community center carnival and mount st. helens overnight

june is here! we kicked off the busiest month of the year with...lots of fun things! friday night was the carnival at the community center by our house. the kids had been seeing signs for it for weeks, so there was no escaping it ;) lots of their friends were there and they had a blast going in the bouncy houses (over and over again) and playing games. 

saturday morning we were on the road bright and early for an overnight to mount st. helens. it was our first time visiting that area, so we were excited. we got to the visitor center at lunch time, so we had a picnic and then explored the park a bit. there was really interesting info about the eruption in 1980 and the views were breathtaking. it was super cool to learn about the all of the vegetation and animals that have been restored since the eruption. and what survived the eruption! 

next we drove to "clearwater lake" and walked around there. 

then we drove to a town called kalama and had dinner at a mcmenamins on the columbia river. it was such a beautiful evening on the deck! 

we ended the night at the pool at our hotel (which was the part of the trip the kids were most excited about). 

sunday we grabbed coffee in town before driving over an hour to get to the "ape caves" which is a lava tube that you can explore. there is a more difficult upper cave (that requires crawling) and a lower easier cave (that's just walking) and we chose the easier one. i could say it was because of the kids, but let's be honest, it was because of me as well. ha! it was 42 degrees down there and pitch black with intermittent water drips. when we first got down there with our flashlights, the kids were scared and we only lasted about 5 minutes. we went back up to do a short hike in the same area. 



when we finished the hike they told us they wanted to go back into the cave (classic....) so we did and it went much better the second time. we probably spent 45 minutes walking through it and back. it was hard to take pictures in there, but we tried :) 

next we visited the "trail of two forests" which is a board walk hike with a lava tube tunnel you can crawl through. the kids really wanted to do it (with thatcher), but as soon as he got down the ladder he discovered it was going to be too narrow for him to crawl through, so none of them ended up doing it. 

after that we stopped along the highway and did a short hike called "cedar flats." it was pretty, but it was not my favorite as we were the first to do the hike that day based on how many spider webs we had to walk through. i don't like hikes where no one is around, in general. 

on our drive home, we ate a late lunch in a town called packard at a handmade burger place. it was 80 degrees and we sat outside and enjoyed the warm breeze. then we drove through mount rainier national park, which we've been to before so we mostly just passed through. it was such a beautiful day! 

we got home in the evening and got ready for the week ahead. whew! 

this month brings all sorts of fun including our anniversary, thatcher's birthday, father's day, the school carnival and field day, the last days of school, and our trip to minneapolis. let's do it!