Maryhill State Park

Last week we headed to Maryhill State Park.  Just a warning, I'm kind of picture happy, when your kids are this cute though how can you NOT be?  It was HOT.  It was over 100 a couple of days and just barely under it the rest of the time.  The park was beautiful though!  It was basically a giant lawn with huge shade trees randomly growing up out of it.  The swimming area was composed of the river pebbles, the kids had a great time playing with them.  Carson was constantly trying to put them in his mouth and Kayda and Dillon started a collection! 

 Carson loved the water most out of the three.  Kayda and Dillon realized the water was cold so they rarely went in much further than their knees.  Carson however would walk out with us until his mouth was almost underwater and then want to be carried out even further!

 Grandma G was enjoying the shade!  Though it wasn't much cooler in the shade than in the sun...

 In the bucket is Kayda's rock collection.  By the end of our trip to the water she would have several buckets full of rocks.  The rocks were beautiful though, there were rocks of every color... red, purple, green, orange... it was incredible.  Most of them were good skipping rocks too!

 Water fight with Daddy!!!

 Papa G is a fish and doesn't seem to feel the cold!  Every time we went to the river he was underwater within minutes!

 Kayda was "Watering her children"

 Piggy back ride!

 Where'd Papa G go?

 Oh there he is!  Papa G and Dillon were having a great time together this trip!

 When Carson wanted to go somewhere he would bear crawl.  He didn't like crawling on the rocks!  He does this on pavement too!

 There was a fish swimming around in the swimming area, it was clearly having issues it was swimming in circles and kept getting stuck in the shallows.  It was clearly in it's last few minutes of life.  Poor fish was then getting chased by Daddy so he could show it to the kids, they didn't want to touch it.  Daddy eventually took it over to another area of the river and it died within a couple of minutes.  Poor fish.

 Carson's first bike ride!  He didn't like the helmet at all, he kept trying to pull it off... until Daddy started riding that is!  He LOVED it!  He never had a problem with the helmet again after that!

 There is a Stonehenge Replica Memorial within 5 minutes of the campground.  It was built as a memorial for WWI.  Kayda and Dillon thought it was great because it looks kind of like the "Stonehenge" in the movie "Brave". 

 We bought each of the kids gnomes to bring with us on all our trips.  We figure we'll take pictures at the main places we go, not EVERY place, that would get exhausting!  But here they are with their gnomes at Stonehenge!

 Here they are with their gnomes overlooking the campground.  It's down in the trees next to the bridge!  See all the beautiful shade trees!

 And.... we stood right in front of the campground...

 Grandma and Papa G at Stonehenge Memorial!  They're holding the kids' gnomes.

 There were HUNDREDS of windmills on the hills around the river!  At night they all had flashing red lights, it was pretty impressive to see.

 She's got her buckets ready to ride to the beach!

 They set up the picnic table as their water play station, they had a hose and their "shower buckets" and kept washing their rocks and stuff.  It helped them cool so it was good with us!

 Daddy made them stand there to get their bucket of water and then he "tripped".

 They weren't all that thrilled with him.  But he "tripped" so it was ok.

 Carson still has yet to make the final transition to walking, he'll crawl, walk between things and walk holding your hand but he will NOT just walk on his own.  It's been over a month now since his first steps.  Crawling is just too much faster I guess.

 Here's our campsite, Carson is hanging out with Grandma and Papa G over there.

 And Kayda lost her SECOND tooth!!!  Before dinner I noticed how ridiculously loose it was and tried to get her to let me tug it out but she didn't want it out.  So then we ate dinner and she was having a hard time.  Finally she let Grandma G pull it out.  It was even more ready to come out than her first one!  Again her permanent tooth was coming in behind it.

 It was hot enough that you REALLY didn't want a fire but the kids wanted to roast marshmellows so we made one anyway!

 We went to the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center in The Dalles.  The kids had a great time!

 Here they are sitting on the Columbia river at The Dalles.

 Being bears

 This was an ice age sized elephant!

 Carson wanted to crawl EVERYWHERE!

 Then he discovered this fountain and kept trying to crawl in it.  We'd take him away from it and set him down again and he would race right back to it.  This little man LOVES water.

 The pioneers of the Oregon Trail.

 I loved this sign. 

 Working in the fishery.

 Our ice age family.

 There was a "fossil dig" for the kids.  Carson loved dumping the sand EVERYWHERE.

 You had to put the blocks on the boat so that it wouldn't capsize.

 Our Lewis and Clark explorers.

 Where's Papa G? 

Like a moth to the flame.

 We also went up to the Maryhill Art Museum and wandered the ground. 

 If you don't want people to sit on them, don't make them chairs.  Don't worry there wasn't anything saying NOT to sit on them.  There were signs specifically set out elsewhere.

 Carson's thoughts "Cool something new to touch"

 Carson's thoughts continued "Hee Hee I got away with it"

 The kids were bowing and scraping...  Mommy doesn't hold a straight face well.

 This tree was at the park.  I LOVED it.  We HAD to go back and visit it to take pictures!!!

 Kayda was walking around in the water going "Daddy where are your sandals?"  Then she walks out and goes "I'm wearing them!"

 Photographer: Dillon

 Photographer: Kayda

 Wednesday night we went up to Goldendale Observatory State Park.  Apparently it's one of the largest public telescopes in the nation.  We hurried up there to be there when it opened at 8.  Note to self and a warning to others.  ARRIVE and hour and a half late!!!  We didn't get to look in the telescope until about 10.  The kids did very well considering.  Especially Kayda.  She learned three things to check for .  Scale of 0-5 how well can you see the Big Dipper, scale of 0-6 how clear is the sky, scale of 0-5 how twinkly are the stars.  I guess you're supposed to check for those things before doing your back yard star gazing.    We were having fun under the lights while we waited for our turn on the telescope.  We got to see Saturn, you could actually see it's rings and we got to see another little cluster of stars you can't see with a personal telescope.

 On the way to the second campground of our trip we stopped at Multnomah falls.  They were quite goregous, it's the tallest falls in Oregon and possibly the second tallest falls in the U.S.  that's debated though.

 There are Grandma and Papa G!

We stopped in the gift shop and Kayda found the raccoon hat.  I kind of wanted to get one for everyone in our family... We didn't though, what a missed opportunity!  We continued on to Taidnapam Tacoma Power park.  I think this post is long enough though so I'll make that one seperately!!!