Back in the Wilderness Again...

...Well, almost.

Now that my season of debilitating neck pain is over, I decided it's time to get back on the trails and start hiking all over the northwest. I started getting really interested in hiking pretty late last year, so I really only had time to whet my wilderness appetite in 2010 before all the trails were mudded over and, well, my neck broke, so I had to wait a few months before I could head back out again.

So this last week I tied back on my hiking boots and tried to get back out again In the interest of breaking ourselves back in slowly, my hiking buddy Wendy and I picked the easiest hike listed in our entire "hikes in Oregon" guidebook. Luckily, it happened to be just a few miles from both of our houses, because to be honest... as a hike, this was a little bit of a bust. The guidebook listed it as "a walk in the park" and it was, literally, a walk in a park. Champoeg Park, to be exact, and for you non-Oregonians, that's "Shampoo-ey" to you. For you Oregonians, you know we didn't really need water packs and tents or even hiking boots- we just had a nice little stroll.

Even though most of the "real" trails were too muddy to walk on there were quite a few paved trails for us to stroll on. Not exactly a typical challenging hike with stellar views, but hey, we tried. To further perpetuate the illusion of a real hike, we made sure to bring along the summit moose just in case we got to walk up a legitimate hill. (We didn't.)

The summit moose was finally named (Walter Peyton Moosedeer) by these three tagalongs, who are showing WPMD how to fully embrace his moose-iness:

(Walter really doesn't get the whole antler thing. The boys have it down.)

Wendy trying to look as enthusiastic as possible about our super-tough flat, paved trails.

Even when it's cold, wet, flat, and paved, Oregon still has some beautiful photo ops. I love our mossy trees!

Equally cool is this red-algae covered pond:

Okay, admittedly that cool red-algae pond is from the nature reserve just down the street a few days later and not even close to Champoeg, but it's still pretty.

So, time will tell whether or not I can actually get back into regular hiking. I hope to have lots more hikes and photos to post about in the upcoming year, but for now I guess I'll just go walk circles around the playground down the street. At least then I'll know ahead of time that I'm just going for a walk in the park.

2010 in review

Ah, what a year! I should probably spend a few weeks detailing all the marvelous and wonderful things that happened for those who don’t know. But... well… not gonna. Most people who read this blog already know all about this year and the craziness it brought with it. And if you don’t… well, tough. I’m lazy.

I will, however, hand over quite a few pictures, and recap the year with some photos! And I promise to do a better job blogging this coming year for all of you people who have been sooooooo missing our posts. (Tears… I know… wipe your eyes, people, we’re still here.)

Okay, sarcasm for this post is done! Here is the year in just a few pictures to sum it all up!

First: January. As seen in the previous post, we spent some time in Indiana. My dad and I went ice fishing. He used this submersible fish camera to try to locate fish underwater. It did not work. Not at all.

And February! Most people think of Valentine's when they think of February, and we had a lovely Valentine's Day. I say that partly because I got my iPhone that day and have been addicted ever since. I even snapped this picture, which proves what a romantic Valentine's we had:

March- in March I began trying to cultivate a new hobby of hiking. I started training on some pretty steep hills just outside of town, and was greeted with this friendly critter on the trail. Yes, my feet are pretty small, but still... that's an EARTHWORM, people!!! Good gracious, you could feed a small country with that sucker! Shudder... I put off the hiking for a few more months after I met him.

April- see, this is where it gets fun. Many of you are aware of our history of sabotaging our vacations immediately prior to leaving. (The mysterious disintegrating liver, the concrete face-scraping incident, just to name a few...) Well, this time dear Caleb came up with an infected leg that threatened to be a vacation-spoiler. Luckily, the best house-sitter in the world didn't mind following him around the house while he wore a funny safety donut. So here's dear old doggie on the way home from surgery- notice how he's so drugged up his tongue is actually resting ON the cone he's wearing:

And since he kept running into walls and refused to lay down while wearing the funny cone, we had to get a donut for him. (Seriously. He stood- STOOD- up for 24 hours straight because the cone freaked him out so much. That was a loooong night.) And of course I couldn't resist making the donut a little more interesting:

Dogs ahoy!

May! We love May! This year was our 5th anniversary (on 05/05/10, we have to point out that date whenever possible) and we celebrated on our favorite beach in Hawaii, which is also the one we got married on five years ago. Lovely, wonderful, relaxing trip. In our cottage:

And at our anniversary dinner (best. steak. ever.)

Yes, I am shamelessly flaunting my amazing anniversary gift in both pictures. Thank you, darling, I love you!!!

So June was also awesome! Andy's cousin Jenny visited and we had a great time doing all of the usual Oregon things:

And found time to explore the zoo. :)

July brought Andy's birthday, which we celebrated with a train ride on the coast. Ride was COLD, but lunch was warm. We found the official best fish n chips in the state, cooked by the uber loveable fish Nazi in Rockaway Beach. Oh, my, it was good.

And then we discovered that my "beach garb" exactly matched the landscaping at the Oregon Smokehouse:

Now that the weather was warmer, I figured I'd start trying hiking again. This time, I got a partner who would be able to help me fend off all the mutant Philistine worms. Occasionally we brought reinforcements to the trail, these three handsome warriors:

(notice the Summit Moose, carefully placed by the boys in every picture- here he is again, with his close up)

Speaking of the Summit Moose, he was acquired in August during a fabulous, wonderful, amazing trip that my dad and I shared with a friend to Alaska. During my part of the trip there was a lot of rain but we still managed to glimpse tons of wildlife, see some amazing views, go on a couple cool hikes, and take a day cruise to see some whales and glaciers. Amazing. Loved it.

Now, don't worry. We did not spend this year without the occasional ridiculous klutzy incident to amuse the masses. A short list: falling down Koko Head in Hawaii, freezing my neck and shoulder for two months straight because of a botched somersault, at least three falling-down-stairs, a couple too-enthusiastic-doggie playtimes that ended with just a little bleeding, an awesome black eye from venturing into Home Depot by myself, and this little gem, which no one can really explain using the known laws of physics:

Yeah, I'm not really sure what that's all about. And I also don't know whether it says more about Andy that he ran to get a camera after hearing a gigantic crash, or more about me that I just laid there until he snapped a few pics. (After five years, we sort of know the drill...)

So, September! And now is when the real chaos began... let the fun begin! First, Andy made a trip back to Indiana for his friend Mike's bachelor party...er...weekend. John even flew in from the east coast to join them for the weekend at the lake:

Next, my dad came for a quick visit so that he and I could drive back to Indiana. (Try to follow this storyline, read very slowly.) While he was here, we got a couple hikes in because he caught the wilderness bug in Alaska:

Andy and Dad both want to make it known that given the history of quality idjit incidents that I carry behind me, they disapprove of my antics on the trail.

After this random act of stupidness, Dad and I started off on a long drive to Indiana. We do this a lot, so this time we decided to stop along the way at a fire lookout tower in Montana. This was probably my favorite night of the entire year. We stayed in a 60-foot tower at 6000 feet...

Beautiful, amazing views. Our one mistake was deciding we didn't need to light the propane heater in the tower:

It was more than a little cold. Even Caleb needed to bundle up:

But in the morning, we were rewarded with this view, yep, we're above the fog, people!

(And now we're in October.) Once in Indiana, I met up with Andy, who had flown in. (Still with me?) We spent a bit visiting my parents in Middlebury and then went to Mike and Amy's wedding in Fort Wayne. Great wedding, great friends, great fun. Great time!

After the wedding, this never-before-seen creature was spotted on the streets of a Fort Wayne subdivision:

Next, we were off to Washington, D.C. We drove from Indiana to DC with Andy's mom and a rental full of luggage. (Truly, it was a miracle that there was room for the three of us among the bags.) So much to see in DC, including finally seeing (in person) some of our favorite art:

Visit (in person) the most famous house:

Experience (in person) some beautiful monuments:

Meet (in robot) Andy's hero:

And meet (in puppet) mine:

Oh, and of course we went to another amazing wedding- congrats to cuz'ns Phil and Ashley! I only have one picture, courtesy of cuz'n Mike, but it was another great wedding and we (obviously) had a lot of fun:

And Andy flew back to Portland and I returned to Middlebury to pick up the dog and head back home to Oregon. Sadly, though, I ended up staying in Indiana longer than expected and Andy was called back almost immediately because of the passing of his Grandpa George. It was a very, very sad week.

And now we're in November. So because of the rather frantic nature of Andy's return to Indiana, he didn't have a lot of choices for the trip back to Oregon but to get in the car with me and the dog and drive back. So, that's what we did. It was the first time Andy had made the drive cross country since the very first time he moved out to Portland. And dare I say (apart from a long stretch of Iowa and South Dakota where I was working from the passenger's seat and he was stuck in hours of construction), he pretty much enjoyed it! We made a couple of my favorite stops, and a couple of the tourist have-to-do-it stops. Andy's favorites:

The Corn Palace (of course):

The badlands:

Wall Drug (where he made a new friend):

And Lolo Pass, the favorite for both of us:

Arriving home, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of the holiday season. With no idea where the year had gone. So, we treated ourselves to a quiet Thanksgiving at home, then geared up for a whirlwind of a December! First we were treated to a rare and wonderful visit by Andy's sister Lisa. For those who don't know, she calls New Zealand home so it's hard to hook up in person with her. We had a fabulous visit with her. Caleb is sad to see her go:

And so are we, but we also know that next year will be an even better visit with her, since we're planning on traveling to New Zealand for her wedding! (Bet Caleb REALLY pouts then...)

Andy's mom joined us for the last bit of Lisa's visit, then after they went home my parents arrived to spend Christmas with us. Spending the holiday together and with family is something we don't often get to do, and we loved every minute of it. It was an awesome Christmas.

We call this shot "A Successful Christmas":

So there was our year in a nutshell, or rather in one quickie blog post. Of course there was way more that we could talk about, but if you wanted to know every little detail of our lives, well, you'd be us, and that's just weird.

Sure, I could have been diligent and blogged about each of these individual events all year long to keep everybody up to date, but really, what good would that have done? You would have been forced to read endless narratives full of naught but sarcasm and excessive dog pictures. So seriously, consider yourselves lucky, yes?

One last picture from this year's Christmas tree hunt and enhanced by the lovely Lisa. We really had a great year. 2011 should be pretty darn good.