Horsetail Falls in the Columbia Gorge

As I mentioned last week, I spent a day with P, Z and Jac out at Horsetail falls hiking and exploring. I love, love, love being so close to them that we can go on day trips, and I absolutely cannot wait for our little one to be able to join us (have I mentioned this yet?? ;)

After a picnic, we hiked .4 miles up to Horsetail falls - a beautiful waterfall you can walk behind (that I'd love to actually swim in someday on a really HOT day). P, Jac and Z continued on another hike, which was on an unmaintained steep trail that I started to attempt and then decided sitting in the trees listening to the water fall wasn't such a bad place for me to be after all! Someday I will do that hike, but I'm realizing that I've definitely got a limit and it's getting a little bit smaller the more pregnant I get!

Here are some photos from my camera of our day:

This photo doesn't do it justice, but the lighting coming through the trees as we came around the bend to find Horsetail Falls was quite amazing.

One Last Weekend Away as 2

I'd read a few suggestions for couples to take trips before their little one arrives (in lots of articles it's called something similar to a honeymoon, but drop the honey and add another word... I'm not allowed to mention the word though, Seth's orders...). I'd been contemplating bringing it up for a while and wondering if it was in our budget or money we should be spending on all the baby stuff we need to get/saving since I'm no longer working. I decided to throw the idea out there and Seth thought it was a great idea. We agreed to head towards Mt. Hood since it's not too far from Portland, and he really loves the mountains! 

I found a perfect cabin - just inside Mt. Hood National Forest. It was a 1 bedroom, great for 2, and the price was impossible to beat! Here's a link if you are interested in seeing the cabin we stayed in! We quite enjoyed our weekend home and would probably go back again. 

We spent our evenings grilling dinner and eating on the porch. Then Seth would light a fire, and we'd spend a couple hours sitting (or in my case, lounging/laying/sitting - whichever was comfortable) by the fire, making smores, dreaming about our little one, talking about plans for our future, discussing our ideas about parenting and what we want/don't want. 

We spent both Saturday and Sunday exploring lakes around Mt. Hood. We didn't do much in the way of hiking (I've really started feeling the result of too much physical activity - and mostly it's been coming after the work is done... then it seems to take me out for at least an hour or so...) 

The first lake we visited was Trillium Lake. We found out about this lake from our car salesman last weekend. It was definitely a BEAUTIFUL lake to visit. You can drive right up to the lake, which makes it easily accessible to a lot of people. We didn't mind though, because the view was so magnificent. We found a quiet place to sit and watch the people fishing and take in the view. 

The next lake we visited was Clear Lake. It's a little farther from Mt. Hood and doesn't have any mountain backdrop views, but we still really enjoyed it. You can also drive right up to this lake, but despite that, it was surprisingly lacking in the people area (especially for such a nice day). We liked how there were camp sites just behind the line of trees going along the side of the lake we came in on. How fun it would be to be able to walk from you camp site right down to the water. And this water was a pleasant place to be on that HOT Saturday afternoon. (I wish I'd have brought my swimming suit and a tube to float on!)

Our last stop on Saturday was Mt. Hood Timberline. Although we'd been there before, I still wanted to return and check out the lodge that we didn't go into last summer. The views are amazing, and it's quite fantastic to be so far up on Mt. Hood. I cannot wait to see it in the winter time with all it's snow!!

 Seth is dreaming of the snowboarding he can do this winter (hopefully ;)!!

On Sunday, we spent the morning resting and watching the DNC speeches that we'd missed last week. Both mornings were a little rough for me, so taking it easy was an absolute must before we spent the afternoon exploring. Checkout was noon, and at that point, we headed towards Lost Lake (about an hour and a half and a scenic drive around the southern to eastern to northern parts of Mt. Hood).

Ethan, Jac and P had gone to Lost Lake last summer and had raved about it, so Seth was really wanting to check it out. Plus, you can rent boats and head out on the lake (I'm ALL about renting boats - the other two lakes lacked that option... you had to bring you own.)

The 12 mile road up to Lost Lake is quite something. It's INSANELY windy, and I was NOT feeling so great once we got on it! I was quite relieved to arrive and soon forgot about my queazy stomach with the views!

 It was love at first sight! We were amazed by the beauty of this lake! Mt. Hood can normally be seen in that blue area just to the left of the middle of the picture... but I didn't get any photos of it before the clouds rolled in.

 It was a bit cooler at this lake (I have two sweatshirts on :). It was also quite windy, but despite that, Seth rowed us all the way across the lake (the East and West way).

 I love love love this man. His child is so lucky to have him as a father, and I absolutely cannot wait to watch him grow into the amazing father I know he'll be!!! (Especially if he's anything like the absolutely amazing husband he is to me!)

We made one last stop before home. Huckleberry Milkshakes were a must! (This place is just on the South edge of Hood River, Oregon if you are wanting to try one yourself!!)

And the drive home couldn't have been anymore beautiful! The Columbia Gorge is really breathtaking!

Crater Lake

This photo was taken by my father-in-law, and I absolutely LOVE it!! 

Seth's father came to Portland for a visit this week, which gave us the perfect excuse to head out and explore a bit of Oregon. This last weekend's destination was Crater Lake Saturday and a last minute decision to hit the coast on Sunday.

Crater Lake was absolutely breath-taking and deserves days and days of exploring... the various hiking trails and a boat tour out to Wizard Island are definitely a must for future trips!! We stopped at a few lookouts and hiked the one trail down to the water's edge. I was a little nervous about this hike because it was labelled as "strenuous" and beings that it went down into the crater to the water in a mile, I imagined it might be a little too much for me. So the original plan was for me to sit at the top of the trail and read while the boys went down... but as we came to the head of the trail, I thought maybe I'd go down as far as I thought I could go and then I'd head back up or find a place to read along the trail... Seth took my bag for me (my bag of books!!) so that I wouldn't have to carry it, and we headed down. It was switchbacks all the way and didn't seem like it would be too extremely difficult for me to manage so I went all the way down (of course, feeling terrible that Seth was carrying my bag of books for no reason down the trail... He assured me there was nothing to worry about! What a sweet guy I married!)

Here are some photos from our visit to Crater Lake:

See Seth with my bag. He didn't complain a moment! Yet, I felt really bad that I had loaded it up intending to stay at the top... 

The water was a magnificent color blue and clear, clear, clear!

Contemplating jumping the cliff...

Seth ended up jumping a few times. It's crazy to think that the depth of the water under that cliff is about 200 feet (according to word of mouth).

When we first arrived, there was a bit of cloud cover hanging over the water. We thought they'd go away, but as it turns out it just got heavier. By the end of the day, we could hardly see across the lake because the clouds were so thick. Turns out, they weren't clouds, it was smoke for forest fires!