Want to see the area we live in?
We had an absolutely wonderful day today! My husband’s sister and her husband are here visiting from Ohio, and as is custom when we have people visit, we took them on a hike.
Aunt Kim, Kenton & my boys and Uncle Mike, at the beginning of our hike. Kim is so skinny! Just like my DH & their other sister. NO FAIR!:
Pretty…. weeds? Flowers?
I got ONE picture of Gabe on this hike. And NONE of Alek (except their backs in the first pic). I had to hang back with my littles most of the hike. See those skin blow outs I was talking about? But, I’m keeping it since it’s my ONE picture of him from today.
Josiah needed to rest. And then he wanted to “cake pitchoors”. He never wants his picture taken. Goof!
After Josiah & I caught back up with everyone, Kenton had him ride in the backpack for a while.
Miss Millie had a bit of a ‘tude today.
A meadow with the mountains as a backdrop.
Don’t get dizzy! Looking down on the trail we just hiked up!
As Millie & I were hiking UP the mountain, the rest of them were hiking DOWN. Here we caught up to Gracie and then she joined us back up to the top of the mountain. Gracie’s a hiker.
We’re a little slow for her.
This is why Gracie wanted to go back- she wanted to play in the little patch of SNOW! There are glaciers on these mountains. This is just snow though. Doesn’t it look like they could just slide down the mountain on it? Eek. It did feel good though. I put a handful of it on my neck.
An Olympic Marmot! We saw a few on our hike, but from a distance. This one was several feet away from this patch of snow. I didn’t have a zoom lens on (rarely ever do- just my primes) so I’d take a pic, walk closer. Take a pic, walk closer. I got probably 4 feet away from him! He’d retreat to his burrow when I’d take a step closer but would come back out once I stopped. It was pretty big! Smaller than a beaver but much larger than a prairie dog.
One more of this handsome devil, different angle:
See the little tiny people on the far off trail?
We caught back up with Josiah and Kenton. I guess everyone else had already started to head back to the van.
Sass:
My girls were in the mood for pictures today! It was so fun!
I could’ve lingered for a couple more hours if I didn’t have so many people waiting on us. The flowers were just beautiful and were *begging* to have their picture taken!
And then we spotted this butterfly:
Another pretty shady spot:
Walking the World’s Rim:
Girls being goofy:
Millie fell back into the grass and was inspecting a bug she saw:
And the rest of these I took when I got home. Please stop here if you are of the weak stomached variety. These are pretty gross.
Okay, I warned you. 
Banana slugs.
Josiah inspecting the above banana slug:
Okay, this one’s really gross. Banana Slug on a Stick, courtesy of Gabe. Self-marinating. See that gooey snot looking stuff sticking to it? It’s their protective mechanism (but their slime has other more useful functions). When we first moved here, the children were SO excited to see these slugs, so they picked them up & brought them to show show us. That slime, I swear, is what they must make Super Glue out of! It is EXTREMELY sticky! It seriously took Kenton about 20 minutes to wash it off of Gracie’s hands. G-R-O-S-S!
He was very obliging letting me photograph him so much. And then Gabe found him a playmate and that was it. They became extremely shy and retreated into their…. heads?
There they remained for a few minutes, so I gave up and went inside.
That’s all for now!