7th Grade School Photo

Prosser Volksmarch (#15)

Clarissa, Corey & I traveled to Prosser this weekend for a volksmarch event & hot air balloon rally.  Unfortunately the windy weather grounded the hot air balloons, but we still completed the volksmarch.   We stayed Saturday night in Richland and were at the Prosser airport by 6:00am this morning.  They inflated one balloon, but the wind was quite relentless, so it was deemed too unsafe to fly.  I'm still glad we went though.  It was nice to spend some time with Clarissa as I don't see her very often now that she works in Seattle.  

Corey at the hotel.  The Hampton Inn in Richland was very nice and right on the Columbia River.

Clarissa.

The boardwalk right outside the hotel.

We found a cute little park.  They had some fish sculptures.  We couldn't decide if this was really a fish or not because it has no side fins.  It was kinda creepy close up.

The salmon were kinda creepy, too.

It took some prompting, but Corey finally relented to climbing this big rock.

We saw several people in rented kayaks on the river.  It was a beautiful evening.

We saw a beautiful sunrise this morning.

They were shooting flames to test the blowers.  The first time they did it I jumped. 

You can see the basket on its side with the blowers in the metal frame.  That is the balloon bag.

They are starting to unfurl it.

It was really long.  It is tied together about every 8 feet.

They started to blow it up, but you can tell they forgot to take one tie off where it stopped.

Starting to fill.  We couldn't figure out what those gray things were.  We thought they were spiders, but they actually are barbs.



It was really huge!



When it was finally inflated.  They had a hard time keeping it from flying away.

They tried to inflate this balloon.

This was the biggest they could make it before they had to stop due to the winds.

The Yakima River runs through Prosser.

Corey with mural in downtown Prosser.

Corey with a sculpture of Edgar E. Whitehead who was a philanthropist & resident of Prosser.

Birthday Wishes

Happy Birthday wishes go out to our good friend, Brenda, who turned 50 yesterday!   It's hard to believe Brenda is 50 because she is so young at heart.  We love you Brenda!

She was a good sport & wore the tiara we got her.



The entire group: Theresa, Matt, Marlene, Pat, Sara, Brenda, Susan, Gabby, Scott, Bobbi-Jo and Jerry



New Blog

This summer I discovered that I like hiking.   Hard to believe, but it's true.  Most of you know that I am just not a nature girl.  I have never gone camping.  I cringe at the thought of snakes and bugs and bears...oh my!  But I loved the hikes that we went on this summer.  There are so many beautiful things you can find out in nature.  With winter looming I decided I didn't want the fun of hiking to end.  So I talked to some of my friends at work and we are forming a hiking club.  Ok, I started a hiking club and I am making them join.  Shana came up with a great name...Ye Olde Hikers, which we shortened to Yoh!  (Yes, it has to have the exclamation point)  Our first hike is coming up in October.  I'm very excited & hope that we get a lot of participants.  We will do at least one hike a month and possibly some snow-shoeing during the winter.   Visit the Yoh! blog by clicking here for information about upcoming walks & to read about our adventures. 

Bellevue Volksmarch (#14)

We completed our 14th volksmarch this morning in Bellevue.  We were a bit nervous because it was raining quite hard here when we left.   Luckily it was dry when we arrived in Bellevue.  The course took us through the Mercer Slough Nature Park which had lots of pretty greenery.  It was a nice and relaxing walk.  Not a bad way to spend the last weekend of summer.

Scott getting ready to walk.  Our rain gear was not needed after all. 

Peekaboo view of the Bellevue skyline.

Rainbow Falls State Park

Today we travelled about 45 miles southwest to Rainbow Falls State Park just outside of Adna.  The drive there was really pretty.  Once we got there we were supposed to walk from the parking area over a bridge to the trails.  Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us, the bridge had washed away in 2007.  Instead we ended up doing a very short hike along the parking area side of the river.  It was not very exciting except for the snake that scared the heck out of me.  I don't think we'll be going back any time soon.  But at least we can say we've been there.  

The falls were small, but still pretty.

 

Trying out my new hiking poles.  I'm glad I had them when we encountered that snake!

Kind of hard to see, but that snake is at the bottom of the picture, right in the middle.  No one saw it until I almost slipped & had to look down to catch my footing, and there it was.  I screamed really loud and then used my pole to shoo it into the water.  Yikes!  I HATE snakes!

A happy me before the snake sighting.

Gabby wanted so bad to climb across that downed tree.  Here she is trying to use her scarf to keep her balance.  She is still mad that I wouldn't let her go all the way across.  I am too much a nervous Nellie.

A very short video of the falls.  I didn't realize my camera was on video.  I was just trying to take a picture of the falls.