Chain Lakes Trail

Yesterday we went on a beautiful hike with Josh, Tarelle, and Rocklyn and friends Beth, Amber and Steve. We hiked the Chain Lakes Trail up near Mount Baker. It was a long hike but the kids did great! We had beautiful views of the mountains - and as an extra bonus a lot of the plants were turning fall colors already. The wild blueberries are red right now and they lit up all the hillsides.




Here is the family descending to Mazama Lake (Hale is sleeping):



Some beautiful mushrooms - they were about the size of my fist. Landon said they look like they came straight out of Mario Brothers.



Josh, Tarelle, Rocklyn taking a blueberry break:



Landon feeds Hale is first fruit, a wild blueberry:

He likes it!

Approaching Iceberg Lake: The frigid lake water made this whole valley cool.

Taking a break by the chilly lake:

Approaching Hayes Lake:

Family picture by Hayes Lake:

Hiking up and away from Hayes Lake:

Reaching Herman saddle and glimpsing the million dollar view:

Mount Shuksan:

Crossing a cute little bridge by Badgley Lakes:

Becky and Tarelle at the end of the hike:

Rocklyn and Josh at the end of the hike, with views of Badgley Lakes:

Hale at the end of the trail and waiting to be fed:

Rocklyn and Hale

These are pictures from our visit to Seattle a few weeks ago. I did a little cousin photo shoot. Rocklyn is getting so grown up!

Hale's baptism weekend

Last weekend was Hale's baptism.

We had lots of family in town so on Saturday we had a work day in our yard. We finally got some grass planted in the side yard. Thanks to everyone who helped - it looks great!

Here is Hale before his baptism...

and during...

and after!!

It was a beautiful day and we had some friends back to our house to celebrate:

Hale update

I did a little photoshoot with Hale yesterday evening in his nursery. I thought I would use some of the pictures to give an update on what he has been up to lately.

Teething:
Hale started getting his first teeth - his front two on the bottom. He's been a pretty happy baby overall, but I can tell that sometimes his teeth are bothering him.


Can you see them coming in? He chews on everything!


Crawling:
Well, he's not quite there yet, but he's doing a lot of rolling and reaching. He actually gets around pretty well.

Bad Habits:

Hale already has some weird habits - like sucking his bottom lip. His cousin Rocklyn does this too.

Labor Day in Salem

The Van Dyk family spent the holiday weekend at the Oregon State fair in Salem. Van Dyk-S Holsteins had three animals showing in the Western National Show. We were happy with how the cows did and very proud of Kohl's high placement in the junior competition!

We were excited to be able to see some SPU friends while in Salem. We visited with Dan and his family on Sunday - and they even came to support us at the fair on Monday. Another wonderful surprise: Megan was home from NYC. It was so fun to see her and catch up!

Here are the guys in the barn. It was pretty late at night when I took this picture, and the picture above. I was a little worried about Hale missing sleep, but he is happy anywhere as long as he's with his dad.

This made me laugh: the girls were bleaching the cows tails...look how pretty it turned out!