Time Flies

Wow! Last day of school, beginning of summer, garden growing and needing attention, me forgetting my camera...but don't worry, we seem to be settling into a summer routine so I'll be back to posting on a regular basis.

I made a decision before summer started to really focus on more local things to do. We have a ton of local parks and trails, not to mention things like the zoo, the Rose Garden, the Japanese Gardens, Hoyt Arboretum to visit. Besides discovering what is near to us, Noah will be taking a Marimba class, both boys are signed up for swim lessons and we will be camping in July.

Today we decided to visit two parks, an oldie but goodie, the train park a.k.a. Columbia Springs Educational Center was the first one that visited. The second was a park down in the Camas/Washougal Port area.

"See, here we are right here! And this is the place we fed the fish."

We decided to walk the longer trail that goes back into the woods and out to the meadow above. There is another part of the holding pond/stream up there too.

This is Noah's favorite tree on the trail. It fell over long ago, you can see the rocks that the roots grew around and still haven't let go of and you can see the new trees that have grown from the rotting tree trunk.

This is the second park we visited today.
If you are allergic or sensitive to cottonwood trees, I would stay away for another week or two. Clouds of cottony tree pollen/seeds everywhere!

Cool entrance into the park. If you don't go into the park, you can go left and/or right and walk or ride on the dike trail.

Hey, at least take your shirts off so you have one article of dry clothing to wear home.

My serious boy.

They have these really cool canoes/boats, that are replicas of the ones used by those on the Lewis and Clark expedition. These are actually made out of concrete, the artists did a great job of making them look realistic. Each boat has something inside to help tell the story, boxes, small barrels, fish, oars, shell fish of some kind, etc.

Ollie checking out one of the boats.

The Columbia is a huge and very cold river. These boys are crazy!!