Let the weekend begin!

I am excited about Heather and Gregg's wedding this weekend and spending time with friends and family!  We kicked off the weekend by seeing The Great Gatsby last night (somehow I got out of seeing Star Trek).  The movie was okay, but it was a fun way to spend a rainy Friday night.
Now let the wedding festivities begin.....!

Lily Turns One!

Aunt Emily skyping in from LA

Jesse and Meg's garden is looking good!

Jesse and Megan had a birthday party last weekend to celebrate Lily turning one! It was a Hawaiian themed party- very cute!  Lily was adorable and shy but she enjoyed her first ever taste of cake and carrying around her birthday balloon.

Backyard time

green house is looking good

The other weekend we watched little Minne (Jack and Maggie's dog) while they hiked Mt. Elenor in the Olympics.   When they got back later in the afternoon we BBQed and hung out in the backyard.... Where is our nice weather now? It is currently raining and cold.  Fingers crossed for a turn around in weather before Heather and Gregg's wedding on Sunday!
Minnie is the cutest little dog- Sushi was not too impressed and we had to be creative to keep them separated but it all worked out.

Capital City Marathon: Beth runs 5 miles

 

This isn't a great photo but this is me right before running in the 5 mile race yesterday that Olympia does in the Spring.  I've been gearing up for this for months and I really was surprised how much fun the whole thing was.  People were cheering you on the whole time and there were a bunch of water stations.  There was also a half- marathon (which Jenny did) and full marathon- both of which actually went right past our house- so once I was done, we drove home and saw lots of runners all over our street.  My time was 1 hour and 25 minutes for 5.2 miles, which is better than I thought I'd do.  I'm an annoyingly slow runner (and walker for that matter) so I was annoyed that I couldn't even pass some people who were run/walking.  The half-marathon people starting passing towards the end which was fun to see some really fast runners!  The whole thing was really neat- I couldn't believe they even announced your name at the end.  Since this was my first time doing anything like this, I was one of the only people with my # on my back (whoops) and I took the guidelines to heart about no headphones- when probably 25% of the other runners had headphones in....

Final Trip Pictures

For our last night of the road trip, I wanted to stay at the Cove Palisades State Park in Oregon because the photos looked so beautiful.  However, once we go there the campground was overpriced and disappointing (it catered to RV campers) and the lake was full of geese and looked pretty scummy.  We took some pictures, got back on the road and I'm so glad we did.  We ended up at a beautiful little campground on Mt. Hood right off the highway.  We camped next to the river and soaked in as much sun as we could before we drove home the next day.  Vacations are such a great way to re-charge.

More Caves

We stopped by this National Volcanic area outside of Bend where we hiked around the top of a volcano and then through a lava tube.  This lava tube was much much easier than the Ape Caves- it had flat ground to hike on, but it didn't open up at the end so you just had to turn around.  I don't know if I'll ever get used to hiking in the pitch black with a head lamp, it's a bit of a creepy feeling.  

Bend, Oregon

a stop on the way  near Grant's Pass

Don't think we'll be camping HERE

Treating ourselves to some fancy food in Bend

stumbled across a free concert at the McMcnamins in Bend

Checking out the downtown in search of coffee

So after the Oregon Caves we looked at our map and scratched our original plan of seeing the Umpqua Hot Springs, since it wasn't very on the way.  We noticed Crater Lake WAS on the way so we headed there for the night- only to hit snow and find out that all the campgrounds at Crater Lake are closed, and you basically could only drive 7 miles into the park before the roads were closed too. 
So instead we kept driving and made it to Bend where we got a hotel room and went out to a nice dinner.  Bend was very cute and had beautiful views of mountains all around (reminded me of a more hip/happening Leavenworth).  Our other impression was that it seemed to have a lot of rich people (fancy stores and restaurants).  I wish we could of spent a little more time there.  Maybe we'll go back someday.