One Sister Leaves, Another Sister Visits
The Nehalem Street Gang went East to introduce Baby Miki to her grandparents, leaving their home guarded by fierce housesitters and Itchi. We miss them very much. And Anna came West to check in on her favorite Oregon nieces. We introduced Anna to the Northwest wilds.
Arthur chose a hike that even a billygoat wouldn't have attempted, much less a LO with a baby strapped on his back. But there were some nice waterfalls.
Anna gamely climbed up the hill and suffered great injuries.
Maggie wrote those first few sentences above but now she's "too busy looking at craigslist" to keep writing so I, Arthur, will continue. The hike, by the way, was listed as a "thrilling scramble" in a book called "Kidding Around the Gorge" but seriously, this hike was not for kids. Besides Anna's scraped up shin, we nearly lost Vidamae over a waterfall and Theo got a tremendous rash when a frog peed on her. But Elsie enjoyed things thoroughly.
Theo got over her frog rash too and practiced her open mouthed stare with Dad.
There was a big waterfall at the top of the hike but none of us thought to get a picture of it, perhaps because we were too concerned about how we were going to get back down safely. The words of that classic song by TLC came to mind: "Don't go chasing waterfalls, just stick to those rivers and the lakes that you're used to..."
But we did make it down safely, and Elsie wore only her purple sneakers and a backpack.
So for our next trip we took TLC's advice and stuck to a lake. It was called "Lost Lake" and it sits at the foot of majestic Mt. Hood. We went swimming and rented a rowboat too.
Elsie tried some fishing but we didn't catch anything. Maggie caught some crabs but she's not sure where they came from.
Theo refused to wear her life jacket and cried loudly when we wouldn't let her drape her body over the side of the boat to play with the water. This made us popular with the other folks looking for a serene nature experience at this high alpine lake. Here's Theo being cranky.
Eventually we didtched Theo and Maggie and I got drunk on good Oregon beer. Anna said she prefers Coors Lite.
We have even more pictures, including some exciting rolling coaster shots, but those will be saved for the next posting.
11 comments:
Your family is amazing. I can't stand even to look at the pictures of all that bare skin in the bug-infested woods. Of course, last time some writer friends forced us to go for a hike, my hallmark phrase was "Spiders! Climb, climb, climb!"--Kathryn (Josh Russell's wife)
Ella would appreciate it if you didnt let Elsie use her (Ella's) pack while hiking naked.
The Bradford Vining household spends a lot of naked time at the Vining Rock residence. So that backpack is the least of your worries.
What is up with only the little girl hiking naked? What about the grownies?
And, spellcheck. Pete says Arthur needs to use it.
Vida looks good.
I hope that the Bradford Vinings are working on getting the dog fur, and I mean all of it, out of the Mini Van in time for Miki to go to school in it. Please.
Word to the wise: if you promise that you won't take your dog in someone's car, you shouldn't post pictures on the World Wide Web depicting a) too many people to fit in your car and b) your dog, c) far, far from your home.
I didn't promise no one that I wouldn't ride in that there moving van!
Thomas applauds Elsie's hiking attire. Also, wow does Elsie have the same mouth as little Arthur.
Vida! No bones about it, you're still our favorite dog in the world--creaky, shedding, flatulent, incontinent as you may be. And we never expected you to promise anything at all. How could you? it's your owners who will one day have to explain this to the Lord and in the meantime to their own conscience.
Let's get back to the core subject which is that these two little girls are the cutest kids even when cranky and naked.
I am trying to get past it--just so hard to fathom the depth of deception--and hope to be able to fully appreciate my nieces in the near future.
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