Early October at Hug Point

Weekends are for exploring, am I right? Well, the first full weekend of October found us driving our way down the Oregon Coast.  I live for these little outings with John and the kids. 

The beach has such a calming effect on me, and the moments running with my kids on the sand seem to freeze that glorious "Wow! This is LIFE" feeling. 

Sometimes it gets so easy to get caught in the whirlwind of play dates, school, soccer practice, nursing sick kids, babysitting co-op, play group, preschool, school functions, church meetings, activity days, and all that running around craziness; that the essence of how truly miraculous this whole mortal experience is seems to dissipate to the countless distractions. 

I love days like this day back in October that put a reset on my heart, that remind it why it's beating. 

Life is so wonderful.

I live for these moments when that reality is so tangible.

Even if in the process I'm terrified my kids are going to get pulled by a sweeper tide out to sea, only to get eaten by a shark....in those moments I have to be grateful I married someone who clearly balances me out so well! In our relationship, I make the cookies and he makes the adventures. :) 

The following are our pictures visiting Hug Point, then we drove a little further south and the bottom couple of pictures are from Manzanita Beach.

What a great day!

The Pumpkin Patch

On Tuesday we gathered our crew and headed to RC Acres in search of three perfect pumpkins. Fall presented itself beautifully, providing a breathtaking sunset for our adventure and a warm breeze to push us along. October squeezed the last of its colors for us, and we drank in the beautiful scenery chalkfull of yellows, oranges, browns, and reds. 

It was so good to get away from our busy days for a moment and savor beautiful Idaho together as family. 

We enjoyed kernal pits, tubing slides, haystacks, train rides, and a corn maze...and Matthew particularly enjoyed the little green wagon he got to jolt around the patch in. 

We set out on a quest, and found the world's best pumpkins for carving...that were slightly rotten.

We ran and we laughed and we felt everything life was meant to feel like.

I live for evenings like the one we spent at the pumpkin patch.

Happy Fall. :)

Skinny Dipper Hot Springs

A few days ago, we packed up our kiddos and headed to Skinny Dipper Hot Springs. John has been wanting to take our family for quite some time, and I figured with a name like that it had to be pretty family friendly am I right or have I seen too many naked little bums escape from the bath tub?  The person who told John about it assured us that most people wear swimsuits, for the record- which, if that is the case, why not call it Wear Your Swimsuit Hot Springs? That's what I want to know.  Anyway, John had driven past the hike entrance before and assured me it was only a slight incline...

Turned out, it was A LOT of incline... that John of mine is always optimistic with these sort of things.

Since Matthew was only two weeks old, I was  a little hesitant, but chants from the the people in the back motivated me to make the climb.

We may of had to stop a couple times. It was HOT!

The pictures make everything look dead and brown, but really- it was a breathtaking little hike.

Unfortunately, this was the only picture I got of Skinny Dipper Hot Springs. There were three pools with a waterfall connecting them.  The view from the actual pool was really spectacular, it was kind of like an infinity pool that looked out over mountains of trees.  Although you can control the heat, we didn't know how, luckily a man showed up who considered himself one of "The Guardians" of the hot springs and he told us how to do it. We were too impatient to sit in the heat and wait for the water to cool down, not to mention we were a little nervous to be swimming among one of Skinny Dipper's namesakes, The water was pretty hot and we were hot, so we just chalked it up as another ill fated adventure in our books and descended back down the mountain, still grateful for the experience we did have together.

On the way home we stopped by a little corner store for some huckleberry ice-cream, I love Idaho summers!

Table Rock

On Saturday, we ventured out to get some fresh air.  We decided to go explore Table Rock, as we had hear a lot about it since moving to Boise.  It was a fun little outing and the kids really had a blast exploring with their dad, while I kept freaking out, thinking they would tumble off a cliff at any given moment. :) 

Glad we went- it was a good time!