Just a couple photos and a video of the day before the wedding:

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This year happened to contain one of the driest summers the Pacific Northwest had seen. There were lots of fire raging, some intentionally set and some caused by nature. On the way to the Bachelor Party caving trip, I saw this immense plume of smoke from a fire.

I’d been to lots of caverns before, so that’s what I expected from this bachelor party trip. I first suspected I was wrong when I couldn’t find a sign for the place. My suspicions grew when Dave arrived (along with other attendees) and we just started walking into the woods. As we arrived at the entrance Dave told us that one can be sure he’s arriving at the entrance to a cave by spotting mosquitoes. Turns out we were going into a lava tube. I thought that meant we’d be walking in a cave that was fine as glass. Instead it was as if someone had chosen a cave to dump a bunch of rocks. We did see some baby stalagtites, though.

A while ago I went to the Pacific Northwest for Dave’s wedding. I finally am getting caught up with my photos from back then. It was a fun trip because we’d lived in Oregon for a few years when I was a kid so I was able to revisit some fun areas.

First up was Multnomah Falls. It is the second tallest falls in the US and it’s a really neat hike. Because of timing and Scarlett being 3 (and unlikely to be able to hike back and forth) we only went up to the lower level. But it was still neat to be reminded of the great outdoors areas in Oregon.

Scarlett had a good time picking apples, so Danielle thought it’d be neat to take Scarlett strawberry picking. I was pretty surprised at how many people were there.

When we arrived, they gave us a box to fill with strawberries. Scarlett was quite excited about carrying the box over to the fields.

Unsurprisingly, it was mostly Danielle and I - with Scarlett putting in one or two strawberries at a time.

Scarlett asked to talk in my field recorder, but she called it a lightsaber. “Daddy, can I talk in your lightsaber?”

Here’s what came of that:

This post is meant to be a followup to last year’s post, Visiting Walt Disney World with a 2 Year Old. I’ll be referring to, and updating, that post with the elements that were different this time around. For one, I said she wouldn’t remember the first trip. While that’s certainly true in the long run, three year old Scarlett definitely remembered the previous trip. She asked for rides she’d been on last time and she remembered going on the monorail.

I’m an uncle now! (By marriage, but still….)

For a while during Scarlett’s second year Danielle and I went back and forth on whether we should take Scarlett to Disney just before her second birthday or whether we should wait until she was older. On the one hand - she’s not going to actually remember this trip. Or rather, any memories she has are sure to be false memories triggered by the photos and videos we took. On the other hand - whether or not she remembers it, it’s still forming her base memories; memories that anchor most of the subconscious feelings we feel about our lives.

We were raised with the constant reminder that we needed to care for our parents when they got old. They spent countless hours and money to raise us - it’s the least we could do. We always said, “Yes” or “Of Course”. It’s funny, I always thought I appreciated what my parents had done for us. For most of my childhood my parents had very little. It wasn’t until around the time I was in high school that they were solidly into the middle class. Yet they made sure we did sports (which are very expensive) and had a computer and nice clothing. And I truly appreciated all of that; I appreciated it more and more each year as I matured and and realized what these things cost. But until I became a father I didn’t truly understand the time and emotional investments that kids are. I now truly realize how much they gave me. The only situation I could see for having to have my parents not live with me when they get uber-old would be if they required some kind of medical equipment that couldn’t be installed in my home or care that a live-in nurse couldn’t take care of. (Well, other than if they decided to live with one of their other six kids rather than me - for whatever reason) But, you know, that’s supposed to be way out in the future.