What I've Been Doing The Last Few Months

Creating a child, that's what! I apologize for the lack of blog posts in a couple of months. I haven't been super busy with a ton of photo worthy activities because I've been working my little butt off on making a small child inside of me. That's right...Baby Boy Stephenson is due to enter this world in April 2016!

No turning back now

We found out I was pregnant at the beginning of August. Originally I was thinking I would keep it a secret between just Ryan and I for the first trimester since it's quite well known that things could easily go wrong early on leading to a miscarriage. Well, that idea didn't last too long. I was reading some baby forums about sharing the good news and one of them made a great point about that you should tell the people who you would want to know to support you if something bad did happen. I don't really keep much from my immediate family and close friends, so with that we went ahead and announced to our families at 5 weeks! A couple of days later we went on a backpacking trip (see previous post) with some close friends, so I ended up spilling the beans to them as well. When we were on our backpacking trip, I actually snapped a photo that I was wanting to use as a social media 'announcement photo' and I was super excited about it. As the weeks went on, I've actually decided that this isn't something I need all the random people I am connected with on Facebook to know that I am having a child. I really like that the only people who know are people who I've spoken to personally. So I guess, consider this my social media announcement...although I think anyone who reads this blog has already been informed ;)

Adding an extra pack to our crew ;)

I am now about 17 weeks along, so into my second trimester. We had a 10 week ultrasound which looked great, did the genetic testing which looked great, and just had a 14 week apt where we heard the heartbeat which sounded great. So all thumbs up so far! I had about 3 or 4 rough weeks of all day nausea (I don't think 'morning' sickness is a thing...it's all day), nothing debilitating though, I've still been working every day. The only thing that seemed to help though were lots of carbs and greasy foods, which once that phase was over with, I needed a serious detox! 

He's really in there!

 

Goat Lake



We got another weekend of backpacking in the books! Originally we were planning on doing a hike up near Mt. Baker...the same one we tried to do a few months ago, but this time we ran into an issue of there being thunderstorms up north the weekend we were looking at going. I kept watching the weather as it got closer to the weekend, and finally decided to go for a backup plan of going south and doing a hike in the Goat Rocks Wilderness. We packed 5 of us and the dog in our new Jeep (if you haven't heard, we bought our first car a few weeks ago, a new Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk), with the help of a friends car top carrier that stowed most of our gear. 3+ hours later we were ready to start our hike. We decided on a loop route that connected a few different trails. On the way in we went up and followed along Goat Ridge with amazing sweeping views of the valleys and in your face views of Mt Rainier and Mt Adams.












About 4-5 hours later we made it to the lake. It's been really dry lately so unfortunately most of the creeks in the area were pretty dried up and the only reliable source of water was the lake. Had we had a little more time, we would have tried to find a camp site a little further away from the lake and near a stream, but we took what we could get and settled in with all the other people who had made it to the lake that night. It was a beautiful lake though! We set up our tents, had some supper, and hung out for a few before calling it a night and returning to the warmth of our tents/sleeping bags.










Sunday morning we got moving as the sun came up and got our breakfast on before packing up and heading back down through the Snowgrass flats. Maybe I'm just easily amused, but I thought both routes were amazingly beautiful! That whole area is great and I'll definitely be back for more hikes!






On the way out we were famished from all our hiking, so we stopped at a little place claiming to have the best burgers in the tiny city of Packwood. We didn't have the highest expectations for such a small city, but they were spot on! Best burger I've had in a long time! And delicious milkshakes too ;)

Mt Adams



So our next big adventure (which by now was several weeks ago) was to summit the second tallest mountain in the state! The same friends we did the last trip with have been checking off all of the Washington mountains, so their next one was Mt Adams. It's not terribly technical, so we decided to get in on this adventure. We had to get permits several weeks in advance, so coincidentally it ended up being on the weekend that my parents were also in town. Unfortunately that meant we missed a day of hanging out with them, but it also meant we had a puppy sitter for Ben at the house! There's no way he would have made it up this mountain, it was far too icy and steep.

We started out by leaving work early Friday afternoon and driving down to the base of Mt Adams. By that time it was already around 7pm, so we hiked in a couple of miles that night and met up with Corey and Allison who had already set up camp at Morrison Creek. It was a great location that was still far enough down the mountain and in enough trees to be somewhat warm and blocked from winds. 







We got a few hours of sleep before getting up and hitting the trail around 4am. We left all the big stuff at our camp site and just brought the essentials up the mountain. After another hour or so we ended up at Lunch Counter which is where most people camp out. It was really lovely there, but also super windy and cold so I'm really glad we camped further down the mountain. There also weren't any trees at that point up the mountain, so I'm sure bathroom breaks were a little precarious in the middle of the night.. We stopped here behind a rock shelter to have out coffee and breakfast before the tough part of the climb.









A little past that point is where we put on our crampons as it got much icier and steeper. From there on it was pure ice and nearly a 45 degree incline straight up the mountain. The first relief you hit is the false summit, only to realize you have to go down the other side and up even further to the real summit. At this point the climb is nearly done though, so you just have to push on. Finally up at the summit, it was freeeeezing. Even taking gloves off to take a few pictures, I lasted about 5 photos before I had to warm up my hands to make them work again. It was really pretty though and totally worth it! From the top you can see the north side of the mountain and get great views of Mt Rainier. It was also a perfectly blue skied day which was amazing!











After our few minutes on the summit, we got to do the fun part...glissading down the mountain! This is pretty much just sliding on your butt all the way down the mountain in chutes that have been carved out of the ice/snow by other people doing the same thing. It makes the distance much quicker/easier to cover! You get moving pretty fast on some of the good chutes, so I had my ice axe out to dig into the sides for a brake as well. There were a few parts where I got going fast enough around a curve that it just shot me right out of the chute too! By the end we were completely soaked and full of snow, but made it down really quick!



We got back to our camp site and packed up quickly and headed back down to the trailhead to drive back to Seattle. The next day I got to spend Father's Day with my father which is the first time is a really long time that that has happened! We went to church in the morning followed by brunch and a nice lazy day. It was great having them around for a few days and hopefully they'll be making the big move out west soon to join us all on the Best Coast ;)

Buckhorn Wilderness

Second backpacking trip of the year was a great success! We had planning to do an overnight with some friends of ours and the original plan was to head up to the Mt Baker wilderness. Turns out there's still a good amount of snow up there and we were all kind of looking forward to a warm sunny weekend. We did some last minute brainstorming (aka a bbq and their house) and decided that the Olympic peninsula was the only place that was essentially snow free at this point, so that would be our best bet. I found a map of a the Buckhorn wilderness that had several trails throughout it. Allison and Cory went out Friday to start their hike and told us which trail to meet them on the next day. We left early Saturday morning to catch a ferry over to the peninsula. We got to the trail head around noon and started our 10 miles in to meet them at camp. It was a perfectly sunny day out and the hike was gorgeous!















It was a beautiful night to camp. The stars were out in full force and it really wasn't cold at all. We actually just bought a double sleeping bag (essentially a sleeping mat cover and a down comforter) which we tried out this weekend and it worked perfectly. It was almost too warm! Ben is also getting much better and spending the night outdoors. He didn't even want to come into the tent, but we made him just so we could zip it up to keep bugs out and keep him from wandering off. Normally he could just sleep in the bag vestibule outside of the tent, but it was so nice out that we didn't even bring the rain fly for the tent, so we just had out mesh enclosure.

Sunday morning we got moving slowly with some coffee and breakfast before packing up and heading back up and over the mountain. This time we took the little detour to the lake which was a perfect stopping point for lunch. We also took the little detour to see a 1952 B-17 crash site just up the mountain from the trail.