Rafting the Tieton River

Last Christmas my parents gave the family gift certificates for river rafting. Ah, the excitement! Which river would we choose to tackle? Would we all be brave enough to conquer a class 3/4? Would those of us who've gone river rafting before and been bounced out of the boat have to be talked into anything more than a class 2? (Yes, that was an autobiographical statement).

Well it was a moot point, because I got pregnant...and a few months later Paul & Mandy moved to Hawaii...so in the end it was the five intrepid rafters pictured below who braved the class 3/4 Tieton River near Mount Rainier last Sunday. There were extra spots in the boat so they put a couple of co-workers from Mini Cooper in the raft with the family. The guy was a sport about all my picture taking. The girl was camera shy.

The river runs mostly along the road, so I was able to drive ahead and get to a few good picture spots (the one below offered the option of either climbing a 7' fence gate or climbing through the barbed wire fence itself...I opted for climbing the gate. In my flip flops. At 8 1/2 months pregnant. I'm pretty sure if Bret had been with me, instead of on the river, I would've gotten in big trouble.) But isn't this picture worth it?

It's Three, Three, Three Posts In One!

I have been remiss. I've had pictures to share and yet have not shared them. Bad, bad blogger Cheryl! So to make up for it, I'm doing a MEGA post. Pull up a chair, and try to stay awake!
First: Baby Showers & Birthdays. The weekend of August 8 and 9 I had two baby showers - one with friends and one with family. Baby, Bret and I are so blessed to know such generous folks!! We came away from that weekend armed with a plethora of baby gear and it was definitely a mental milestone for me in terms of the reality of having a baby. Here are a few pictures:
Marilee & Jane hosted the "friend" shower, which we held at my parents' house and mom got a chance to show off her newly remodeled kitchen! They took down the wall that separated the kitchen, dining room and living room, and now there's a big granite island with counter seating. I told mom that if it were my house, I would pretend to host my own cooking show.

The next day was the "family" shower. Remember this post, where I talked about my mom's cooking craftiness? Well take a look at this:

Oh that's right, it's a watermelon baby buggy fruit salad! My favorite is the blueberries on the lemon slice wheels. Seriously Myrtle, how *do* you do it ?!?

The Monday after the shower extravaganza weekend was my 35th birthday. Funny how normally I would anticipate my birthday for weeks as a big event to look forward to, but this year even though it was a milestone birthday, it just got swept up in the general excitement of all the goings-on of the weekend. Several people told me "get used to it, what used to be big things for you will forever be eclipsed by your kids". Sounds a bit ominous...but really, I think I'll be okay with more excitement and attention focused on my son turning five than on me turning forty!!

Second: Mother-Daughter Weekend on the Olympic Pensisula. Ok, let's get this out of the way now, because I have a confession to make. Calling this a mother-daughter weekend was just a cover up so we could visit Forks without feeling like Twilight groupies. Here's how it happened...Last Fall I started reading the Twilight books, then Laura started reading the Twilight books, and then we got mom to read the Twilight books. Somewhere along the way Laura suggested that she and I take a road trip/weekend visit to Forks this Summer, since we're so close (relatively speaking) to it, but of course I said "We can't do that, everyone will know we're there because of the Twilight books and we'll look like groupies. We need to invite mom and call it a mother-daughter weekend!" To make the cover up complete, Christina came too (and incidentally, also started reading the Twilight books). Funny thing is, Paul has also read through the books by now...but I think if he were in WA and had been able to come, we might've been stretching our cover a bit to try to play it off as a Mother-Daughter-Son weekend trip to Forks (and honestly, I don't actually think we pulled off the Mother-Daughter weekend excuse either!)

On the jetty at First Beach in La Push. This is where I discovered that the 10 seconds provided by my camera's picture timer are insufficient when I'm pregnant.

Beached whale - I mean, me and my belly, at Second Beach in La Push.

Kite flying at Second Beach.

On the Hall of Mosses trail in the Hoh Rain Forest.

Third: My friend Angela's wedding at the Woodland Park Zoo Rose Garden.

(wow, are you still here, reading this? I'm impressed! You deserve a treat - go get yourself something cool to drink and give yourself a pat on the back for hanging in there! I can't promise that I'm almost done (we all know how I tend to go on) but at least you'll be well-hydrated for the remainder of this journey!)

We took advantage of the beautiful setting to get a belly shot. It was a little awkward, since the other wedding guests were focused on getting seated for the wedding (what? you mean we're here to watch someone else get married and not to take pictures of our first child in my belly?!?)Bonus: because you stuck around so long, you get this tidbit of information! At my 36 week doctor appointment this week, the status is that I am 2 cm dilated and the baby is head down. Will he show up before October 6? Will I do another post anytime soon so you can see pictures of our baby before he's a year old? Or (more likely) once he's born will I increase my rate of posting so much that you think to yourself "jeez Cheryl, cool it on the kid pics!" ? Stay tuned to find out...