Crater Lake

I realized after the fact, that Nathan and I were so busy with bridal party duties, that I never took any pictures of Christi and Ty Ty's actual wedding and reception. Oh well. I do, however, have plenty of other pictures from the rest of our trip in Oregon. Nathan was able to stay for a week of much needed vacation time after the wedding and we made sure to take full advantage of the time we had with him home during the day.

As promised, we finally took Nathan with us to go pick blueberries, which was fun. My grandma, Nammy, and Poppa John were also able to come with us. Drew loved having Poppa John come along. All weekend Poppa John had been Drew's go-to person for all things show and tell. "Hey Poppa John, look at this!", "Hey Poppa John, follow me!", "Hey Poppa John, want to come play in the sandbox with me?". John was more than willing to go along with all of Drew's adventures and Drew of course loved him for it!

Naturally, Collin is eating blueberries. Would you expect it to be any other way at this point?

Collin and Poppa John

My mom and Drewski

Nammy and my Dad

We did plenty of other things besides blueberry picking (I won't bore you with all the pictures), but hands down our favorite day trip this time around was our trip to Crater Lake. Nathan and Burke have been asking to do this trip for a while now, and since the lake is a few hours away from my parent's house, we've somehow never found the time to go. This trip though, we made a point to plan out a day to go and it was so worth the little bit of drive time it took to get there! It is beautiful!

Yep, we like self photos. We even drag the kid into it.

My parents and the boys

The water there was so blue! I learned while I was there, that Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the U.S., which is part of why it's so blue.

We decided to hike up to the Watchman's Tower and were surprised to see that part of the trail still had snow on it.

Collin; always riding in style. Thanks Auntie Jenn Jenn for volunteering to trek him.

Aw, aren't they just the cutest little Lala and Poppi? ;)

The island in the middle of the lake is the bigger of the two islands in the lake. This one is Wizard Island.

I couldn't get over the color of the water in the little island inlets!

Aw, Jenn and Burkie, babies look good on you! :) :)

The end of our hike: Watchman Tower

The tower is in active use year round to watch for things like wildfires

The monitor on the top of the podium is used to measure the size of fires that are spotted and also can tell where exactly in the park the fire is located. The woman on the right was the person on duty at the time we were up there, and of course Dad had to ask her a million and one questions on how everything worked.

This oh so technical little stool is where the watch person has to sit when there is a lightening storm. They sit on top of the stool and the glass insulators on the bottom of the stool's feet protect them if (or more like when), the tower gets hit by lightening. Um, no thank you.

After our hike we met up with Nammy and John for some lunch at the hotel on the lake. The hotel was gorgeous and reminded me of the Awahnee on the valley floor in Yosemite.

And of course, so that you could take full advantage of the view, the hotel had rockers out on the patio for guests to relax in.

Anyway, I could post a zillion pictures of our trip to Oregon this time around, but suffice it to say we had a ton of fun. Our time up there is never long enough.