Brianna's Swimming Lessons

While my mom was visiting Brianna's swimming lessons were still going on this summer.  Brianna did great in swimming, such a change from a year or two ago when she would be scared to death to go into the deep end of the pool or swimming from the boat when we went out with my friend Russ. 

This summer Brianna got through Polar Bear, which is a big deal.  That means that she can do the front crawl, the beginning of the breast stroke, and the back stroke.  She  can make it all the way across the pool.  She can also dive into the pool from the diving platform.

Mom's visit Part 1

Going back to trying to catch up on the haps in the household... My mom came out to visit from August 5th through August 12th. We had a great visit and a lot of fun. Obviously, I don't get a chance to see her nearly as much as I'd like so every time I do see my mom it's really special.

On her first day here we headed out to go antique shopping. Brianna, Jen, and my mom all had a really good time. For me it was looking at a bunch of old stuff but I was glad to be doing it with my mom.

On Monday we went to Canon Beach, which is the *coolest* beach in Oregon - it's not too touristy for a beach town, but still pretty high on the cheez factor. Even though it was a gray day (like the majority of days on the Oregon coast) we had a lot of fun.

After we ate a late lunch we all got new sunglasses:





We went to the beach next. I had a chance to sit and talk with my mom, play with Brianna by the ocean and attempt, unsuccessfully, to fly a kite. Brianna and Jen made a little beach town which came out really cute:

Hamster in a wheel

Clark and Michael

I totally stumbled upon this - the internet TV show Clark and Michael. Not being much of a TV watcher, for all I know there's a commercial on CBS about this every few minutes, but I just happened across it while watching Will Ferrel's Funny or Die.

The show is genius. I'm a huge, huge, fan of Arrested Development and this feels very much like a cross between that and The Office. Michael Cera, who played George Michael costars with someone named Clark Duke who I'd never heard of before this. The premise is that the two are writing partners who are trying to sell their series in Hollywood. Along the way wacky hijinks ensue.

This show has some great one-liners, I highly recommend starting at the first one and working your way through.

Jen's Triathalon

It seemed like August had as many days in it as could possibly fit in any month. We had a ton going on and I was too busy to even thinking about putting up all of the great pics we were accumulating and now the kids are starting school tomorrow and the summer (at least the fun part where you vacation all the time) is over.

I'm just going to write a little bit at a time since it'll take me so long to catch up. The first really big thing that happened actually was in July. On July 28th Jen ran her first beginner triathlon, the Luna All Women's Triathlon at Blue Lake, OR.



It was a 1/4 mile swim, 12.5 mile bike ride, and 5k run. Jen had a little bit of trouble with the swim - even though she had practiced in the lake once before it was a very long swim and it's a whole other thing to do it with 114 other people in the water with you.

One of the other racers was really great and she came over and helped Jen get oriented and on her way. That was great - definitely not something I think you'd see at a men's triathlon.

Once Jen was through the swimming part she really took off on the bike. She had the 55th fastest time (of 114) which was really impressive because she was using my mountain bike (as opposed to a street bike like most people had).



Even better, once Jen got to the run she really picked up the pace, coming in 31st of 114. When she got to Andrew he ran out into the trail to give her a high five, and she started skipping a little bit after that - you couldn't tell she was tired at all.





Brianna and Andrew both made signs for Jen. Brianna's said "You can do it, nothing to it" and Andrew's said "Mom, winner you are" with a Yoda picture on it, and a picture of Jen riding her bike, running, and swimming. Our friends Russ and Bev showed up to cheer Jen on along with Justin and Amy.

You can see all the stats yourself here. Overall the whole race took Jen 1 hour, 35 minutes and 47 seconds.

If I had done it, I would have taken 19 hours, 3 minutes, and 59 seconds. :)

I love The Onion

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

How Big is Alaska? Amazing Picture of Alaska Superimposed over the US [PIC]

You may not know this, but Alaska is freeging huge. Gargantuan.That's why they have so much... uh.... seals. Or some crap. Click below.

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Contigo Mugs - Obviously good at dealing with problems.

I was pretty impressed by this article I read today about a customer who provided some feedback on their coffee mug to the company that produces it and got an awesome email from the engineer who designed the mug.

This is pretty great. I've bought a ton of coffee mugs that had some sort of problem and I've never thought to actually try and email the company like that - usually because I don't think there's a very good chance I would even get a response. It's great to see a company going above and beyond like this.

Bush vs. Zombies

Whetstone Mountain

A couple of Sundays ago, July 22nd, Jen and I hiked - well, attempted to hike - Whetstone Mountain, which is in the Bull of the Woods Wilderness, part of Mount Hood National Forest.

We had read about this hike in our book 100 Hikes in Northwest Oregon. It's #92. It's one of what are known in Oregon as the Sullivan guides, which are called that based on the author, William L Sullivan, who is something of a legend in the Northwest from what I understand.

We drove to the hike from Portland, taking 205 through Estacada and past Bagby Hot Springs. There are some great bridges along the way.



The directions are really complicated to follow, but we were able to make it on the over 20 miles of on and off paved and gravel roads to a 1980's clear cut that was the parking lot before the hike, which is Mountain Trail #546.

In our book the trail is listed as Moderate difficulty, and on Summitpost.org it's referred to as "not a technical, or particularly challenging climb". While I'm sure this is true, it was not the easiest trail to get to in the world. First off, on the driving part of the trip (hereafter referred to as "Getinthar") there were many rock slides and trees down across the road. Thankfully, all of the trees had been taken care of by the forest service, and we were able to avoid all of the rocks without getting out of the car - but it was close in places.





Along the climb there quite a few trees down across the trail, about 3.5 to 4 feet off the ground, which we climbed over, and tons of bugs. Bring your bug spray for this one. We probably got about 3.5 miles in (which is almost to the summit)before we ran into a part of the trail that was covered in Huckleberry bushes. I walked through, sending up a cloud of bees and flies behind me, when Jen informed me that we were now done with this particular hike. Dangit.





Maybell was with us the whole time and the car accident last fall doesn't seem to be slowing her down very much. She jumped over all of the trees we ran into and took the opportunity to be the only dog in the forest with about as much gusto as you could ask for.



On our way down we saw a young dear, which isn't that rare in Oregon but still kind of neat when it happens.



After the hike we headed down to a day-use area by Bagby springs that was along the Clackamas River. We ate lunch, nearly got a ticket from the Sheriff (but crisis averted, thanks to Jen) and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and walking around in the Clackamas River. A word to the wise - the river is cold! This is not - I repeat - *not* - a "jump in and get it over with" experience. Take your time. Get numb.