Hike #1 Kamikaze Falls/Teneriffe Falls

So, I finally went on a real Washington state mountain hike yesterday.  I decided on Teneriffe Falls, because it is located on the next mountain next to Mt Si, which is one of the most popular hikes in the Central Cascades. But this hike is supposed to much shorter (6 miles roundtrip vs 8) and less difficult with a smaller elevation gain and with it's many switchbacks vs just a rough trail straight up. So, to put it into perspective...
Teneriffe Falls hike: (labeled as an easy to moderate hike on the Washington Trails Guide!)
     Trailhead elevation: 950ft
     Elevation gain: 1420ft
     Summit elevation: 2370ft
     Roundtrip: 6miles 4hrs 40mins (with some little side excursions to go off trail and down to the water, and a short snack break at the top)
Eagle Mountain hike: (highest point in MN)
     Trailhead elevation: 1751ft
     Elevation gain: 550 ft
     Summit elevation: 2301 ft
     Roundtrip: 3.5miles ?time

Family

This week, Coltin's family came in for a visit. His mom, 2 sisters and one of their boyfriends came out on a roadtrip to stay for the week. So now, there are 13 people in the house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We had to put all of the kids' toys in the storage area, deep clean the boys' room and put all of the kids in there. Then we deep cleaned the girls' room so that the visiting family could camp out in there. Then we deep cleaned the rest of the house too, just because it needed it.

Anyway, if I thought that the house got dirty really fast before.... I had no idea what I was talking about!!!! I was out of the house all day yesterday, came home for dinner and the house was trashed! This morning, I went to the gym, and when I came home, everyone was gone sight-seeing, so Joe, Kara and I picked up the majority of the mess.

Weekend Getaway

So over the weekend, something big DID happen! Kara, Coltin and I went out to Spokane for the whole weekend. We caravaned it out there with about 30 of our friends to go to a weekend long Leadership Conference.  There were going to be so many big name speakers, but definitely the most note-worthy was John C Maxwell! He is a former minister who is now the number 1 author on leadership books in Barnes and Noble and in the New York Times.  He speaks about leadership to Microsoft, Amazon, the United Nations, and he's mentored 4 out of the last 5 presidents (not the current one).

Some small things that make the time fly

There haven't been any really big things going on here lately. Everyone has been getting sick with a 24hr bug, and then a coughing, sore throat, fever/headache. Kara just got me sick with that, but I am hopeful that it will go by fairly quickly. Last week, on april 17, was Alyssa's 5th birthday! So we celebrated that and it was very fun. She wanted to make sugar cookies with Kara's friend Kody, so in the morning at 7am, when Kody's husband Justin came upstairs to leave for work, she was waiting for him at the top of the stairs to ask if Kody was awake yet and if they could start making cookies, LOL!