Thursday we celebrated Thanksgiving at the Clarks. The evening was filled with good food and drink, chess, wii, and much laughter! Mom and Aunt Karen Uncle Mark Tasty! Pink Lemonade..... :) Eric Grandma trying out the wii!
Friday Caleb called me and asked if I wanted to head up to the moutains. I looked at the forcast, "partly sunny", that was better then anything we had had in two weeks so we went for it. It ended up being an amazing day.
The mountains were beautiful! God truly is the best artist around! Caleb At the top
Saturday I got to go sailing for a little while with Titus Wenger and Jake Bumstead at Firwood. The wind was a little slack, but we still had a fun time on the Hobie Cat.
Oh how I hate to say no! Whether its saying no to an adventurer, activity, or friend I always find it hard to say "no"!
Two days ago I came up with the great idea that I could spend Tuesday night (last night) in Park Butte fire lookout with some friends. I called them up and after some convincing and switching of schedules we were set. Zach Swanson, Chris Ludeman, and I left yesterday directly after school so we could hopefully finish the short three mile hike before sundown. Due to the elevation of the trail head and the fact of the recent snow, I knew we would hit some snow on the fifteen mile access road. What we didn't realize was that the snow was at elevations a LOT lower then we thought! It was low enough to close the road five miles from the trail head we had hoped to park at....our three mile hike became an eight mile hike and it was already 4pm.
We set out, knowing that it wouldnt be the wisest choice to try to make it all the way to the cabin. After two miles of hiking; we decided to make a group decision, do we continue? Yes(expecting more snow, and probably not getting to the cabin until 10pm); or No(wiser, but way lamer)!
None of us wanting to face the fact that it wouldnt be that good of an idea to continue. "No" was our conclusion! Each of us was slightly ticked at the whole situation as we turned around, but after a few minutes of silence we decided to each say something we are thankful for following the alphabet from A to Z.
We made it back to the car safely and had a fun time hanging out at Chris' for the evening. However, all the more I realize how much I dont like saying "No" to things!
Why did I think this was worthy enough for a blog post? Recently I have seen how this concept of saying "no" applies to all parts of my christian life! Both to saying "no" to sins AND to saying "No" to some "godly" activities! Countless times I have great opportunities to serve or fill my time with "godly" things, but more and more I have seen how many people are too busy in the rat-race of life doing "godly" things! They eventually dont even have enough down time to spend a few minutes a day alown with God and grow in a relationship with him.
Some Pics from the trip.
A sign on the way there.
Zach was very excited about the sign!
Getting ready to start our hike.
Dont give me that look!
On out way home. Donuts always make things better!
Caleb and I made it up for a little early season snowmobiling on Veterans Day. Although we never made it into the alpine, the fresh snow was beautiful!
The set up
Ready to hit the trail
Nice Caleb! (this was a PAIN to get unstuck...thankfully some other snowmobilers passed us and helped us lift it out!
Zach and I had planned to go sailing after school last week, but since there was no wind we decided to go down to Chuckanut. He took me to this amazing beach I had never been to on the south side.
A good friend of mine asked me up I wanted to go snowmobile trail scouting with him today! This normally would be a "no duhh" answer...but today I woke up to a nice down pour outside(don't worry, im used to that). After talking with Caleb we decided to go for it; we would be taking his grandpa's rhino 660 up on some logging roads by mt baker. My partner in crime.(hey, arnt you suppose to be driving!)
My stylish outfit.
Getting ready.
We got to the parking lot and unloaded in a steady drizzle. We ventured up the old logging road for an hour exploring any side trail heading up! We wanted to find a nice meadow at higher elevation to come back to later in the season on snowmobiles.
After about an hour and a half we started to see some snow on the ground. We kept driving and eventually were in 6inch of snow.
We ended up exploring both sides of the valley driving until the rhino couldn't make go further(about a foot of snow). We didnt find any meadows, but we also weren't able to make it to the end of the road! The plan is to keep exploring this area on snowmobiles when we get some more snow.
