A tale of two hikes...

This last Memorial Day weekend I went to Portland so the boys could go to Tyler's birthday party.
While in Portland I got to FINALLY hang out with Jennifer. I often enjoy time with my big sister and her care free spirit, this weekend was no exception. We tried to find things to do...
We thought about the Japanese Gardens, Saturday Market, Crystal Springs Rhododendron Gardens, Silver Falls, etc...

Everything was majorly crowded/packed. So we ended up going on a hike in Forest Park.
Neither of us had ever been there.
I have known about Forest Park forever, but it always had this weird stigma to it of being a "scary" place. Like the place they always find the dead bodies.
I know it's silly, but it seems like when I hear about Forest Park it isn't good news.

Anyways we went.
We hiked.
We sweat.
It was awesome.

 August enjoyed the masses of banana slugs that were out and about.

 Jen and I enjoyed all the pretty flowers.

I was trying to get all the bird sounds. It got kind of eerie.

There were dead moles all over the place...weird.

 This picnic table has seen better days. Apparently picnicking isn't popular here at Forest Park...

This was my dramatization of our desperation to be DONE!

So although this was awesome it was a very tiring walk.
We didn't really know where we were or if we were going the right way.
August had "tired" legs and kept stopping. I had to go to the bathroom so bad, but we had no idea how far away from anything we were. Each time we turned a corner or reached the top of a hill there was more rolling green nothing-ness...
Eventually we made our way back out.

And if that wasn't enough walking the next day we went to Tryon and did another mini walk/hike before I had to drive back home. First we went to lunch...

After lunch we went to so Jen could grab Ella (the toy sized Chihuahua)

Mitch took some pictures and a little video of how August likes to hike...

After this we got in the car and headed off on our 3 hour drive home.

I thought that August would pass out, but I was wrong.

Taking Grandpa to Smith Rock

...backing up a little. 

I forgot to document the FUN part of having grandpa come visit.

After all the grueling yard work and days of sweat and tears (mainly mine), we decided to go have some fun!

Our idea of fun was to go for a hike at Smith Rock, banana splits, and then to go see the new Spider man movie.

We made it Smith Rock.

And I will let the pictures tell the story...

We decided to buy all the stuff to make banana splits and just rent movies.

After that hike the kids were pretty tired.

My dad got some pretty good pictures too.

I will have to add them once I get them off of his camera.

Some Serious Yard Work

Our house needed a face lift.

Not only do we have 8-9 fruit trees around our yard, the house was surrounded with huge and overgrown hedges.

When we moved into the house last September it was a little late in the season to do much.

There were apples EVERYWHERE, a few plumbs, and tons of leaves.

We are also ill-equiped to handle yard work. 

Since we only own a lawn mower, weed whacker, and hedge trimmer...

Thanks to the family we were able to tackle a big part of the yard this spring.

My Dad drove up from California with his array of yard equipment and we went to work.

Dad was only going to be there for 2 full days. Brent was only there for 1.5.

We spent most of the first day getting all the chainsaws working. 

By the time we got things functioning I had to head to class. (3-8pm)

When I got home I had a mini break down.

When I returned from school Brent and Dad had done a BUNCH of work. 

Our yard was nothing but 5' piles of branches and bushes all around.

I was slightly overwhelmed knowing it would just be Dad and I for the next day.

It was way more work than I had anticipated.

Plus the landfill charged quite a bit per load.

Two loads had already cost $40 and looking at our yard we had at least 10 more.

So, I called in reinforcements with a plea for my sanity. 

Thankfully Carleen made the trek over and my Mom rented a wood chipper to alleviate having to make any more trips to the landfill.

We were able to get it all taken care of.

Sadly after one of the large Cyprus bushes were cut down we found a blue bird nest with 4 babies in it. They didn't make it. I felt sooo bad. I tried to save the ones that were still alive, but the mom took them out and killed them. I guess she knew they wouldn't make it. 

Anyways, I'm depressing myself again...

We were all sore and tired from the work. For my Dad and I it was 3.5 days straight of cutting, pruning, raking, shoveling and loading.

The house looks so much more open.

Now we just have to really brainstorm and agree on what to put around the house.

This is the before picture. 

The apple blossoms are beautiful, but they only lasted about a week.

All of those bushes were growing right up on the house. Full of bugs and pushing up on our eaves.  These beautiful trees produced hundreds of crab apples that killed our lawn last fall.

 This is the after picture.

The house looks pretty naked and all the apple blossoms are gone.

Still, it opened up 4-5 feet just in the front yard having those trees/bushes out.

 Before: Front of house

 After: Front of house

(Brent thinks it's too naked.)

He wants to put stuff around it.

 And you can see the stumps still need to come out!

 And here is a little video of the dirty work...

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Thanks again DAD & MOM (and Carleen) for all of your hard work.

It really meant the world to me to see everyone working so hard to help Brent and I accomplish this goal. I got teary eyed a few times, I was so moved by your willingness to do so much, even though both of you were in pain.

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