The WCT Musical

Now that it's done, I have time to write about it. Caitlyn spent 2 weeks rehearsing -- from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. with a couple of breaks for lunch and dinner -- for a musical revue show. The performances were last weekend, and it was AMAZING what this group of 21 12- to 18-year-olds put together. So polished, so amazing. Caitlyn had a few one-line solos, and was back-up in a few songs, but had two duet/trios. One was Hallelujah from Shrek, and the other was The Climb from the Hannah Montana Movie. Unfortunately, I couldn't do any videoing (alas), but she was fantastic in both.

Needless to say, she made some good friends, and overall had a GREAT experience. I begged her to take pictures with these kids, and she did on the last day.

I hope she has more experiences like this again!

When You're Almost 18

Your birthday comes early! (Then again, Megan's birthday is hardly ever actually ON her birthday, so this really isn't a growing up thing. I think...)

Russell Went to Montreal

And this is what he saw:

I don't usually put up Russell posts here, but I thought you all would be interested in his trip to Montreal. It was for a conference, and he had a fantastic time.

Third Place is Nothing to Sneeze At

She (and her Individual Medly team -- she swam backstroke) did great!

The Grand Tetons

This is basically a drive-by shooting. We didn't stop, we didn't get out, we just drove by and said OOOOOHHH PRETTY. They really are.

Swimming in the Firehole River

While we did a LOT of fun things in Yellowstone, our favorite was swimming in the Firehole River. We wanted to swim in the Boiling River, but we talked to a park ranger, and they said it was closed, due to high water. And then they suggested this little spot. We despaired of ever finding it, but when we did, we had a BLAST. A storm even (kind of) moved in, and temperatures dropped, so it was warmer IN the river than OUT. In the end, it ended up being our favorite thing.

Waterfalls

We went and saw as many as we could. In order, clockwise, Gibbon Falls, Upper Yellowstone Falls, Tower Falls, Lower Yellowstone Fallls:

We initially stopped at the overlook:

and saw this (it looks like a painting!):

And then we got ambitious, and hiked down (3/8 of a mile, a 600 foot drop) to the Brink of the Lower Falls.

There was this sign on the way:

Obviously, Russell didn't read the sign.

I guess they're technically behind the railing. I'm glad I wasn't there for this picture.

When we got to the bottom, we saw this:

Which we instantly dubbed "the raging river of death"

Kristen, being a dear, helped me with my vertigo. And then she made this:



Unfortunately, Alison had managed to get dehydrated (even though it was only 11 a.m. and not too hot), and threw up, which is why she doesn't look terribly happy in this picture:

It was a tough hike up, but Alison (and everyone else) was a trooper, and we made it. We got some food and water in all of us and we felt much better. (And opted not to go on the other hikes to the Upper Falls and the bottom of the lower one.) Though this was definitely one of those experiences we'll always remember.

Hot Springs

I think, more than the geysers, what we liked was the hot springs. There were so many neat colors, and so vibrant. And seeing the steam off of them in the cool(ish) mornings was pretty neat as well.

We were disappointed by Mammoth Springs; many of the springs were inactive this year. But we went to
another spot on the way to Old Faithful on Saturday morning, and that was fantastic. The orange above is from the Grand Prismatic Spring. Way cool.

"Farting Mud"

One of the cool things, among a whole bunch of a cool natural things, is the phenomenon where the hot water and the dirt combine to create, well...

I took a bunch of pictures, but I think the video captures it better:



Alison declared: "It's like FARTING MUD." And thus it was dubbed.

Geysers

That's one of the things Yellowstone is known for: erupting water. We didn't see a whole lot of geysers go off (one of the main roads to geysers was closed due to melting) and we just didn't have the patience to wait around for a lot of the others. But we did wait for Old Faithful, which was worth it. And we did see a few others.

A few videos that Kristen took:

Yellowstone Animals

Yellowstone is Full of Warnings about animals. Lock up your food. Stay 50 feet away from the animals. Do not feed them at any cost. Do not approach them.

We were really good about following most of the warnings. Except the 50 feet ones. It's really hard to stay 50 away from an animal when it decides to park itself next to your car.

The elk were drive-by shootings (they were eating grass next to the road). And the bottom center is a baby black bear. We did stay good and far from that one, because who knows where the mama was.

Yellowstone is HUGE

I have been procrastinating putting up the Yellowstone pictures for one reason: there are SO many. Like several hundred from the day and a half we were there. It's intimidating.

We should probably start at the end:

It looks like the first picture we took, but it was actually taken as we left the park.

I think I'll divide this up by Stuff We Saw rather than by days. It might be easier to handle. Here's some camping pictures to start.

Also a pretty full moon from one of the nights:

Seen On the Intnerstate In Montana

At least it's not cows.

It's Lovely to See Old Friends

The crowd we met at Mi Mero Mole:

With the Perkins' kids (they're not old friends, but they had fun together)

With the Perkins

And the Bigelows, whom we saw in Teton Village on our way home.

The Columbia River is Quite Lovely

And I'm glad we found a picnic spot (in Boardman, OR) along the river and got our feet wet. It made the rest of the drive back to Spokane less long.

The Oregon Coast

Hawaii has spoiled us, and we thought we could picnic on the beach. Oregon beaches are not conducive to picnicking.

Even so, climbing around on the beach is fun, even if the water and the wind are COLD.

A side note: this was the beach where some of the film the Goonies was shot. We thought that was pretty cool, even if none of the girls have seen it. (Which will soon be rectified.)

The evergreen rainforest is a pretty cool thing to see.

The "octopus tree" on the right is 250-300 years old, and they have no idea how or why it grew that way. It was pretty amazing.

Kristen has a tendency to wander off, and losing your 8-year-old is pretty panic-inducing. Russell thought she was with me, I thought she was with him. She wandered off to chase a squirrel, and by the time she came back, we were gone, thinking she had gone on to the lighthouse ahead. It wasn't fun. Also, Caitlyn and Alison bailed on the lighthouse (Kristen and I went down the hill -- after I found her, of course - to find Russell who was frantically searching down there for her) which is why Kristen's the only one in these pictures.

Still. A lovely day.

The Tillamook Factory is Really Interesting

We were talking to Russell's brother, Phil, about our trip to Portland/the coast, and he suggested we stop by the Tillamook cheese factory. We liked the cheese, and it sounded fun, so we figured why not?

Amazingly, it was really quite interesting. Lots of stuff to look at

Including a bunch of information on their processing and packing.

And yummy things to try

and buy

(We got a smaller version of that)

The only sad thing is that we opted not to get the ice cream. (We were kind of ice-creamed out by this point.) Even so, it was a fun stop.