Happy Birthday Cami and Malia!!

Look at her go! Malia got a big girl bike for her birthday. We couldn't wait to give it to her, so we broke it out early. She is loving it and is actually getting faster every day. Thanks to Grandpa Vaun and Grandma Anya for bringing it up from my parents' house.

It's too bad this picture below turned out so blurry...but, it cracks me up because you can see Kate waving through the window in the background. :) Alder and Malia had fun putting on a little puppet show for us all. Look how tall Alder is getting!! Can we have some of this cake yet???
Wooops, we didn't get any pictures of the fellow birthday girl, Cami. We hope her day was great today! :)

Cecret Lake

This evening we enjoyed our annual hike to Cecret Lake as a family. However, now that Alder has discovered that salamanders live in the lake this might become a more frequent event! The salamanders were cool to watch as they swam beneath the surface, rising occassionally for a breath of air before diving back down. This was the first time any of us had seen a salamander in the wild and Alder remarked that he could "watch them all day it's so cool!"

On the return hike we watched a deer graze for a while and then, as we approached the parking lot, we saw a HUGE bull moose. He too was grazing and even though we kept our distance we were all a bit nervous given his size. Finally, to cap off the evening, we saw a hawk circling above the car that let out a cry straight from the movies.