Labor Day at Sauvie Island

 Friends of ours invited us to play at the beach at Sauvie Island on Labor Day...we'd never been to this particular beach before though having heard about it quite a bit since living here, so we were excited to check it out. We invited Katie & Scott & Betsy and Aaron & Tressa & kids too...

Let me just say first, the company was excellent! You can go anywhere and have fun with good friends & family. And the weather that day was absolutely perfect! 

As for the beach though, I'm not sure we'll be making a repeat visit any time soon. Icky, icky--it probably suffered from the comparison with the Hawaiian beaches we'd been enjoying just the week prior. The sand was gritty, dirty-feeling and with lots of cigarette butts and rusty beer bottle caps all over...and the water is river water--a river that runs through a big-ish city with lots of boat traffic--so you can imagine how pleasant that was. Every now and then a boat or barge would pass by and waves would come rolling in to shore....but otherwise there really weren't any waves.

It was pretty fun to watch this plane circle around and land on the water right by us. Don't ever see that at the 'real' beach.

The boys kept rolling around in the sand to coat themselves (yucky dirty sand!) but so glad they were having fun. They had tons of fun with their friends there. (Anthony is attempting to photo bomb their pic.)

It was fun for one day anyway--our last day of summer 2013!

Hiking Mt Rainier

We had planned to camp at Mt Rainier over Labor Day weekend...but this was coming on the heels of our HI trip and school was starting the day after Labor Day--it was feeling like too much to try to squeeze in a camping trip and all the packing & post-camping clean up, so we cancelled our reservations. We weren't ready to give up on Mt Rainier entirely and planned instead to make a day trip out of it.

We drove all the way up to Mt Rainier early (it's about a 3 hour drive from here) and went straight to our destination: the Skyline Trail at Paradise. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea because the place was completely packed full! Despite the crowds, it was a perfect day for a hike--warm, cloudless skies!

You might recall we came to Mt Rainier a few years ago--George had wanted to bring us on this same hike at that time (July of 2011) but this was the state of the weather then (in mid-July!) and where you see those hikers headed up is exactly where this sign above is located:

Crazy, huh? Needless to say we didn't hike this trail back then on that day...

Such a truly beautiful day and this was one truly awesome hike. If you can luck out with a day as gorgeous as we had, you must do this hike!

See Mt Adams way out there? We could see Mt Adams, Mt Hood & Mt St Helens throughout the hike.

Amazing that even at the tail end of August there is still snow up there...

Look closely--there is a waterfall way out there from the glacier. It's directly above the sign.

Zac insisted on wearing his tiger tail that day. We got a lot of laughs out of it.

Is this not SO BeAuTiFuL?!? We LOVE the Pacific NW.

The week before we left for Hawaii, George & the 3 oldest boys went on a backpacking trip with a handful of other dad-friends with their kids and they hiked up Goat Rocks. The boys kept telling me as we hiked that they thought they could see where they'd hiked to....and turned out they were right! It's there on the photo on the left hand side.

Seriously crazy how many people were up there that day--this is at the summit of the trail and there were so many people!

There at Panorama Pt, there's a "short cut" to the other side of the trail but it was entirely snow-covered. We tried going across until the trail became treacherously steep and that slick snow was much too scary with all the boys, so we opted for the longer route, which took us still higher...7000-something feet high!

This was the summit of the trail we'd taken.

 If you look closely you can pick out all of the boys & George going down this snaking trail.

Cute brothers.

There was a funny moment on the trail when the boys were hiking up ahead of me and I overheard some people who were coming the opposite direction and had just passed the boys. They said, "Did you see the boy scouts??? They all looked so official in their hats and gear!" They practically could be their own little scout troop and 3 of them are indeed scouts. The boys did get a laugh out of people thinking they were scouts! I love them in their hats, Keens & Camelbaks...they are all super cute little hikers. We do do a ton of hiking & have gradually geared them up over the years (and ourselves too for that matter...)

That Skyline Trail hike was so beautiful. I think it took us a total of 5 hours. On our way out, we stopped briefly at Narada Falls which was right off the road. 

Great day! We drove all 3 hours back home again, stopping for dinner at Burgerville, a family favorite!

Swim

The swim season here is much too short!

We miss the pool. And we miss the hot summer sun.

We broke out the swim fins & snorkel stuff before the HI trip...the boys made good use of the fins in the pool.

MAUI, Day 6: Goodbye!

(MAUI, Day 5 Trilogy Trip here.)

Sadly, the day had arrived to go home. I was happy to finally return and be together with all the boys again too so it was a morning of mixed emotions.

George & I walked out to the beach one last time. The tide was coming in so it wasn't cooperative with my efforts to write in the sand...this is the best I could do before the next wave hit...along with my wilting lei.

Goodbye to the Ka'anapali Beach Hotel! We enjoyed our stay here!

Goodbye, beautiful Maui! 

Our flight departed at 10am Hawaii time...it was crazy how long it took us to actually make it home.

You can see both Maui and Big Island here.

5 hours later it was cool to recognize the land coming into view below us--do you see the Golden Gate Bridge???

Our flight did not land in San Francisco though...we were headed to Sacramento, which looked very different from the air!

We had a couple hours of layover in Sacramento so we grabbed some yummy burritos which totally hit the spot. Finally we boarded a commuter propeller plane bound for Portland. We saw one more sunset (which lasted a very long time--we must have been flying with the turn of the earth or something because this was the view out the window for more than half the flight.) 

And (barely visible here) the wheels popped out ready to land at long last in PDX! And surprise, surprise, it was raining! By the time we got back to our car and drove home (scarily...the engine kept almost overheating...that's another story) it was 10pm at night Pacific Time! Long day of travel!!!

Our boys were all still up waiting for us even at that late hour. 

I was so happy to smother them all with hugs & kisses!

Happy 15th Anniversary to my wonderful George! 

Thank you for taking me to Maui for this awesomely memorable trip! 

And better yet that I had you to enjoy it all with--I married a great guy!

MAUI, Day 5: Trilogy Trip

(MAUI, Day 4 Parasailing here.)

Day 5 was our last full day in Maui.

We rose bright and early once again. I did snap a few shots of the view from our balcony. This is the inner courtyard and you can sorta make out the pool there in the middle. The pool itself was shaped like a whale.

And looking the other direction from our balcony, you can see just a bit of the beach. Close enough to an ocean view without having to pay the full ocean view price, nice!

The previous morning I had snapped a shot of this boat with all the people lined up waiting to board it just because I thought that looked so fun--lo and behold we did that very trip the next day! So imagine us in the line waiting to board this very same boat bright & early at 7:45am. : )

We went on a snorkel/sailing excursion to Honolua Bay with Trilogy. It was so much fun and worth every penny (if only just for the meals!)

It was rather windy & cloudy the morning we went, which made for some choppy seas and a slightly chilly ride. The island looked so ethereal shrouded in clouds with the light beaming down through it.

You could sit out on the hammocks if you wanted to--we tried it out a bit on the ride out to the bay but after a few drenching splashes from the choppy seas, we thought it best to sit elsewhere.

At last we made it to Honolua Bay, which was so calm compared with the open seas on the way there. This is Captain Kevin giving us the run down on everything. I really liked the Captain and his crew there (Kai & Thomas)--all 3 were very friendly and fun.

Look at that reef down there through that clean clear water! (And this is when it was cloudy...it was even more brilliant when the clouds cleared up.)

George got the "SNUBA upgrade"--Snuba is a cross between snorkeling and scuba. You wear a face mask similar to a snorkel mask only it's attached to a 20 ft long tube connected to an oxygen tank that floats at the surface, so you can go down into the water up to 20 ft for a closer look at the reef.

 It took George a few minutes to get used to it, particularly having to wear the weight belt, but he said it was a piece of cake after those initial few minutes.

They started out close to the boat but pretty soon they were way out there! It was raining fairly heavily at this time--luckily for me, there was a place inside the boat to get out of the rain... 

I didn't even go snorkeling (remember, Chicken of the Sea is me...I've tried snorkeling a few times but I just start to panic every time I put my face in the water with the mask on. It's not fun for me.) So I hung out taking photos around the boat while everyone else was off enjoying themselves in the water.

Looking up at clearing skies...

And looking down at that pretty water under the hammock and my feet.

Finally George was back...

...only to strap on his snorkel and take off without me once more.

Now the sun had come out...the water looks that much more inviting!

Looking in toward the shore you see the park we walked through the day before with all the big trees and hordes of chickens.

I only briefly alluded to the food above: we were fed a delicious breakfast of fresh-out-of-the-oven cinnamon buns and pineapple juice (yum!); there was fresh fruit and also chips & salsa to snack on while at anchor in the bay along with a variety of drinks; and for lunch, we were served delicious BBQ chicken with buttery corn on the cob, rolls & salad--later on they brought us ice cream too! All of it was very good and we would have paid almost as much regardless of the boat/snorkel trip just to eat that much back in Ka'anapali. If you, like me, are not into snorkeling, I still recommend this boating excursion--good food, good fun & seeing HI from the water is awesome!

Despite my chicken-ness, I decided I had to get into that water at least once, so I ventured down the walkway with a floatie belt.

Strapped it on and got in for a few minutes. I was feeling squeamish even in that beautiful warm clear water because I could see quite clearly all the fish swimming around me. 

This is close to the view I had in the water looking under the boat--see all those fish?!?!

George went back out for more snorkeling after lunch.

 I still got to enjoy some wildlife from the boat--this sea turtle kept popping up to wave hello!

That's the sea turtle's head. : )

 After that last 30 min of snorkeling, everyone returned to the boat, the crew pulled up the anchor and we departed to head back to Ka'anapali, but we didn't go straight back...they opened up the sail and we sailed for something like an hour. It was so relaxing! George & I parked ourselves back out on the hammock (it was far less splashy than it had been earlier that morning, sailing with the wind helped of course) and laid out on our towels. We didn't want it to end!

Sadly, it did have to end. It was about 1pm when we pulled back up on the shore and exited the boat. That trip was so worth it--for a full half day of adventure and good food, it was fabulous!

The rest of our day wasn't nearly as fabulous. We had to get all our stuff packed in preparation for flying home the next day....so we spent some time back in our room doing that. We had some shopping left to do, so we walked down to Whaler's Village (the resort shopping center) and wandered around there until we found what we were looking for.

We wanted to spend what was left of our day enjoying the beach. George did a little more snorkeling at Black Rock there at Ka'anapali Beach. As awesome as the snorkeling was out in Honolua Bay, he said he had actually seen more interesting wildlife right there at Black Rock.

My one desire was just to lay on the beach in the warm sun and read my book uninterrupted...which I was finally able to do for a bit while George was off snorkeling. This was my view from my beach towel, parked near Black Rock looking back down Ka'anapali Beach with the row of resorts running along it. Ours is the shorter building toward the middle of the photo. You can see how beautiful the beach is the whole way down.

When George was finished snorkeling, we moved down closer to our own hotel--pictured here with my shadow.

We played in the water for a bit--surprisingly we had most of the beach to ourselves...who knows where all the people scattered off to. The sun was hanging pretty low in the sky so we hurried back in to change and make it back out to watch our last Hawaiian sunset.

Probably the least spectacular of all the sunsets/sunrises we saw on this trip, but still pretty.

Tried to take a pic of us with the sunset but you can see how well that worked.

Then it was time for dinner. We decided to try this place out--Leilani's on the Beach--which was right off the Beach Walk in Whaler's Village. We were in the mood for burgers & this place was fairly reasonably priced too.

The "Beachside Nachos" were really tasty.

And we each had the "Big Kahuna" burgers, George's with sweet potato fries. Yum, yum!

 It was a super tasty end to our wonderful day!

(MAUI, Day 6 Goodbye here.)