trillium lake

Last week, the Mr. and I decided that we were going to go on a date on Friday. He asked me where I wanted to go and I had been thinking for a while now about going to a lake over by Mt. Hood somewhere, but I wasn't sure which one. Then Thursday night it rained and got cold and I didn't particularly feel like sitting in the cold by a lake in the mountains Friday morning. So we postponed our date until Saturday. It was very cloudy almost the whole way there, then we stopped at the Ranger's station in ZigZag to get our day use pass and by the time we left there, the sky was perfectly blue with barely a cloud.

Whenever we take this drive up Rt. 26 to the mountain, I am always amazed by how many trees there are. It's insane, really, how many trees.

I gave Phil three choices of lakes: Frog Lake, Timothy Lake (where my hairdresser camps every summer), and Trillium Lake. The ranger said the best views of Hood were from Trillium Lake, so that's where we went.

It was beautiful. 

We did a little hiking and then went back to the car for our lunch and grabbed some chairs. We found a spot tucked away behind some trees and I sat there and read some journal articles while Phil took Wilson for a walk the whole way around the lake - about 2 miles, or so the signs said.

Wilson doesn't particularly like laying on the ground, especially ground that is somewhat muddy, and he was whining like crazy. I put up with it for a while, but then it just got annoying, so we left. He's a spoiled dog, and sometimes that comes back to bite me in the butt.

this just in. . . i'm still alive

My dad asked me the other day if I gave up blogging. Of course not, I just don't have time to write beyond what I'm required and graded on. And when I do have time to write, all I feel I write about is school. I love my dear ol' blog. It holds a lot of memories. I don't have plans on quitting it anytime soon. Long pauses, maybe. Calling her quits, absolutely not. It's sort of like scrapbooking. I want to do it, but there's just no time.

I've been super busy with subbing, pretty much nearly every day I'm booked somewhere. I'm getting ready to do a maternity leave for the lit. specialist at Marshall. My job will entail making sure all 3rd-5th graders get their state testing finished and the end-of-year district testing done for 1st-5th. Then I'll do some data stuff and have that ready for the teachers to mull over at their last data meeting. It's kind of a lot of responsibility and I'm slightly nervous about it, but the staff at this school is awesome and the principal told me not to worry about it, so I'm not. I'll worry about getting my homework done instead.

I'm on week #6 of class #9. My current cumulative GPA is a 3.95. (I'm working my butt off for that, by the way.) I received verification last week that I can pay $100 and apply to graduate. Yeah! My next two classes overlap with the class I'm taking right now the week of May 16th. And then it gets real crazy for the rest of May and most of June as I'll try to basically work full time, do homework, and keep my husband fed. I'll take 2 classes the first summer term and the last class the last summer term. Best of all, I'll be done August 26th.  Hallelujah! School starts August 31st (which also, coincidentally, happens to be the big 5-0 of my Phil505). I'm still not sure what will happen in the fall, I've been told I'm "on the queue for fall hiring," but I don't really know exactly what that means. I'm praying fervently for a full-time position that's not 5th grade at a school I love, and I'm still praying for Phil to find work as well. He's going on 3 months of unemployment.

Here's a few recent pics from our little spring break to-the-beach-and-back-real-quick trip to Astoria (so I could research Lewis & Clark for a project I'm working on) and Cannon Beach. It was crazy busy, so many people crowding around. I like it a little less littered with people and so does Wilson. We don't let him off-leash when it's packed. It was nice to get away for a short time and hang out on the beach for a little while.

fall break

So my 6th grad class ended October 16 and I had until the 26th before my next class started. Ten days of freedom!!! It also just so happened to be parent-teacher conference time when I wasn't working. When I saw that was going to happen back in August, I told Phil, "We are going to the beach." And we did. We went camping. Well, not exactly. We went cabining. Because who wants to set up and sleep in a tent at the beach in October? Not me. (In other news, I think our tenting days are done. But back to the story.)

We looked online for either a pet friendly cabin or yurt so we could take the world's best dog. Turns out, there aren't a lot of choices. But Cape Disappointment on the Washington coast has three pet friendly (heated) cabins. And that's where we went. Neither Phil505 nor myself had ever been to Cape Disappointment, and, unlike Lewis and Clark, we were not disappointed. It was so beautiful!

Cape Disappointment is on the north side of the Columbia River in the bottom corner of Washington. So in some spots you see the river and the jetties and in others you see the Pacific Ocean.

We left Thursday after Phil got home from work and we got to the beach just in time for the sunset. This is the view from Beards Hollow Overlook.

The first night we were the only people in our loop except the camp hosts. That changed Friday night when we were invaded by two Boy Scout troops on both sides of the cabins. Middle school boys are. . . interesting.

We hiked the Benson Beach Trail and ended up here. This, I guess, is Benson Beach on the Pacific. Wilson was the only dog and there were only two other people out here that we saw.

Looking north you can see the North Head Lighthouse. The other white building is the keeper's quarters which you can rent out in the summer.

I didn't remember ever going to see this lighthouse, but Phil505 assured me we had. When I saw the pointy spire thing on top, then I remembered.

Just mere steps away from our cabin was Waikiki Beach and the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse. Tucked up on the hill is also the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. We didn't make it up there this time, but we plan on going back for sure.

The beach was small, and tucked in between this cliff and the jetty. It was one of the best beaches I've ever been to on the coast.

It was a nice relaxing getaway with my guy. He even drove me to Long Beach so I could get an ice cream cone. Huckleberry cheesecake in a waffle cone, in case you were wondering.

Wilson is a great camping dog. To an extent. Then when he can't tolerate being on the ground anymore, he wines for a chair. He does love the beach though, no doubt about that.

From our little picnic table area we saw a whole lot of wildlife. Can you spot the bald eagle? I saw it fly across the lake. That was so cool.

We had a blue heron and another kind of crane fishing just on the other side of the lake.

There were deer all over the place. We also saw raccoons and otters.

And then there was my personal favorite, the wooly bears. The term wooly bear is an Ohio thing. We have wooly bear festivals and all kinds of weirdness about wooly bears on the 6:00 news' weather report. This was only the second time I've seen them in the northwest, so I had to take a picture.

Saturday night it started to rain. We were fine, heated cabin and all. We drove home earlier on Sunday than we had planned after we stopped for breakfast. It was like driving through the clouds. The rain has been (an annoying) welcome around here after our extremely dry summer.

And now we're back and I'm deep in the books again. I'm taking Children of Exceptionality this subterm. It's class #7 out of 12. I'm on the downhill slide now and hope to be finished by the end of August 2016, just in time to hopefully get a job for the fall.

sauvie island + cathedral park

Yesterday, in the name of self-care and friendship, I took the day off from my studying and went on a get-out-of-Vancouver trip with my friend Barbara. She knows just when to rescue me from the bottomless pit of depression and homework, and it was refreshing to my soul to spend the day with her. I was told not to wear flip flops (so I wasn't sure where we were going) and when I got to her house she had my favorite iced tea waiting in the fridge. We visited her mom in the nursing home and she treated me to lunch. Then we drove out to Sauvie Island, the fruit and vegetable mecca of Portland. They always have the best berries there. We picked some fresh, ripe peaches (with which I'm about to make a peach crisp) and drove around the island enjoying the awesome cool and slightly cloudy summer day.

On our way back into Portland, we drove across my favorite bridge so she could take me to Cathedral Park. We lived not very far from there when Phil505 and I were first married. In fact, on the way home, we drove by our old house - so strange to see it again after like 10 years. Anyway, I have always wanted to go to this park, so we did. The architecture of the bridge is simply awesome. You can totally see why it's called Cathedral Park. It's a pretty popular place for wedding pics, senior pics, and family pics. I want to get our pictures taken here soon.

St. John's Bridge. . . the supports are massive.

So thankful for my friend who always just seems to know when I need some time away.

spring retreat

Last weekend I was hanging out with this fine looking group of ladies from my church at our church conference's spring retreat. This picture was actually taken Sunday afternoon after we'd left Newport and we stopped for lunch together at Mo's in Lincoln City. We've gone there a few times, I guess so Linda can buy us all a couple warm peach and marionberry cobblers to share. It's tradition.

In case you were wondering, I skipped the fish and chips this time, but I couldn't say no to the clam chowder.

I think there were about 175 of us all together, from churches in Oregon and Washington. The weather was beautiful and we all pretty much had ocean view rooms. The theme this year was Resting in the Journey with the theme verses coming from Matthew. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-29

We were blessed by four amazing ladies who spoke at the main sessions. They shared how they found rest during heartbreaking seasons of infant loss, sexual abuse, losing a spouse to cancer, and while being forced to leave a foreign country as a missionary. This was a different format for us, as we usually have one speaker that covers all the main sessions. Different was good, though. So, so good.

Our church ended up leading the worship music and providing special music a couple of times. I got to play the keyboard and listen to a whole room full of ladies harmonizing and lifting up the name of Jesus. Good stuff. 

On Saturday night, we had a little game where everyone who brought a mug got to pick one from the table. The sheets inside were kind of get-to-know-you forms, so the person who got your mug will know who to pray for. I found out whose mug I got, but I wasn't able to discover who ended up with mine. However, whoever it is has already sent me an anonymous note in the mail. How cool is that? The whole premise of this mug exchange that when you use that particular mug, it's supposed to remind you to pray for that person. 

On Saturday afternoon, after the breakout sessions (I did card-making, journaling, and women's ministry ideas) my friend Barbara and I hopped in her car and headed south. We stopped at Seal Rock and at a couple of state parks. Have I ever mentioned how much I love the Oregon coast???

My sister-in-law, Cindy, was the chairman of retreat this year. She did a fantastic job. Then she went home and fell and broke her femur on Monday. If you think about her, say a prayer. She's had quite a bit of pain.

I'm so thankful that I had the opportunity again to go to retreat and be a part of a pretty amazing weekend. Being a part of the conference women's ministry team, I know a lot of prayer and planning went into this event and it was so neat to see that God answered our prayers and blessed a lot of ladies. I'm now praying real hard (and crossing my fingers and toes and perhaps my eyeballs) that my dear friend, Kerry Messer, will be able to join us as our speaker next year. Ghetto Girls reunion at spring retreat? Oh. Ya.

photo circa October 2013 in Vegas.

wooden shoe tulip festival

It seems like the ol' tulipfest gets a yearly blog post, but I can't help it. It's just too pretty not to share. I probably have hundreds of pictures of tulips, but I just keep snapping away. 

This year, we stopped on our way home from the beach, so Wilson got to come along for the fun. Yes, I made my dog look through that and people probably thought I was a weirdo. I don't care.

There's really not much to say, after all, it's just row after row of tulips. This particular tulip farm is in Woodburn, Oregon, and it's pretty big, bigger than the place I went to last year in Woodland, Washington. The one I really want to go to is in Skagit Valley, Washington (north of Seattle). It's gigantic.

Because we've had such a mild winter, this place opened up a week early. There were a few varieties of tulips that hadn't bloomed yet, but most were just right.

Love that my Phil505 always humors me by taking me to see flowers. He's a keeper.

This dog got so much attention from people. Everybody loves Wilson.

This was the pick-yer-own field. 50 cents a stem.

Take time to tiptoe through the tulips, people.

south fogarty creek state park

One of the days we were at the beach we ventured down to Depoe Bay and got some ice cream. On the drive there, we passed some signs for South Fogarty Creek State Park. It's right next to Boiler Bay, a place we've been to several times before to look for whales, but we had never been to this particular stretch of beach. So on our last day we decided not to rush home and spend a little more time at the water. You park on one side of the highway and walk under the bridge to get to the ocean side. The beach itself is not real big and it's pretty rocky, however, there were some pretty cool tide pools and the way the rocks had been carved by the water was rather interesting. It was a pretty little place tucked in between some cliffs. The sand was more like tiny pebbles than sand and it was pretty sloped which made walking in it rather tricky. 

I found a few starfish!

There were caves in the rocks on the left side of this next picture. Kids were climbing around in them. That sort of thing freaks me out. I'm definitely not a cave girl.

South Fogarty Creek - another beautiful place to see on the Oregon Coast.