Happy Halloween from our knight and his dragon!

The Adventures of Pete

Half-day kindergarteners had the week off of school while everyone else had half days this week, and thanks to recent inaction in congress, Dad didn't have to travel to San Antonio for work this week, so we made the most of it and took a vacation!  This was probably our last shoulder-season vacation until 2028.  We enjoyed the beautiful fall colors and lack of crowds.  We had a fifth addition to our family this week.  Pete the Cat joined us from Evan's kindergarten class.  He seemed to be in the middle of our wildest adventures!

 

We logged over 700 miles on our 4-day trip.  That does include an unexpected 100-mile 2:00 AM trip to the ER where two of our four family members were treated.  (Pete came along for the ride, but Mom didn't let him come into the hospital for fear of germs.)

 

First stop--hiking in the North Cascades National Park.

Pete and me at Gorge Falls.

 Second stop--another hike.  This time at beautiful Thunder Knob.  He's hard to see, but Pete is riding in my backpack.

At the top of Thunder Knob we had a beautiful view of Diablo Lake.

Next stop--Diablo Lake lookout.

We stayed just outside of Winthrop, where there are miles and miles of hiking and biking trails.  Here we are taking a break from our trail ride to take in the views of Patterson Lake.

Lovely Patterson Lake.

The fall colors were quite spectacular everywhere we went.

Dad brought his road bike in and went on what he described as the third prettiest ride he's ever been on.  Look at the colors at the end!

The boys loved the game room at our lodge.  And so did Pete!

Another beautiful trail ride.

And a trail run.



 We enjoyed the leaves on the trees and the leaves on the ground at Pearrygin Lake. 

Brother love.

 

Pete helped us bury Dad in leaves.

 Leaf fight!

 

The sun was in the wrong place for our family picture on our last morning.  The view of the mountains behind us stretched well into the Cascades, but you'll have to take our word for it.

 

Had to stop to enjoy the view we love the most on our way home.  This is about where our living room windows will be.  Bad lighting for the mountains again.  But there is no end to the view of the Enchantments when you are here in person.  For now, we'll just vacation and dream.

Pumpkin Patch

It's pumpkin patch time!  We had fun on the slides, hay ride, petting the animals, navigating the hay maze, jumping off the hay jump, and picking out our pumpkins. 

 

Running Buddies

We did our very first road race last night!  It was a glow run, so we had on our glow-in-the-dark face paint, and glow necklaces.  Evan was in the top 10 for the kids' 1K (with some runners that were quite a bit older than him).  Nathan ran with Dad for the first 200 meters, and then got off his shoulders and ran the rest by himself (with Dad along side).  When asked if he was going to run, Nathan said, "Yes, but only if I don't have to put my race number on." 

 

Thanks to Grandma for watching for Evan at the finish line in the dark since Mom had to be at the starting line of her race, and for being our photographer for the night!

 Beautiful night in a beautiful setting.  Mom's race wound around the capitol building, through the capitol campus, and then around a lake.

 

Post-race silliness.

This is my crazy hair after our bike ride/run this morning.  It's been really cold in the morning, so I've been wearing my skullcap under my helmet. 

Yikes!  Mom took me to get a haircut this afternoon!

Saturday hike

We are enjoying our streak of nice weather (much more average for this time of year than our streak of downpours).  We celebrated a sunny Saturday with a great hike.  Our destination was a breathtaking view across the Narrows, which of course, was not captured on film.

These are the roots of a huge downed tree that we found along the trail.

 

Sitting on a nurse log with a full-grown tree growing out of it beside me.

Celebrations

This weekend we celebrated Evan's and Grandpa's birthdays.  Decorating quickly turned into the making of an obstacle course, Mission Impossible style.  Note Daddy and Grandpa peeking out of the door to the den.  They had to slide under the many streamers across their door and then low crawl under the ones in the hallway.

Grandpa, Dad, and Nathan making their way down the hall.

I love the nerf bow and arrow from Aunt Katy and Uncle Joe.  I'm a little too cool to smile in pictures these days, though.  See Aunt Katy's pajama pants?  She's wearing them because I wanted to go to Fort Casey for my party.  So even though it was pouring buckets outside, we all went to Fort Casey and the lighthouse for a couple hours.  We came home DRENCHED from heads to toes!  It took two cycles in the dryer to dry our clothes.

 

 Happy birthday to us!