A Belated Update

Happy with his new hat.

It's been quite some time since our family blog has been updated.  I've spent a great deal of time focusing on my automotive blog for school and there was a spell where I was also having some trouble with blogger.  Cooper grows bigger every day and baby number two is well on it's way!  We should be finding out the gender in a month or so :).  Cooper is now mobile, if he's not crawling he's scooting, and it if he's not scooting he's rolling.  He has also started pulling himself up on furniture and tooth number five is showing between Cooper's vampire teeth!  Enjoy some pictures from the last couple of months!

Cooper's first sledding trip!

First time in the snow!

Helping with the laundry

Cereal beard

Too tired for dinner

Ward Halloween party

All that and a bag of chips!

Tablerock in September

Aubrey and I started school this past week and before things got too crazy with homework and other things that take up time my Dad and I decided to hike Tablerock in the Teton's.  Although we'd planned on having a bigger group come it ended up just being my Dad and I plus my buddy Kenne and his wife Dani.  

The forecast for the trailhead was 65 degrees and sunny for the day and so we figured that we'd have some pretty good weather.  While we did have very nice weather for the whole of the hike we did not anticipate the conditions up on the mountain or of the trail.  Tablerock sits at over 11,000 feet and while the valley where Driggs and Rexburg sit was nice and dry the mountains had received over a foot of snow over the week from some heavy storms that had come through the area.  We noticed that the snow line on the mountains was very low and became concerned that we wouldn't be able to make it to the top.  We decided to give it a try anyway and see how far we'd be able to go.  We pulled up to the trailhead and found the first quarter of a mile or so to be normal trail conditions for this time of year.  However at about the mile mark as we began to gain elevation we began to run into snow.

Tablerock is not considered a hike for novices as the hike is about 14 miles long round trip and in that 14 miles you ascend and descend a little over 4,000 feet.  We ran into a father and son from Seattle on the trail and while the son had been living in these parts for quite some time made it to the top of Tablerock his father had to stop and wait as he became light headed and dizzy from the altitude change.  While the first couple of miles weren't bad trail wise the higher and higher we got so did the depth of the snow that we had to make our way through.  eventually the trail could no longer be seen but rather just footprints in the snow.  Several different groups had gone ahead of us luckily and we had a trail to follow even if it wasn't the real trail; I'm sure we'd lost it in the snow.  We took the trail that was less traveled for the day and ended up following just one set of tracks for quite some time; we almost turned back because of the depth of the snow and the question of whether or not we were on the right path to get to the top.

 Because we had not suspected snow to be on the trail my dad and I ended up wearing shorts.  Lucky for us the weather was actually quite warm and we didn't get cold until we reached the top of the mountain and stopped to enjoy the view.  Wearing shorts ended up being a blessing in disguise as we didn't have to worry about our pants becoming soaking wet and keeping us cold; however our shoes did become soaked and I'm pretty sure that I'm the only one that brought an extra pair of socks.

One of my favorite past times growing up has been to go hiking with my Dad and other friends who decided to join us.  While we've hiked many different trails in the Teton's over the years I'd never had the opportunity to tackle Tablerock and I'm glad to finally say the I have.  My Dad has hiked it several times before but never in snow and he was quick to point out how much harder it was in the snow.  The hike on it's own in dry weather is one of the more difficult hikes in the Teton's because of how high you climb.  The snow made climbing harder because it provided less traction in the warm weather and in many places really slowed our pace because we had to step in others footprints.  On the way down was especially difficult because it was later in the day and the snow had turned to slush making it very slippery.

Tablerock has two different trails that you can take to reach the top, huckleberry and the face.  While the face trail cuts off about a half hour off of your time each way it isn't as pretty as huckleberry and it's much steeper.  The face trail also isn't maintained and can be pretty treacherous, especially when it's covered in snow.  As we are more of the sight seeing type we took Huckleberry up and found much more snow but it was very pretty.  Not wanting to encounter as much snow on the way back he took the face and still found plenty of snow and very slippery conditions!  Most of the people that hiked Tablerock that day however took the face and so while we felt alone hiking up we ran into quite a number of hikers once we reached the top.  One of which ended up being Melissa, Aubrey's cousin!

The hardest part about tablerock whether you are hiking in snow or not is the last mile or so that you climb up a shale face to Tablerock itself and then you have to scramble up to the top.  The shale field is above the tree line and when it's covered in snow it's difficult to get traction.  But once you've pushed to the top you'll witness some of the most beautiful vistas that you could ever ask for!  Enjoy the rest of our pictures from the last push to the top and our way down the face!

A macro pic my dad took of some frozen flowers

Melissa's group built this fire and we were grateful!

A Few Pics From Our Week in Boise

Aubrey, Cooper and I have really been enjoying our week in Boise!  It has been nice to have a break from school work and work work!  Grandma and Grandpa Johnson have been keeping us busy and while a few of the events were not camera friendly we did get some footage of a few of our events.  We'll be heading back to Tacoma tomorrow but this week we have floated the Boise river, gone on some nice walks, been on a few bike rides both mountain biking and road biking, gone to a rodeo, gone to Lagoon, and we also went on several rides in the old Bronco.  We've had a pretty good time we must admit!  Enjoy our pictures from the week!

We tested the Bronco's 4x4!

Cooper didn't last long on the hike; he fell asleep trying to eat the bar.

Cooper fit right in with all the cowboy's!

I do have several more pictures that I'll be adding once I get them from Grandpa Johnson!

Spencer is Home!

This weekend we travelled to Boise to see Aubrey's brother Spencer come home from his mission in Tulsa Oklahoma!  We made a pit stop in Pasco Washington on our way and stayed the night with Tim and Haley.  Haley brought out her Johnny Jump Up for Cooper which he really likes; although I think Athen was a bit jealous of him!

The next day we got up and headed to Boise and once there Cooper and I helped Grandpa Johnson get the Bronco put back together so that it would be ready to surprise spencer!  We didn't have any toys for Cooper out in the garage so instead we let him play with some wrenches and tape which he seemed to really enjoy!  It was also very fun to go the airport and watch Spencer come down the escalator.  No one was expecting to see him there as his plane came in a little earlier than we expected and we all passed him going up as he was coming down!  It's also been a big week for cooper and his diet!  We fed him his first bowl of rice cereal this morning and we're proud to say that he downed the entire bowl without making a single sour face!  He loves his food!  Enjoy the pictures of our weekend!

A Couple of Weekends in One!

It' been a couple of weeks since we've posted to our blog and we've done quite a bit in that time!  So in one monster post I will attempt to cover all that we have done; everything from car shows to sea food feasts!

Seeing that Cooper was ready to go out for the day the weekend before the 4th we decided to head out to Steilacoom park and see what was to be seen at the Lakewood Summerfest. We had been told that there was going to be a car show there which we wanted to catch and so after our ward social we headed over to the park.  Unfortunately we showed up late and on our way into the park we had to watch most of the cars leaving the park!  We did manage to get a few pictures of the stragglers before all were gone!

The following weekend my family pulled into town to visit for a couple of weeks and we have been out enjoying the nice summer weather that has finally decided to come out.  For the fourth we spent the afternoon and evening out at Corey and Lisa's place where we enjoyed good food, plenty of fireworks and a great atmosphere.

Since the 4th fell on a Sunday I got the following day off from work and we all decided to head over the Point Defiance Zoo and check out the sites there.  The kids really enjoyed the sights there and we enjoyed spending the day together.

On Wednesday we went over to George & Linda's place for dinner; they had just bought a new puppy which was a mix between a Poodle and a Palmeranian.  My parents ended up buying his sister so she'll be hitching a ride back to Idaho!  Cooper enjoyed pulling this ones tail!

This most recent weekend was the most fun yet; our friend Casey from school came up for the weekend to visit and we spent a couple of days just playing!  On Friday we went to Brown's Point to enjoy the scenery and eat some lunch and then in the evening we went boating with Corey and Lisa on their boat at Long Lake near their house!

After recuperating from our boating excursion we woke up the next morning ready to take on Seattle for the day.  We started out touring the Pike Place Market which is always a treat and is always packed!  There were lots of fun vendors and people throwing fish and crab; the workers at the market are famous for the fun work ethic!  After the market we did a little shopping down town where we were surprised to encounter some nude cyclists; there were probably 30 or so in the group and while I did get some pictures of the event I'll spare you the horror of witnessing them for yourself!

After shopping we splurged a little and went to the Crab Pot where we ordered a seafood feast!  After lining our table with butcher paper it was covered in all sorts of good seafood that we were able to eat with our hands.  We had a really great time; after eating our meal we finished the day with a Seattle Mariners game.  The game was really fun and our Mariners pulled off the win over the New York Yankees with a grand slam in the last innings of the game!  We've really enjoyed doing the fun things that there are to do here in Washington and we love spending time together!