Mt. Rainier

When Josh first got offered his job in Washington the first thing I said was, "Oh good, I can hike Mt. Rainier!" That was before I realized it required things like ice picks and bagging your own poop. But I still wanted to see it, and do some smaller hikes that didn't require poop transportation. So we waited and waited for the perfect Saturday that would be completely clear and sunny so we could have a good view of the mountain, realized it didn't exist, and decided to go this weekend anyway.

It was a 2.5 hour drive each way, we thought about doing a hotel (and for the tiniest second considered camping), but it angers The Beast to sleep in the same room as his parents but still have to sleep in his own bed. Last time we tried to one-room it, we let Cooper sleep with us and I was woken up with a bottle to the head. Thankfully it was toxic plastic and not glass. We weren't keen on not getting any sleep so we opted to be terrible parents and force Cooper into the confinement of a car seat/hiking backpack for an entire day. Actually he was pretty good until the last 30 minutes in the car when he started to throw his toys at us.

When we first arrived it was nice and sunny and you could see what you drove 2.5 hours to see. So nice. We saw Mt. Rainier for about 5 minutes until the clouds came.

I think I might have finally crammed enough nature down his throat that he's starting to like it. Chalk one up for indoctrination!

When I carried Cooper he spent the whole time trying to kiss on me. He would say "mama!" and then try to get to my face with his mouth wide open. I ended up with a lot of wet willies.

Cooper is holding one of our plastic knife covers. He's weirdly obsessed with it, never lets it go, and to top it off---throws a fit unless we let him sleep with it. It's kind of bizarre. I'm hoping soon he will replace this attachment with a teddy bear or a blankie or something less concerning.

Lots of fog.

So long Mt. Rainier!