hiking at silver falls

my friend jenny stopped by after we'd been to her house visiting teaching, to bring coleman's binki by. HOW THOUGHTFUL! guess she knows how important binkis can be. :) they invited us to go to silver falls with them to hikd for a couple hours and that sounded sooooo much better than cleaning and cleaning and cleaning the day away. we had a great time and are so thankful for them for letting us come. we're kindof slow hikers. some of us are out of shape and some of us have really short legs. :) we had a terrific time though!!!

brookie all ready to go in the backpack. she really likes it in there. guess the view is pretty good.

brookie, mom, cole and benson at the trailhead.

cole and benson hiking along the trail. benson was a great friend and helper for coleman. he kept him safe and they had a great time together. coleman learned a lot from him!

coleman climbed the tree.

benson and coleman climbed the tree.

benson, coleman and sariah in the tree. this was a popular tree. :) maybe because we ate snacks by it?

sariah and brookie climbing in the tree (ok. we put brookie up after sariah climbed). brookie loves sariah and emily!

benson, me, sariah, coleman, emily, jenny, brookie - we all decided to climb the tree. :) we all look a little green, but hey - so did the rest of the forest (or jungle as coleman refers to it).

navigating around roots of a big tree. this little girl is growing up so fast. she's so curious and agile. it amazes me how quick she's growing!!

climbing a tree! - all by himself! very exciting moment! coleman got very brave and adventurous on this trip. i think he was watching benson closely to see what the big guys do. thanks for being such a great friend benson!

coleman and benson posing for one last picture. they were really into posing there toward the end. i think we were all getting tired. :) cool cave though! definiteley worth the stop.

thanks hepworths for the fun day! sorry we made you late for yw emily! we'd love to hang out again soon!

the last couple times we've driven to silver falls, some of the hay fields have been black. we've discussed the possibilities of what happened to them or what was done to them and haven't come to a real positive conclusion. here's our answer. controlled burns. is this like 'slash and burn'? (thank you mr. felt's 10th grade history class)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn

check out this wikipedia article. there's even something about oregon. :) i don't think it was particularly dangerous as we drove through the whole area while it was burning and didn't have a problem with visibility through the smoke. it did smell bad, but 'ya know. that's fire. i think i prefer it to pesticides...