Day 243: A new challenge

A week ago today, while we were still in Spokane, WA, I received a text asking me if I would teach a high school French class this coming year. It has been a whirlwind week but I signed the contract today and am very excited. I started teaching Latin this last Tuesday at Multnomah and my first French class is this coming Tuesday at Portland Christian High School - I am immersing myself in both languages and am loving it!

Day 242: Music making

I am very proud to say that Anna decided this week to teach herself the recorder and has learned two songs so far with no help from anyone! And Noah is always willing to have a go at accompanying her...

Day 241: Sunset over soccer practice

Johnny attended a special soccer practice for high school goalkeepers this evening - it was a great honor for him to be invited and he had a great time. The sky when I picked him up was quite beautiful.

Day 240: Composing...

Daniel has been trying his hand at composing. I can't wait to hear the finished result!

Day 239: Happy birthday Tilly!

Our wonderful chocolate lab is thirteen years old today. She is truly the perfect pet and we love her very much.

Day 238: My new Munchkin team

Today was the soccer jamboree, our official kick off for the fall season. And here is (most of) my adorable team - the Thunderbolts! I LOVE coaching Munchkin soccer!

Day 237: Eggplant

We are always curious to see what has happened to our garden while we have been gone on vacation. My eggplant plant only produced one fruit,  but since I have never grown eggplants before, I am very pleased and can't wait to try it.

Day 236: Back in Oregon

We celebrated our return to Oregon and the end of our trip by hiking to the top of Multnomah Falls, which we passed on our way home. The second-tallest year-round waterfall in the US, it is one of the most visited places in Oregon. Here is the view looking over the top of the falls.

Day 235: Weaving

We began our day in Bozeman, Mt and had a great visit to the Museum of the Rockies. The museum has an excellent planetarium, an amazing hall devoted to dinosaurs and a fascinating display on Native American history. However our favorite part of the day was touring a Living History exhibit of a homestead of the 1890s. The kids especially enjoyed trying their hands at a loom.

Day 234: Yellowstone

We always knew that one day wouldn't be enough to begin to see Yellowstone National Park but we couldn't have asked for a better "one day". We arrived with perfect timing to see Old Faithful erupt, and then had the chance to see all the different kinds of interesting hydrothermal and geothermal features of the park. We made it to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone in the early evening and marveled at the spectacular view. What a place! We can't wait to go again.

Day 233: Rodeo

Today finds us in Cody, Wyoming, a great little Western town founded by "Buffalo Bill" Cody and enjoying the distinction of being the rodeo capital of the world. We enjoyed the Main Street stores, went to the historic Irma Hotel for the nightly "gunfight" between the outlaws and the sheriff, and then attended the rodeo, which we loved. Anna has decided that her new career path needs to include at least some time as a cowgirl.

Day 232: Mt Rushmore

I was a little anxious about going to Mt Rushmore. I was afraid that it would have been overhyped as a must-see destination, and would seem too touristy and tacky. However, much like Stonehenge last summer, I was surprisingly moved and awed by the experience of visiting this famous monument. After Mt Rushmore, we spent the afternoon at Wind Cave National Park, where we went on a fascinating tour of a very small fraction of Wind Cave, one of the longest caves in the world. To end the day, we drove to Devil's Tower National Monument and arrived just before sunset for an amazing view of this unusual and striking rock.

Day 231: Badlands

When I asked people before our trip what we should be sure not to miss on our journey, several people mentioned the Badlands at sunset. Our whole day in Badlands National Park was wonderful but the sunset was indeed spectacular.

Day 230: O beautiful, for spacious skies...

We spent today driving through South Dakota - some of the widest skies we have seen...

Day 229: Maple Lawn

All my pictures today are of buildings with special meaning for David. We drove around his mother's hometown of Janesville, WI, and saw houses she had lived in, her father's bakery, and the school that was built under his watch as school superintendent. We also drove past the house of VP nominee, Paul Ryan, who lives around the corner from the house David's grandmother lived in. The kids were very excited to see all the Secret Service agents milling around. Last of all, we drove out to Maple Lawn, the beautiful farmhouse David's paternal grandmother lived in as a child. David used to visit his great-aunt here and has happy memories of the place.

Day 228: Birthday in Chicago

Here we are at the most eastern point of our road trip, celebrating Johnny's twelfth birthday in Chicago. We had donuts for breakfast, walked along the shore of Lake Michigan, window-shopped at the Lego store, picnicked in Lincoln Park, enjoyed the Lincoln Park zoo and a great independent book store, visited with a group of incredibly friendly Chicago firefighters, and had dinner at a restaurant, famous for their exceptionally rude staff. Johnny thought the day was amazing!

Day 227: Old friends

We met our dear friends, the Mutschlers, when we first moved to Portland in January 2004. Their son Nick is just a few months older than Johnny and the two boys swiftly became best friends. Nick and his family moved to California and then to Indiana a few years later and we miss them all very much. So we are thrilled to spend some time with them in Chicago on this trip. We met up with them today and the two friends were reunited. Here they are, wading in Lake Michigan at sunset.

Day 226: Water-skier

It was a day of non-stop fun on Lake Monona in Madison, WI, where we are visiting David's cousin and his wife, who have a beautiful 1930s home on the lakeshore. The kids all went tubing, to their great joy, and Johnny, Daniel and Anna all tried waterskiing again. Daniel stayed up the longest - he described the experience as exhilarating!

Day 225: Family history

Having visited one of David's childhood homes in Wausau, WI, and another in Neenah, WI, we took a very special trip to Springwater Cemetery, near Wild Rose, WI. The community of Springwater was founded by the Welsh pioneer, John Hughes, who was David's great-great-great grandfather. Other Welsh families also settled there and John's daughter Mary married Robert Humphrey in 1846. The Springwater Cemetary is the final resting place of several generations of the Humphrey and Hughes families. Of special significance to Johnny was the grave of the first John Robert Humphrey - Johnny himself is the third to have this name and very proud of it.

Day 224: Riding the ATV

After a perfect few days of family reunion at Sugar Camp Lake, we drove to Wausau, WI to visit David's childhood best friend. John and Sarah live in a gorgeous house surrounded by beautiful Wisconsin farmland and showed us extraordinary hospitality. Sarah took each of the kids riding through the woods on their ATV, which made them very happy!

Day 223: Tubing

The children all made repeated and valiant attempts to get up on water skis but more practice is needed - only Daniel was successful. However, riding on the inner-tube was much easier and hugely popular - this is Johnny having a great time!

Day 222: A canoeing adventure

Throughout this week, many different combinations of extended family members have enjoyed going out together on the various lake vessels. Here are Noah and his dad returning from a trip across the lake in a canoe.

Day 221: The Min-Aqua Bats

One of the many fun things about this week are the reminiscences of David and his brother and sisters about their childhood visits summer trips to Sugar Camp. Every summer, they would take a trip to see a water ski show in Minocqua, WI, where they would marvel at the skills of the water skiers. Despite a cool evening and some persistent rain, we were all excited to continue this tradition, and enjoyed the display very much. The children were all inspired to try water skiing themselves!

Day 220: Sailing

Some members of our family are highly skilled sailors and it was a huge treat for our kids to be taken out on the lake in the sailboat. Anna was especially proud to sail across the lake with her uncle Douglas.

Day 219: Reunited

The heart of our road trip is our family reunion at the cottage on Sugar Camp lake in northern Wisconsin, where David and his siblings, and their mother before them, spent their childhood summers. Our four kids were all desperately looking forward to seeing their Humphrey relatives again and, within minutes of arriving at this beautiful spot, all the cousins were in one kind of boat or another and out on the water. There they stayed, blissfully happy, for the rest of the day.

Day 218: Split Rock Lighthouse

We spent an idyllic afternoon at Split Rock Lighthouse State Park on the shores of Lake Superior, in Minnesota. The kids were pretty excited to swim in the largest freshwater lake in the world!

Day 217: Bison

We visited Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota today, full of wild scenery, American history and bison! We had hoped to see a herd at a distance and ended up seeing many very close up - just incredible.

Day 216: Dinosaur country

Our day in Eastern Montana was dedicated to the pursuit of dinosaurs. We woke up this morning in Jordan, MT, where the first Tyrannosaurus Rex was found in 1902. We then traveled to Glendive, MT where we visited a couple of dinosaur museums and spent the afternoon hiking at Makoshika State Park, a strange and fascinating landscape where many dinosaur bones and fossils continue to be found.

Day 215: Two Medicine Lake

We spent the morning at Two Medicine Lake before heading east across Montana. Although the kids enjoy hiking and loved our whole time at Glacier, the highlights for them were the times playing on the lake shore.

Day 214: Mountain goat

David and I both took SO many pictures today and it really is very hard to choose just one. However, I like this photo I took on our first hike this morning because one of the wonderful surprises in Glacier has been the number of wild animals we have seen up close: mountain goats, deer, big-horn sheep, pika and ground squirrels. Another marvelous day!