Family Portraits

The kids were all home so I took the obligatory annual sibling photo.

Mitch was here too. So I got the happy couple.

And since it was Father's Day, here is one with Dad. I forgot to change the white balance inside, so the coloring is off on this one.

Some Candids

In response to Lady Jane's comment, I am adding some non-postcardish photos. Eric does a much better job of taking pictures of people, so I may add more once I get a hold of his camera.

Road Trip 2015: featuring these two

Taking pictures of the sea lions at Pier 39

Let's go to Alcatraz (we didn't). Look at the bird photobombing this shot (in the flag).

Eric took lots of people pictures

Eric at Glass Beach

Looking over a high bridge on Highway 101

North California coast

Walking out to the lighthouse. That pink blob to the right of Caleb is a dead octopus.

Eric at the lighthouse in Crescent City, CA

Roses in Portland

More roses

"Take my picture!"

Caleb has now decided he wants to climb this mountain. He has looked into mountaineering expeditions. He has a few years before he'll be able to go without a parent. And a it will take a few years to save up for such an expensive trip.

We think the mountain in the background is Mt. Baker, but not sure

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So there are some pictures with people. Sorry I'm not in them, but I was behind the camera. Hope you enjoyed these.

Road Trip 2015:Part Five, The End

I said the Redwoods were my favorite, but I guess I had two favorites because Mt. Rainier was amazing.

Madeleine is so stylish!  Welcome to Mt. Rainier

"...the most luxuriant and most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my mountain-top wanderings." John Muir, conservationist, 1889

Hiking on the Lakes Trail

Mt. Rainier reflection. It was a little breezy so the reflection is not perfect.

This could be a postcard!

There were so many flowers along the trails. I read a sign that said the flowers bloom for 6 weeks a year. We definitely timed our visit right!

This is as high as we hiked up the mountain. This is where the snow began to overtake the trail at Glacier Vista. I never realized that there are about 20 glaciers on Mt. Rainier. Each valley you can see behind the kids is a named glacier.

This is looking down the trail we hiked up. We started below the dark trees in the middle of the photo and hiked up for one mile. It was a grueling mile, at least for the older generation!

I finally caught a bear on camera! This bear was in the Paradise area at Mt. Rainier. I was watching out the car window, down into a beautiful valley. I said, "If I was a bear, I would live in that meadow and never leave." As soon as I said that I spotted this guy! What a great ending to our trip.

Road Trip 2015: Part Four

This installment features the cities of Portland and Seattle. I wasn't too impressed with either city, but I did enjoy the natural surroundings. One important thing I learned once we crossed the state line into Oregon, is that it is illegal to pump your own gas in that state. I felt so weird, sitting in the car while an attendant filled my gas tank. It must not be illegal to pee on buildings downtown, during lunch time, right next to all the food trucks in Portland. You can use your imagination, no pictures.

Multnomah Falls just east of Portland

Portland is the City of Roses. Can you spy Mt. Hood in this photo taken from the International Rose Test Garden?

I love roses! It was about 88 degrees when we visited here. The locals were dropping like flies, schools were getting out early, but I was pretty comfortable. I wonder how they would handle our muggy 96 degrees that we're having today.

I was really impressed with this. I'm not sure everyone else cared as much. I still remember the big explosion from 1980.

The kids went up in the Space Needle. We waited at the bottom.

Pike's Market. We looked at Starbucks, but the line was long, and it was too hot to think about coffee anyway. And do you notice the blue sky? That is all we saw during our whole vacation. I was expecting gray, cold drizzle, but this was a nice surprise!

Road Trip 2015: Part Three

I am not breaking these parts into our actual days on the road, but just into manageable amounts of pictures to post at one time.

North California coast with a light fog burning off.

Of course we found a tiny gravel road that wound along a cliff overlooking the ocean. Luckily we didn't meet any other cars on the road.

Battery Point lighthouse in Crescent City, CA. You can walk out to it at low tide.

We made it to Crater Lake in time for a beautiful sunset!

We had wonderful weather at Crater Lake. Look at that blue water and those perfect reflections. The only imperfection was the amount of yellow pollen floating on the surface, and also causing most of our allergies to flare up.

This past winter, Crater Lake had a record low snowfall amount, so all the roads were open early. In spite of there being a heat wave during out visit, we still found huge piles of snow in some spots.

Road Trip 2015: Part Two

The Redwoods were my favorite part of the trip. We saw lots of wildlife, but didn't get pictures of most of them. They were out in the gray twilight and the camera just didn't want to cooperate. The most exciting thing we saw was a mama bear and two cubs walking across the road right in front of us. When they got to the other side the mama and one cub walked down the embankment out of sight, but the other cub scampered right up a tree! It was so cute! Especially since we were in the safety of our car, with the windows up.

We drove through this tree. And then I bought redwood earrings in the gift shop.

Caleb in front of a redwood. Can't you imagine a dinosaur coming out from behind the tree?

The lighting was amazing through the trees.

Looking up!

We went down a lot of gravel roads on this trip. We logged over 2,000 miles!

Road Trip 2015: Part One

I took lots of pictures on our vacation. We started in San Francisco and traveled north to Seattle.

The kids in front of Lombard street. They've grown a lot since I took a picture of them on this spot 8 years ago.

The Palace of Fine Arts. I have always wanted to find this in San Fransisco and this trip I was successful. It is right at the foot of the Golden Gate, so I don't know how I always missed it.

This is one of those shots you just have to get whenever you are in San Fransisco.

There aren't many interesting pieces of glass left on Glass Beach, near Fort Bragg.

Madeleine snapchatted and instagrammed our trip.

The rocks just off shore were making HUGE waves. See tiny Eric, Caleb, and Madeleine on the rock?