend, we got the heck out of dodge and went to the mountains, where it was (thankfully) gorgeous. The little people and I did a small-person-sized hike on Saturday while Greg did an adult-sized hike with some of his friends. We camped, enjoyed some delicious food, did another beautiful hike on Sunday morning, splashed in some very chilly but crystal clear water, and caked on at least three feet of dirt on hands, feet, and faces. We all smelled ni-ice on Sunday morning, let me tell you. Besides our body odor and streaked dirt faces, poor Molly also came home with so, so many bug bites on her face that she looks destined for the leper colony (and a friend asked me if she had chicken pox. Ouch). Poor thing. I got one bite, Jack got three, and she got 4000. Still, she doesn't care so boo to you cold July days and welcome sunny, summer camp days. We like to show off that yellow orb to our guests.

Singing angels moment with the sunlight streaming through the trees... also a hallelujah moment after a rather harrowing drive to the trail head. Hello super steep drop off on from the road; I wanted to throw up nearly the entire way up. I dislike narrow roads with no shoulders very, very, very much.

Botanists/Professional Slowpokes in training. Yes, yes, the journey is important but so is making it out of the woods before the bears come and eat us.

Hiking outfit 2012: baseball shirt, tiered skirt, non-ankle socks, and worn sneakers. Awesomeness. 

The dirt/chocolate mustache only got worse from here. 

See, that destination was worth it. Pretty lake.

Some more angels singing...

Kicking it old school at the campsite (thank you for the camping tables for Christmas. They came in very handy in our rogue camping spot).

Literally.

Sunday hike with the big man. And no harrowing drives. That's Molly and the Uncle waaaay up there. It was cute. 

And there is my water inspector. All the water. All the muddy water. All the puddles. All that ran through my head with each acknowledgment of the H2O was "Hey look kids, there's Big Ben and there's Parliament". It happened that many times. 

It all got hugged out in the end, though.

And, we've arrived at the ice fields and caves. It was pretty magnificent. It was pretty cold. 

It was binky time.

My for-scale model.

We gave ourselves a thumbs up during a refueling stop.

Our final activity: rearranging nature's river bed. 

A final ponder.