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For the first time in the history of the Beaverton Stake of Oregon, we participated in the inaugural Pioneer Trek that took place on July 22-24th. We walked and pushed handcarts along parts of the Barlow Trail up on Mount Hood with the youth (ages 14-18) in our stake. There were about 100 youth (amazingly, 43 of those youth came from our own ward).

We were all dressed in pioneer costumes (except for hiking shoes and sunglasses), all our belongings (minus sleeping gear) were stuffed into a 5-gallon bucket and we pulled handcarts from point A to point B for 3 days on the trail. We slept under the stars, had a women’s only pull for a stretch, crossed over 2 stretches of water, learned that ice cream stays extremely hard when packed with dry ice, and the youth had a great experience.

It’s a little tardy in the “reporting” of the 4th of July happenings, but it’s something to look at right? Since backpacking didn’t work out for us on the long 4th of July weekend for a number of reasons (left to your own imagination and wonderment), we decided to take our holiday Monday and do some mountain biking instead. Someplace right near Silver Falls State Park is an area that Steve found having some great online reviews for newer mountain biking trails…this of course would be Shellburg Falls Recreation Area. An easy drive southeast toward Detroit Lake (but not nearly as far east) is this newly developing area complete with mountain biking trails. Most of the trails are downhill, supposedly many people shuttle up and bike down, and repeat. We surely can see the value in this since the runs are fairly short once you get going, but being the suckers that we are, we of course have to bike UP the gravel roads to reap the reward of going downhill. We kind of have the same stance when it comes to rock climbing as well. Work hard on the climb up to enjoy the rapel down…but that’s a different story.

We didn’t see a single soul mountain biking in the area with us that day, a blessed day indeed!

We really got more video than still photos of us mountain biking (and don’t get too excited, they aren’t X-games worthy by ANY means!!!) and Steve will put together some little video of it one of these days.

Anyway, we also did hike down to see some of the falls in the area, so here’s some more pretty pics to see

Our official Memorial Day weekend camping kick-off for the camping season started with a hike into Pamelia Lake in the Jefferson Wilderness. We’ve been several times before, but it’s always a pleasant place to camp. We did a lot of…resting…not a lot of hiking any further than the lake (mostly due to the low snowline). The weather in Portland has been more rainy than sunny in the last 60 days. I think I heard that we will have exceeded the average monthly rainfall for June tomorrow…and it’s only the 4th tomorrow.

Getting ready to hike in

On the trail toward Pamelia Lake

Some watercoloring activities at the side of the lake

Chilling by the lake

Playing Scrabble in the tent while it rains

Pamelia Lake

Us

So I am sure Michelle will tell you all more about her run later.  Let me just publically congratulate her for her first place finish (in my heart).

She was too fast at the end to get a good photo, so here she is as she ran by:

Last week, we started hearing an all too familiar bonking sound outside the kitchen window.  In the past when we’ve heard that sound, it’s been birds fighting over the cherries in the cherry tree outside that bonk into the window…you know, birds that don’t realize they can’t fly through the clear window, that kind of thing.  So we kept hearing “bonk” then “bonk” then “bonk” then “bonk” (and I kid you not, I’m talking about 15-20 “bonks” in a half hour period), and you start to wonder why the bird, in this case a red-breasted robin, can’t remember that he keeps smacking into a window.

So, in an effort to help the poor bird remember that there is a window, Steve propped up a large canvas painting in the window to lessen the reflection and show the bird that this is a solid surface.  What happens next?  Well, the robin now bonks into the window area above the painting that isn’t covered.  Dumb bird.  So then Steve tapes up some newspaper above the canvas to cover the rest of the window.  Even though the frequency of the bonks has lessened…a little…we still find ourselves being serenaded by bonk, bonk, bonk.  Dumb bird.

Steve went to the good ol’ ‘www’ and this is the explanation:

Ever wonder why birds seem to throw themselves at your window?

Birds such as cardinals and robins will dash repeatedly at their reflections in windows. Such actions are usually because the individual bird, usually a male, mistakenly perceives another bird in the reflection of the window. It is territorial behavior for the bird to fight off the ‘intruder”. This behavior, if continued over a period of weeks or even an entire season, can be annoying to people, but is usually not fatal to the bird. On the other hand, when a bird strikes a window in free-flight, it does so with such velocity that the results are significantly more serious.

Sometimes the bird is merely stunned or sustains superficial injuries from which it may recover, but in over half of all recorded incidents the impact results in death. This is most common during spring and fall migration, but can happen at other times of the year. Birds cannot readily distinguish the presence of a pane of transparent glass from an unobstructed space or passageway. Glass will reflect the most when it is darker inside than it is outside.

Many people are unaware that birds are being killed at their windows because the victims are small, frequently fall behind shrubbery, and more often than not are eaten by predators. Some birds bang into windows because they think they see another bird in their territory, some birds fly into windows because they don’t see the window. Other birds fly into windows because they are being chased by predators. What ever the reason, you can make your windows safer.

…so, maybe the neighborhood cats will one day find a certain large, male robin that happened to bonk too hard into our window, and we will be unaware that that bird was eaten by one of those cats at the base of our window because it fell, as they frequently do, behind shrubbery.  We’ve done our best to make the window less transparent to the robin.  It’s not our fault the robin can’t recognize himself.  Dumb bird.  Bonk…Bonk…Bonk…

If you saw how much Steve laughs and laughs each and every time he watches this, you wouldn’t be able to stop laughing either.

Now you tell me, if you’d worked so hard and made it all the way to the Olympics, wouldn’t you be embarrassed?  haha…maybe I’ll make it into the Olympics next time!

Last night, the gals and I postponed our morning run because it was raining and freezing cold outside, meaning it wasn’t going to get any warmer during the night, and the forecast for the morning was for possible snow.

Well, when I woke up and went to work, it was GORGEOUS outside!  Maybe a little nippy, but perfect running weather.  Why, oh why did we not run this morning?  So, I texted the girls and set up an “after work” run, because I just couldn’t see how the day was going to fail me!  During my break, the sun was shining, warming up the lunch room.  During lunch, I went outside and ate at a picnic table while I read my book.  PERFECT running weather through and through!  From the area where I work, there are no windows, so we obviously can’t see what’s happening outside so easily.  At 4pm, one of the gals was leaving, stepped out into the building lobby, stepped back in and announced that is was flurrying outside!  So, the snow really did come after all.  Shoot, I didn’t want to run while it was snowing!  When I left the office just after 5pm, there was no sign of snow at all.  In fact, it was exactly like it was when I went outside to eat my lunch, pretty nice I though.  Well, turns out that the girls couldn’t run with me after all, but of course you know that that wouldn’t stop me from doing that tempo run…and an awesome run by the way, almost 6 miles of excellent running weather as nightfall and darkness rolled in.

Came home, made dinner (while watching Jeopardy of course) and am now just sitting down for dinner when I look out the window and…it’s snowing!  Big, fat flakes of snow!  Nothing is sticking yet, but you never know what the night hours will bring!  What is going on?  Are we in Edmonton or something?

It was a bit of a let down when I found out a few facts about when my new flex plan at work goes into effect.  Well, on the bright side, I bought 10 cans of tuna and a 4-pack of Activia yogurt all for 99 cents.  Beat that!  It made my day so I wanted to share my grocery winnings one more time…

Today’s little grocery shopping trip just made me so happy. With the store’s weekly sales and by doubling manufacturer’s coupons, I spent 50 cents to buy 5 cans of tuna and got the 4 boxes of pasta for free. I win!

(and thanks to Katie for telling me about the website coupons that weren’t in the Sunday paper!)

Since finding out that 2 of my 3 my brothers were going to be in Utah, we spontaneously decided to drive down for the reunion as well (sort of cutting Nancy’s visit to Portland short, but at least we saved her a plane ticket that she can use later!). So kindly hosted by the Leavitt family, we were able to spend 2 days and 3 nights and together, goofing off, catching up, playing games, sleeping not so much, bowling, eating (always), watching the super late night showing of Avatar (yay!) and visiting campus.

Fortunately we were also able to attend the baby blessing of our newest nephew, Max Barker. Of course we hung out with Steve’s brothers as much as we could as well, fun times!

James, Michelle, Steve & little Max

Brian & Heidi with Alli, Kate, Austin and little Max

There was much pinball playing on Brian & Heidi’s newest toy in the basement!

Lilly dragged (a very willing) Ashlyn around to play everywhere she went

They held hands everywhere they went (and Nancy’s hand here for street crossing safety)

Ethan wasn’t feeling well most of the time, but on the last day finally came back to life

Isaac hasn’t changed a bit, well maybe a bit taller

James is still a bullfighting ball of energy!

It was fun to finally meet Jaxon, who smiled on command, banana in mouth and all

It was imperative to do the Tree of Life photo as well

After the Tang & Barker fun, we headed up to Rexburg (did you know it was only a bit over a 3 hour drive?!) to visit Bryan & Danielle for a day and 2 nights. Steve wanted to take a walk down memory lane through the former Rick’s College campus, now BYU-Idaho. Of course as we walked around, not many memories were stimulated since much of the campus has changed dramatically since Steve attended back in 1993 and 1996.

One of Steve’s fondest memories

Rexburg temple

Bryan

We did some cheap indoor climbing one night, that was a lot of fun. Makes us want to climb again! I think it actually helped my hand and grip strength to do that! Another reason to do it again!

Steve

Peter with Danielle belaying

Bryan

Michelle

Danielle

Ivy