Another “Hike-and-wildlife” Post

So, our update this time is another hike with some wildlife pictures… I sure hope you guys aren’t sick of these yet…Because the Washington/Oregon area has a ridiculous amount of hikes (and wildlife). So too bad for you guys ;-).

Dana and I went to see Wahclella Falls. We had tried before to go on this hike and were thwarted by the small parking lot. So we tried again.

First along the trail was this smaller falls called Munra Falls. It was kind of wispy and pretty.

             

The amphitheater around Wahclella is kind of giant and overwhelming. I took this picture at the bottom of the amphitheater. Can you find Dana?

Dana took this picture from his high spot. You can see a smaller rivulet coming into the stream above the falls down a rock face.

          

Ok, more gratuitous waterfall pictures…

        

On our hike back Dana found this pretty snake. She was big and she smelled pretty strongly.

 

Dana found this little salamander in the stream near the end of our hike.

It was a very pleasant hike with some very pretty views of the Gorge. Yay the Gorge!

Ok, for all of you who suffered through our pictures, we have some news: We are expecting a baby! I’m due at the end of April. We will find out at the beginning of December whether we’ll have a boy or a girl. Until then, we eagerly await our little Quazar.

A Note

A new post on my Zoo Blog has been made…and this one has a video.

Logs in a lake, toads in our hands, and a crustacean caught red-handed.

Last Monday, I had a day off work and we took the opportunity to leave town for a day. So, in our great originality, we went back up to Mt. St. Helens. This time we went to east side of the mountain to Windy Ridge. I went up there with my brother Steen just after I had come home from my mission 6 years ago, and it was a very nice time of year to come, because the weather is good and the colors are just starting to turn (and the toads are emerging).

Steen took me on a hike to Harmony Point on the shore of Spirit lake, where hundreds of trees were deposited after the lake was hit by the giant landslide in 1980 and the water rushed up the surrounding slopes, gathering the dead trees. This is a hike I have been wanting to do again and take Ruth on.

So, here is proof that we made it all the way:

I really like it down there, because it is a really nice view of the mountain, and you get to walk through a very interesting landscape.

 

Plus Ruth caught this really pretty beetle while we were down by the lake:

And here are the toads mentioned (look closely):

 

These are hundreds of baby toads who have just changed from tadpoles to adults. Around the lakes near the mountain these come out in bucket loads and they are very small. There are also still tadpoles swimming around in the water, many with various numbers of limbs.

 

These little toads have the potential to reach the size of this girl that we found on our hike:

While looking at toads, Ruth also spotted this guy in the water:

   

That was our Monday adventure. Geology and Biology on the same trip.

Ruth’s Adventure: To Utah and Back

I got to go to Utah at the end of August to go to one of my best friend’s wedding. Dana couldn’t go because he had to work, so I got to go have fun with out him. I stayed at my Grantpa’s in West Jordan (Thanks, Grantpa!). Jackie picked me up from the airport the first day and we had fun gallivanting around preparing for the wedding. Here are some pictures.

This is my former roommate, Hilary, and her husband Chris who have been married for a while and agreed to drive me to the sealing in Bountiful. They win the Superhero prize of the weekend because they did this the same weekend they were leaving Utah to move to Maryland and Hilary made Jackie’s wedding cake… and they have a new baby. So major props to them. Thanks, guys!

At the reception, Jackie sang a song to her new hubby. It was very cute (and super good!)

Cutting the cake (made by Hilary, isn’t it pretty!) and eating the cake. It was really yummy. Go, Hilary. 

 

Jackie’s reception was in the heritage park up behind the This is the Place Monument. This was the view off the porch up into the mountains, and then the sunset over the valley. Congrats to Jackie and Kendall!

 

It just so happened that the same weekend I was in Utah, Will, Courtney, and Whitney were there too! Check out their blog for their full scale adventure. They were kind enough to come and get me and then let me kick around with the fun Andersons all day before taking me to the airport. So here are some adorable pictures of Whitney. I believe she is smiling at her uncle Zack right here.

Thanks Andersons and Keelers for letting me come and crash your vacation!

The Jensen Family Reunion (and Ruth tries some Winter sports)

Hello Everyone,

After a very busy August, we are making a post. We started this month off with a week long trip to Utah. This trip had two purposes: 1 (and most important). to have the Jensen Family Reunion. And 2.  to finally move out of our storage unit in Provo to our apartment in Vancouver.

We had a great time in Utah and we were very happy to see so many people. We want to thank Grantpa Reeve for letting us stay with him and go to church with him. It is always fun to talk with him.

August 1st marked the long anticipated reunion of the Jensen family. Uncle Lamar did a lot to make this happen and we were sorry he could not make it himself. There was a very nice turn out of 59 people, including aunts, uncles, cousins, spouses, and children.

Of the six siblings, four were able to make it.

For part of the week we stayed with my immediate family up in Park City. We were able to go and visit the Olympic Park up there. Here, Ruth and Elina are really getting into the spirit of bobsledding:

Then Ruth took on another Winter sport, to see how that was.

Meanwhile, I watched several people participating in Aerials practice. Some of them were pretty good. They would go off the jumps, perform the tricks, and fall into a big pool of water.

Ruth and I also had the chance to ride the zip line running over the ski jump ramps. We are in this picture, but we are very small.

After a quick stroll in a rainy Park City we headed for Provo.

There we visited the Paleontology Museum at BYU.

 

We also wanted to say thank you to our friend Joey and his wife Whitney for letting us stay with them and hold some of his pet lizards.

We finished the trip with a truck ride back to Vancouver and a move-in to our apartment.

That thing we did…you know…that one time?

 

In July we took a trip to the Oregon Coast… yes, another one. We just can’t stay away. We went to see the tufted puffin. I have, since I was little, had an inexplicable love of puffins. And I wanted to see some in person.  Here is a picture we did not take but stole from the interwebs to show you how cute they are. But we did eventually get to see some with our own eyes.

  Here is Dana “petting” the endangered whale statue.

The tide at Haystack rock was way out when we got there in the evening. We got to wander around in the tide pools a little bit. We found these two hermit crabs within a hands width of each other. The guy on the left did not get the memo about how he is supposed to get a new shell when his gets too small. We picked up the guy in the right to show him how roomy and comfortable upgrading is, but he just tried harder (and more pathetically) to crawl deeper into his shell. This is how far he got.

The sunset on the Needles was pretty. We felt cool because we were taking pictures of the same thing the guys with giant, fancy-pants cameras were taking pictures of.