(more) trees and (more) beach

Our next outing was hiking in the forest. With trees. Lots of them. Even at the risk of being redundant, I'll say it was beautiful.

The big game during our hike through the mud was hide and seek. When Taylor and I were in D.C., he was given a Army Special Ops poster. The poster shows rocky, mountainous landscape and the caption reads "Can you see me? Neither can the enemy." He's searched and searched the poster and can't find the Army guys (which is the point of the poster). This is his re-enactment:

Do you see him? Kind of a military version of 'Where's Waldo'.

He was feeling oh so stealthy.

After a while, the kids felt like they needed better camouflage for hiding and painted their faces in mud. Paige asked if she blended in better that way. Hmmmm... ya. With that mud on your face, I TOTALLY don't even notice your bright orange and pink jacket...!

After we got our little mud pies stripped down and fed, they got their suits on and we headed a few miles away to Cannon Beach. A.K.A. the place Goonies was filmed. Darling town, lovely homes, beautiful beach. But COLD. The day was cloudy and windy and I was sick. I stayed plopped in one spot while the kids set up kites, played and explored some more.

On our way back, we took a small detour to see the largest tree in Oregon. The Heritage Tree. Branden talked up the 700 year old tree and was ready to see us 'ooh' and 'ahh'. We found this:

The largest tree in Oregon was snapped in half. Damage from lighting incurred 50 years ago and a recent storm with hurricane-like winds had done it in.