Central Oregon

We took a trip to Central Oregon this week to show our niece Crater Lake, which she's been interested in since her first trip out here three years ago for our wedding. We wanted to make the dream come true of seeing the strange phenomenon of a perfectly round, crystal clear lake at the top of a volcano that erupted 7,700 years ago. It really is pretty cool. If you ever come to Oregon, it's worth the trip out there.

Here's Ted doing his Superman impression:

Our niece wasn't so sure about the prospect of jumping off a 20-foot cliff into the seventh deepest lake in the world. She got to the top of the cliff and chickened out once, coming back down to the shore. Then another 11-year-old jumped off, and she figured she could do it too.

Except, she got to the top for the second time and started to chicken out again. A whole crowd of people at the bottom were cheering her on, but she wouldn't budge until I yelled out, "If you jump, I'll buy you a marshmallow gun!"

Here's what happened next:

Girl's been wanting a marshmallow gun for some time. She had so much fun jumping that she went a second time before we hiked back up. Aunt Lori was content to be photographer at the shore.

The next day we stopped by Scout Lake to float on some tree trunks.

Then on our drive home to Portland, we got a call from our friend Matt, who owns a Hawaiian restaurant, that they had their baby-back ribs special going on, and would we like some? Uh, heck yeah. We missed them the last time they had them, so these were on the house. Thanks, Matt!

Here's our niece eating an appetizer of Hawaiian shave-ice as we wait for our ribs to get served up. She's very special, as you can see.

It's been super-fun having our niece around for the last couple of weeks, and we'll be sad to put her on an airplane home Tuesday morning.

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Adoption news: We got our notarized home study in the mail last week, all official and stamped. It's a pretty weird thing to see so many personal details of your life succinctly fit into twelve pages. A copy is off to Kate, so it's only a matter of time before she's done with our foreign dossier. Time keeps ticking away.

My sister-in-law in Klamath Falls gave us her baby sling that she used for their three kids, which I was really touched by. She made the comment that there's newer ones now with more updated prints, but I plan on using this one proudly. Who gives a rip about having a stylish print for a baby-sling? It means more to me that Margaret thought of us and went to the trouble to pull the sling out of storage to give to me. Margaret's a cool chick-a-dee, and I'll think of her every time I use the sling.