2 months old and on top of the mountain!

okay, that title was really referring to 2 seperate events. :)

today is ava's 2 month birthday! she is doing great and trying to get little naps when she can. we are in washington all this week visiting family and having a great time. ava really seems to like the state and even started being able to roll herself over the past couple of days.

i want to thank each of you who prayed for good weather and safety during my climbing trip to mount rainier the past couple of days. with God's help, my bro-in-law Tom, my father-in-law Jim, and I made it to the top around 1:30am yesterday morning! It was about 15 hours of climbing to make it up and then back down and was definitely one of the hardest things I have ever done.

there was a strong weather system that was scheduled to come in, so it looked like we wern't going to get to summit. i was a bit bummed about that, but figured there must be a reason or the Lord would change the weather. I knew people had told me they would be praying. So we decided to give it a shot and climb up to a certain area and see if any clouds were forming over the mountain. but the more we climbed on monday evening, the more clear the sky got. we climbed up during the sunset and climbed back down during sunrise. as we looked out over the cascade mountains we could see mt. adams, mt hood and mt. st. helens.

as we got to the top of the mountain, we went down into the crater, which was covered in snow cups. we layed down, turned off our head lamps and looked up at the tens of thousands of stars. they seemed so close and so clear when were laying there over 14,000 feet up.

we didn't struggle with much altitude sickness, so were happy for that. even though, just to walk a few steps would cause us to breathe heavy. we had below freezing temps and the wind was probably blowing at around 40 miles per hour towards the top. brrrr.... the trip didn't start off on the best foot, since tom was throwing up on the hike up to camp muir on sunday. camp muir is about 10,200 feet up and thats where we camped. then in just about 20 minutes of hiking on that trip up, i too realized that my rented boots wern't very good and i had already developed blisters on my feet. but all in all, it was an awesome trip and i'm so so glad that we made it to the top! i'll post some photos when we get back home.

well, were getting ready to go to the thurston county fair with teressa's family!