Memorial Weekend - part 2

We headed up to the mountains after my sibs hit the road. It was a beautiful day and we were excited to spend it in the great outdoors with more family!

Hendrix LOVES wearing blankets on his head. He was getting sleepy in the car ride up and tucked himself in....

Helping sister

 Hendrix actually made contact with the ball a few times! He takes after his dad, thank goodness!

Love my little family!!

We hiked up a really steep ridge. Stella and Olive did a great job keeping up with us!
When them came over the ridge they were holding hands :)

Dylan would walk under branches and Hendrix was laughing so hard. He loved it!

We found a bunch of turkey feathers then found some empty shells!

Found a TON of coral mushrooms! We brought a bag to put the mushrooms in, but Dylan had used it to collect pitch....so my long sleeves got sacrificed to be a carrier. Very delicious!!

We drove out a different way then we drove in and surrounding area was being logged.
Made for a bumpy ride, but was pretty cool to see the tall piles of trees!

We spied a Momma Bear! She ran towards us then scurried up this tree, just 15 feet from our car. She was just checking us out, hanging out. We the spied a little cub a few trees back, waaaay up. We watched his cute little buns scurry down those trees and meet up with his mom. They started to saunter off when a second little bear scurried down a neighboring tree and ran to catch up. They just took their time wandering around and looking at us then climbed up a hill. I love bears and I've always wanted to see one in the wild (Dylan ALWAYS teases me...."oh look, a bear!" and even though he is joking EVERY time I always look, because I'm not willing to miss the opportunity...) It was such a neat experience especially to be so close to them!

Our cousins found a bucket load of morel mushrooms!

Memorial Weekend - part 1

Keith & Courtney, William, and his girl friend Kaley came over for the long weekend! It wasn't long enough, but it was so fun to have them here. We went hiking up around Anthony Lakes, played tons of games, and made strawberry freezer jam! I love my family!

Keith, Courtney, William, Kaley
Keith wanted to carry Hendrix, but Hendo wasn't too keen on staying in the pack.
He wanted to explore too! So Keith just carried an empty pack most the time.....

 My happy family! It was so sunny, and both kids didn't mind wearing their sunglasses! Lou looked super cute as Totoro (thanks Ash!)

There were still some ice caves that were sort of together.....Keith and Will decided to see if their combined strength & weight could cave one in.....it did.

Keith caught this fish in a stream with his BEAR HANDS!!

Will found this homemade doll that had the story of Gunnar (a viking) laminated and attached to it (spoiler alert: Gunnar died because he was mean to his wife so she wouldn't give him some hair to make a bow string to fight off his enemies after his bow string broke. Moral of the story, be nice to your wives!). He also found a fiberglass rod and some thin rope, so he tied everything together. Atticus thought it was a toy just for him and these two boys ran around playing together for so long. It was pretty adorable.

Our dog is so handsome.

Wearing different generations of our Dad's work hats!

William decided to leave Gunnar behind for another lucky soul.

We wanted to have a big turkey dinner so we made turkey 3 ways: Stuffed breast over a bed of leaks, schnitzel, and we put the thighs and some wild coral mushrooms in the pressure cooker. I honestly cannot tell you which was my favorite. They were all so incredible. I can't wait for another turkey!! Kaley's birthday was on Tuesday so we celebrated while they were here. She requested brownies, so I made "Dylan Brownies" and we destroyed the pan. That's quite the feat considering how incredibly rich and chocolatey these are!!

Keith and Eloise hanging out!

Everyone wanted to try shooting Dylan's bow. None of the girls could draw it. Keith had some luck (also his arms are so incredibly long that it looked silly, the draw wasn't long enough!) and William was the only one that could consistently draw the bow. We had fun!

I went to pick up the strawberries to make jam and hit a dog on the way :( the dog just ran away, he seemed fine! But I still felt so terrible. I really hope he is okay! My car didn't have any permanent damage, but......that needed fixed.

Strawberry freezer jam! We made 25 pints.

The kids (I know they aren't kids) wanted crepes before they left but they were on a tight time schedule and we weren't sure we would be able to make it work! We got up a little early on Monday though and were able to whip up some to fill bellies before they left :)