A Delightful Autumn Weekend

This past weekend was beautiful and we decided to pack it full with a couple of field trips. On Saturday, we traveled up to Mount St. Helens. At first we thought that we would only stop at the first station, at the bottom of the mountain, but we had gotten a late start and it was near closing time at the museum so we decided to push on up to the top of the mountain.

The views were beautiful as we wound our way up the mountain road. Fall colors blended with evergreen noble firs and sweeping vistas opened up to our view. Along the way we nearly "ran into" a misty double rainbow arching across the sky. After driving for nearly an hour we reached the Johnston Ridge Observatory.

It was fun to walk around the museum and observe the various elements involved in a volcano. In fact, I had recently studied volcanoes with Kayleen, Cosette, and Annalise in their science class. Certain concepts, such as the seismograph, were rather obscure to them, but getting to actually see the seismograph machine and create an "earthquake" by jumping on a mat and watching the machine measure the degree of movement, brought some of the concepts alive.

To top it all off, we got to watch the very last ranger talk and Mt. St. Helens theater viewing of the year. We were almost the last people off of the mountain until it opens again next May.

Daddy took this picture outside in the freezing, evening, mountain air. At the bottom of the mountain we started out with weather about 60 degrees and, as we drove up the mountain, we watched the thermometer on our car drop about a degree a minute (well, not quite, but it seemed like that). It was probably barely 40 degrees, maybe less, when we all shivered outside for this picture. The last picture of the year on St. Helens.

On Sunday afternoon, Daddy made a spur of the moment decision to make a trip down to Hood River for some apples. Applesauce has been a yearly tradition in our household, but this year, with an imminent move, we knew we could not do our regular canning festival. Yet we did not want to entirely forgo our beautiful autumn trip to Hood River, so we went anyway and bought two boxes of apples and a pumpkin.

With so many siblings, it's rare for any particular one to get sole possession of the stage, but Ania knows when it is her moment to shine and she makes the most of it.

Leisel and Lynnae picked the perfect pumpkin. Our original plan was to cut it open and roast the seeds, however, it is still serving as a decoration on our garage floor.

Ania had a wonderful time with her cousin Chris. She got free transportation all around the farm. She has him wrapped around her little finger only he doesn't know it yet.

Austin is getting some practice sitting on a tractor. After all, he is going to be doing most of the driving when we are on property. :-)

A sweeping view of the gorge.

This is one of Daddy's many Sunday pictures of all of us. Do you realize how many pictures he has to take before he gets one where everyone looks good? (A whole lot!) Needless to say, your smile gets a little pasty by the end.