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Not much to report this week. I did some more horseback riding.

I also practiced tennis and soccer and played my last soccer game this weekend.

I also went mountain biking. I rode over some big rock features. The Mother did not.

I did some more horseback riding this week. Still a big fan.

We got to lope and practiced ‘barrel racing’.

Awesome.

I also played some soccer. We lost. Badly.

I went fishing and did no catching, but it was a beautiful day on the river.

I also organized a fall celebration for The Bigs.

I decorated.

and put together one of my awesome bars.

The bar had a raffle. Winners received either a pumpkin smoothie or pumpkin bread made by me. The winners are still waiting for me to deliver.

I also put together some activities: pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern, a spooky, scary scavenger hunt, and leaf pile jumps.

Here I am mixing up a gin and juice for the mother.

It was strong. Perhaps that explains what happened to this guy.

I also made, my now world-famous, brats in a bed of sauerkraut and bacon.

We went to two movies this week. First, Teton Gravity Research’s Beyond the Fantasy at the Tower Theater. It is a skiing movie. It got me excited for the snow to start flying!

Then we went to McMenamins to see The Wild Robot. The theater is almost all couches. Sadly, we did not get a couch, but the movie was great. I think a lot of you would really like it.

I also had a check up. Look at this femur. Like new!

Since I last checked in, I have made two dinners. Shrimp scampi

and breakfast at night. Up next, an Oktoberfest celebration.

When I am not busy doing this, that, and the other thing. I am reading. Reading while eating, reading while brushing my teeth, reading when I am supposed to be asleep. Reading.

After a week of Uncle-Chris-mandated drills. I hit the soccer field.

It was a great game.

On Sunday we took a day-long rock climbing class. I wanted The Bigs to learn how to belay, so they can help me top rope climb in the gym and in beautiful Smith Rock, which is where our class was.

I am a climbing machine.

Dad was also very good.

But The Mother just kept yelling ‘Lower. I am ready to come down’. We told her no.

I started horseback riding lessons this week. (Thank you, Papa and Yaya!) First things first, Diane put some spurs on my ‘tenni-runners’:

My horse’s name is Jack. I gave him a good brushing before saddling him:

Meera is doing the lessons too:

I started building my model Viking ship (Thank you, Nana!) this week. It requires a lot of very detailed painting and gluing:

I’ve been doing a lot of supplemental soccer practices with the Bigs after school. I’m getting better.

On Sunday we did a guided fishing trip on the Crooked River. (Thank you, Papa and Uncle Geoff!) It was a beautiful day, and we all caught a lot of fish. Here I am hooked into a monster. Wyatt, our guide, is going to scoop him into the net for me.

Here’s the Mother with one of her many fish:

We all had a great time!

Been a while since my last regular blog, so lots to catch up on here. I used my Boy Scout Handbook to learn to tie a tie:

Jameson came with us to Elk Lake one day:

We (he, mostly) caught a lot of crayfish. Some were huge!

Hunter came over for a sleepover:

The Mother was pretty nervous about it going well, so she she cooked and baked (just like The Nan would). She made four different kinds of pizza.

Cheese:

Bacon:

Pesto and chicken:

And zucchini, broccoli, and feta:

And she made chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

We camped out in the backyard:

It went great. No cooking and baking needed, but it was yummy.

I’m back in school. First-day photo:

We drove to Beaverton to buy a new (to us) truck:

We’ve done some repairs. The garage door opener liked to open by itself intermittently. Not cool, so we replaced it. Now we can tell from our phones if it is open.

The oven broke. We could still turn it on, but we could only turn it off by turning off the circuit breaker in the garage. Inconvenient. We fixed it:

I went mountain biking with Jameson and his dad:

His dad took us out for lunch and ice cream:

The Mother tried out a new recipe last week. Baked potatoes with egg and tonnato sauce (egg yolks, lemon juice, parsley, tuna, capers, anchovies, garlic, and olive oil). Not our favorite.

It was the Bigs’ 17th anniversary this Sunday. We went to Podski’s for pierogies and Thai food to celebrate:

When we first got to Wellfleet was a bit cool and cloudy, so we went for a walk across Uncle Tim’s Bridge:

Then we went to Nauset Light:

And walked along our beach south to Marconi Beach:

We ran into Nana and GUM on the way back:

The next day we went to the dunes in Provincetown:

And went into town:

I bought myself a sweatshirt (thanks, Pop):

The Super-Blue Moon from our deck:

We went sailing in Wellfleet Harbor:

I took control of the boat:

We sailed to Great Island, where we beached the boat and hung out on the beach for a little while:

Lobster dinner on Nana and GUM’s deck:

Out to dinner at C-Shore:

We got a few days of surfing in:

I got a towel poncho for my birthday. Now I can easily change into and out of my wetsuit in the parking lot when we go surfing:

I did some kite flying on our beach:

Our cottage:

Sunrise from our deck:

I tired myself right out:

Up next, a visit with Yaya and Papa. We had dinner at The Collective with Uncle Geoff, Tobin, and Aunt Jessica.

I spent A LOT of time playing with Theo

and Coby. I LOVE them.

Then we headed up to Vermont. Is this the nicest welcome center ever?

We rode our bikes from Waitsfield to Bristol.

This required going over the Lincoln Gap. It is the highest vehicle-accessible mountain pass in Vermont and steepest paved mile in the US.

It was hard,

but I made it.

The next day we rode from Bristol to Rochester. I indulged in a creemee.

I also had a bit of fun with the light fixture in our room.

The last day we rode from Rochester back to Waitsfield. This ride required two gaps. No problem after riding Lincoln Gap, right?

WRONG, Braintree gap was basically a 4-wheel/drainage ditch. We pushed our bikes for a long time.

Before our second pass, we stopped for a swim in Roxbury Falls.

When I made it back, I was tired, but it was my birthday and there was an ice cream cake waiting for me.

Yaya and Papa had some temperature control issues, but I knew whose cake it was.

The next day, we all went blueberry picking.

And, I went swimming in the Mad River.

Then we went to American Flatbread for some delicious pizza.

I ended the trip with a MAPLE creemee.

We stopped by Dad’s friend, JP’s, house on our way to the Cape. He had two amazing dogs and one super cool cat. Here I am with their Newfie, Alta. He was bigger than The Mother and didn’t get up much, but I thought he was pretty awesome.

We stopped at the Dartmouth Skiway. on our way out of town.

First day in RI, Ryan took me fishing

then we hit the beach.

We had dinner at the Chicken Coop.

The next day, we hit the beach again.

Then the weather got a little cold, so we played some tennis, went to see the trolls

and went bowling. We also went to Uncle Chris’s for dinner.

One night I made my famous Chicken Marbella for dinner.

And, another night I helped Nan make a poke cake.

We also went mini golfing in the rain.

It must be noted that Uncle Chris won.

And one night all the adults ditched the kids and went to the Oyster Bar.

The Bigs drove to Jersey to see the one and only Great Grandma Marie.

And they made me pose for a lot of pictures.

I took some pictures too, with my new drone. Here is a snapshot of Pop’s garden.

We had a couple more sunny days, so we took advantage of the nice weather and soaked up as much salt water as we could.

After flying in to Logan,

Uncle Jim and Aunt Cheryl took us on a whirlwind tour of Boston. The first night we had dinner on JIm’s roof deck. I LOVED it. Check out the view:

On Day 1, we went to the library (first public library),

walked the Commonwealth Mall to Boston Common, and then went on the Freedom Trail. This is Paul Revere’s house.

Then we had a delicious lunch (and sweets 🙂 ) in the North End.

Next a carousel ride,

followed by a duck boat tour.

For mere mortals, that would be a pretty full day, but Pop told Jim I have to go and go and go, so the day was not over yet. Next up? Top of the Prudential Building. The absolute BEST way to see the whole city.

Day 2 started with the MIT Museum.

Then we rode along the Emerald Necklace to the Arboretum.

And then on to the Museum of Fine Arts

for dinner (where The Mother confused the Chihuly behind Uncle Jim in the picture below for a real plant),

and an amazing treasure hunt through the museum (best way to see a museum EVER).

Afterwards, we biked home – stopping at Northeastern – where the original Red Sox stadium was located.

I had so much fun hanging out with Uncle Jim and Aunt Cheryl. It was hard to leave.

It was also hard to leave because we had all our luggage and bikes to get on the train :).

Up next, RI.

We picked a lot of cherries. While picking, we did quite a bit of eating…but then we noticed little holes in the cherries. So, we cut one open. See the little green maggot in the one on the bottom? Yuck. We threw away all the cherries.

We didn’t have much time to feel sad about our cherries because we had to leave on Dad’s 50th Birthday Road Trip!

First stop. Hood River for windsurfing. I tried it and LOVED it.

Dad did some wing foiling in addition to wind surfing.

We also hit the orchards and got some cherries to replace the maggoty ones.

12 pounds, in fact. And we ate them all in one week!

We also did some fly fishing on the east fork of the Hood River

and at Lost Lake. Still fishing, not catching.

We also stopped at Ferment for beers,

a pickled platter (pickles, sauerkraut, and kimichi), and a charcuterie board.

We also met up with two of Dad’s old friends, Jay Griffin and Ben Webster, for dinner at Taqueria:

Then it was on to Leavenworth, ‘a Bavarian-styled village in the Cascade Mountains, in central Washington State’.

We did a day hike to Eightmile Lake. It was ~100F outside.

You better believe we swam in this lake.

After the hike, we hit the Nutcracker Museum. TWO floors of nutcrackers.

They had a whole collection just for Pop’s birthday.

And the Queen, of course.

I did some shopping too. I loved this hat. Loved it. But I could not part with the $85…

Then we hit the Munchen House for brats, beer, and pretzels.

I covered my brat in dill relish, raw onion, sauerkraut, and yellow mustard. Mom gagged a bit, but I loved it.

For the rest of our trip, we planned on backpacking. The Mother did a shoddy job of planning this part, so I took over. I mapped out a route and we started out on Chatter Creek trail on Sunday. The forecast called for a high of 103F.

The Bigs started to get worried when we had already climbed 1000 ft by lunchtime and this is what we saw in front of us. Ut oh.

Here we are on the top. Cloud cover kept it from ever hitting the predicted 103 F.

But we weren’t done. We had to go down.

And through snow.

Until, after 4800 feet of climbing (this is a LOT people) we made camp at Lake Edna.

This guy came a little closer than we were comfortable with.

and the bugs were horrible. But it was a beautiful spot.

In the morning, we decided we would hike to a few lakes, but not take our heavy packs. The day before was a bit much. We hiked through tons and tons of wildflowers…

until we got to Flora Lake. I had my rod, of course…but what are the chances there are fish in an alpine lake in the middle of nowhere?

Oh, there were fish. I caught three before my rod BROKE!

Next we went for a second swim (we swam in Flora) in Brigham Lake. Yes, that’s snow.

I had to rock climb down to the water. It was awesome.

Two lakes weren’t enough, so we headed to Upper Florence Lake.

More snow. These were REFRESHING lakes people.

The wind starting picking up in the evening. At first we were excited because it blew the bugs away.

But it blew all night and we were sure the tent – though reinforced with ropes – would collapse on our heads. It did not, but it filled with dirt. There was not much sleeping.

In the morning, the wind had stopped. And everything was beautiful again, even the toilet.

Then it was time to start the long hike down.

The Bigs thought I picked an amazing route and could not believe all the beauty we saw or my amazing endurace. To be honest, it wiped me out.

I’ve been sleeping in a lot, but I’m recovering quickly. I made breakfast burritos for dinner this week.

And mango sorbet just for fun.

Now it is time to get ready for our trip. I listened to podcasts on the American Revolution, Paul Revere’s Ride, and the Boston Tea Party in preparation for Uncle Jim’s. I also supervised while Dad packed my bike.

See you soon!