july fourth weekend kicked off to an early start. kyle and i hung out in tacoma with jb and chele who were great guests and showed us a true, tacoma experience. we went climbing at edgeworks, ate at “the hub”, fueled up at corina bakery before setting off to hike up high rock, adjecent to mount rainier. it was an intense hike. after a dead end, 100 mosquito bites totaled between the four of us, we finally found the right trail head and set off! you can assume we made it to the top and then back down. check out some of the uber snazzy photos….
post hike. and we made it!
the look-out at the very top of the hike. you had to scramble to get to the top.
clearly i'm not paying attention. as usual.
after some good jb and chele time, kyle and i headed down south to tumwater/olympia area for some time at the johnsons. they just remodeled their kitchen and whoo-hoo….i’m already thinking of what i’ll do for my kitchen if we ever get a house one day. LOL. we had a great time on their lake, eating tons of food and trying to steer clear of spiders. all in all, it was a fabulous fourth!
me and my famous strawberry cupcakes.
harper has the height advantage to get shots like this of my cupcakes.
oh how we loved the paddle-boat.
k & j
this past weekend we caught up with the nordlund’s and went camping near monte cristo up north of seattle- area. it was loads up fun to hang out with brooke and jesse and their adorable dogs, jake and jonas. though jonas wasn’t terribly cute when he stole kyle’s brat and potatoe saturday night. LOL. we set up camp late on friday and was treated to a lovely steak dinner courtesy of jesse and brooke on the camping stove we got them for their wedding present! 
it was delicious. the next day we set out for gothic basin which is opposing to the monte cristo trail. it’s an 11 mile out and back butt work out. straight up is the only way to go. and clearly back the day, miners did not care about switch backs, but only getting straight to the top of the mountain. it was great training for our plans to summit rainier at the end of august. the beautiful part of the trip was hanging out and playing with their dogs but also being able to see the varying degree of nature….we went from marshes to alpine lakes in 4 hours! you can tell we gained some serious elevation… here’s some photos.
brooke and jesse
jake and jonas.
where we ate lunch...literally. we scampered to the third top area to refuel.
there we also found a geocash. read about these but never saw them in real life. pretty cool find.
kyle getting fresh, glacier water off an alpine lake. note kids, use steri-pen to clean water.
our new christmas photo near the alpine lake.
