Hiking Yellow Aster Butte

It's that time of year again.  Hiking with Mark and Edie.  I have a love/hate thing going on when I hike with Mark and Edie.  I love the company, the amazing views, the fresh air, the thrill of the "summit", and especially the reward of Mexican food after the hike.  I hate the fact that my lungs feel like they are going to explode most of the time I am hiking.  I have come to two conclusions regarding all this: 1. The love outweighs the hate.  2. I need to get in better shape so maybe the hate won't be so...hateful. 
So anyhoo, here we go...hiking Yellow Aster Butte.
The trail was 7.5 miles roundtrip and had an elevation gain of 2550 feet.  It wasn't an easy hike.

We had an amazingly beautiful day though. 

Me and my hiking buddy.  Edie let me borrow some poles and I really liked them since there was a lot of uphill climbing and the path got narrow at times. 

The wildflowers were amazing.  This would be a fun hike to do in the fall too since there was lots of huckleberry bushes along the trail (they turn brilliant red in another month or so). 

Sam came along with us.  He is a great hiker.  He was pretty excited when we ran into some snow along the way.  Kids find snow especially cool when it's 70-some degrees out.  I pretty much never find snow cool.

 Our "we made it to the top" pictures.

The fair

Oh, the fair.  Can you believe it, we've had a beautiful summer here in the PNW but the week of the fair...yuck.  Monday was very, very hot and the rest of the week it was cool and rainy.  I had gotten Sam and Katie carnival wristbands earlier in the summer otherwise we probably would have just skipped it this year.  I took them on Wednesday which actually turned out to be a decent day to go.  The sun never came out and it drizzled a little but that kept the crowds away which meant no lines for the rides which is all my kids really want to do anyway. 

Please note Katie's face.  She went on the horses only because Sam was riding something she was too short to go on.  Every time she went around she yelled at me, "This is boring!"  This one's my dare devil.  

Ran into my favorite garbage picker uppers.  This was the third year these two worked together.  They have way too much fun picking up garbage.

More rides...I'm telling you, it's about all we did.

She insisted on having her own bumper car even though her foot couldn't really reach the pedal so we went about nowhere.

We did make it through most of the animal barns.  I thought it was pretty funny that two out of the three turkeys in this cage were named after my children.  Isn't that fascinating that boy and girl turkeys leave different shaped droppings?

I gave them each $5 to spend.  Sam got a moowich and didn't share one bite.

Katie wanted to use the giant hammer to ring the bell.  She won a pink, blow up owl that sprung a leak about two and a half minutes after she got it. 

More rides.  This one is apparently much more fun when you don't hold on.

Sam is not my dare devil.  I told him he had to try out an "upside down ride" this year.  He finally worked up enough courage and got in line for the Ring of Fire only to find out that you can't be a single rider.  Really, why would that matter?  I think he was rather relieved.  John joined us after work and I told him he had to buy himself some ride tickets so he could do the Ring of Fire with Sam.  John, being the cheap Dutchman who knows virtually everyone in Whatcom County, started asking kids to go on the ride with Sam.  He even asked some GIRLS (this did not make Sam happy).  Lucky for Sam, we ran into one of his buddies from school who agreed (after some persuasion) to go on with him. 

They were both pretty nervous before the ride started.

But were all smiles after it was done.  I'm pretty sure Sam closed his eyes the entire time.

We got to the fair about 10:00 in the morning and didn't leave until almost 11:00 at night and then walked home.  I think Sam and Katie both slept until about noon the next day!

22 years

You know how sometimes you have these awesome plans and then something happens to screw up your plans and you're kind of bummed but then it turns out that what happens instead is even cooler than your original plans?  That happened on my anniversary this year.  I won't go into a bunch of detail but due to some passport issues, Holly had to accompany John and I on our "romantic get-a-way" to Vancouver.  We ended up going to the Capilano Suspension Bridge and Park.  It has the world's longest (460 feet) and highest (230 feet) suspension bridge.  It was really cool...as long as you don't mind heights...or swinging bridges.

 Looking down.

Another section of the park had a swinging network of smaller bridges strung between huge Douglass Fir trees, called Treetops Adventure.

 You walked across the bridges to eight different viewing platforms.

 We saw an owl.

 This is our "I hope this bridge doesn't break whilst we are on it" faces.

We also walked the Cliffwalk which is a high and narrow walkway that juts out from the granite cliffs above the river.  In some sections, they had glass floors.  Walking across that was kind of spooky.

 

One nice thing about having your daughter along on your romantic get-a-way is that she can take pictures of you!

After we left the park we stopped at a Subway for some sandwiches and joined Holly's friends (and a few of their parents too) at Stanley Park for a picnic.

 We then went to see "Legally Blonde: The Musical" at Theater Under the Stars. 

Here's all of our blondes.

The show was well done and really funny (I loved the UPS guy) but in hindsight we should have probably opted for Shrek (which was also playing this summer).  It might have been a little more...appropriate.

Drama boys.  They crack me up. 



It turned out to be such a fun day and I am so glad that I got to share it with my amazing hubby and daughter.

Cousin Rachel's visit and some other random summer stuff

We got home on Thursday evening and Rachel's flight back home was early Sunday morning so we had to pack a lot into just a couple of days...AND we had to share her with her other aunt and uncle in town!  On Friday Holly took her to see all the sights of Lynden and then took her out to the raspberry fields so she could experience riding on a picker.  Friday night we were all invited over to the Wester's house for ice cream (what else?)  Saturday we spent at Boulevard Park in Bellingham. 

After the park we decided to have dessert before dinner so we went to Menchies for yogurt and then picked up Chinese food for supper.  Saturday night the girls went to an outdoor movie at our local pizza place and by 10:00 Sunday morning she was at the airport in Seattle.  It was a quick visit but we loved having her here!
And here's some other random summer stuff...
This is Sam and one of his buddies talking to our neighbor Stu.  Apparently Sam was telling Tyler that Stu was almost in the NBA and Tyler, being a huge basketball fan, wanted to talk to him.  They spent quite a bit of time over there.  Sam came home very excited because not only was Stu almost in the NBA but he was also a soldier in the war. 

Sam took golf lessons again this year.  His golf instructor said next year he'll be ready to play with "the big boys".  That made his father really happy.

Summer Vacation #7

Here it is folks.  The last summer vacation post.  We spent July 22 in Medora, North Dakota, home of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Did you know that once he became president, Theodore Roosevelt set aside millions of acres of land for national parks?  Thanks Teddy! 

At the South Visitor's Center, we took a one-mile hike into Painted Canyon.  It was hot!

It doesn't have the "wow factor" of other National Parks like Yellowstone or Zion but it was still beautiful and we appreciated the non-busyness of it.

At the North Visitor's Center they had a little museum and a good video (the Hiemstra family always watches the videos).  We also took a ranger-led tour of Roosevelt's cabin so Katie could earn her Junior Ranger badge.  I learned some new things about President Roosevelt. *He was born into an extremely wealthy family and was very spoiled. *He suffered from asthma and was a sickly child so to overcome his physical weaknesses he pushed himself to do strenuous things. *He moved west and made himself into a legitimate cowboy. *His wife and mother died on the same day in the same house only hours apart. *He came to North Dakota to mourn and heal.  He stayed here, bought a bunch of land and became a rancher. After a blizzard killed all of his cattle, he returned to the east and got involved in politics.

We took the 35-mile scenic drive around the park.  We saw prairie dog towns, a mule deer, lots of bison, a coyote and my favorite (because I had never seen them before) WILD HORSES.  Okay, technically they are not wild horses.  They are feral horses because they are descendants of domesticated stock (I learned that in the visitor's center). 

We stopped and took a couple of short hikes along the loop.

After we left the park, we walked around in downtown Medora for awhile.  It's a cute, western-themed town.   We had supper at the Cowboy Café and when we left the restaurant we were shocked to discover that it was cold, raining and super windy.  All day it had been beautiful and sunny.  This was a problem since we had tickets to the "Medora Musical" which is held outdoors.  After talking with locals, we found out that sudden storms pop up all the time and most likely it would blow over and the show would go on.  And that's just what happened.  The musical was delayed about a half an hour but by the time we got to our seats, the sun was shining again.

The show was really good.  The town of Medora has a population of just over a hundred people but every night in the summer thousands of people come to watch the musical.  The beautiful outdoor amphitheater seats almost 3,000 people.  All the kids got to go on stage for the singing of the national anthem.  Check out the cutie in the pink sweatshirt! 

She was pretty proud!

Cool stage huh?  I think the girls thought it was going to be a pretty corny show but they were impressed.  The performers come from all over the country and live together in the fake grain mill that's part of the set.  Holly isn't really a fan of country music and she's never owned cowboy boots but she still thought it would be a great summer job!

July 23.  We drove across Montana.  Enough said.  The girls had bought themselves little cross-stitch kits in Medora. 

They both got done before we were out of Montana.  Montana is a very long state.

We stopped in Post Falls, Idaho for the night.  The kids were very happy to be out of the car.

July 24.  We left the hotel at 8:00 and we were all very happy to see this sign.  We got home around 4:00.

Another awesome Midwest summer vacation!  It's always so much fun laughing about old times with our family and friends and creating new memories too.  We miss you guys!