An October Weekend

Yay! It's finally Fall! I haven't blogged in almost two weeks, and I think it is about time to update my lovely readers. For the past two weeks, I haven't been doing well. My health has been wacky, due to minor malfunctions... that sounds bad, but it is not as bad as it sounds. I had some stomach issues, and those cleared up. I have been having headaches, but that was caused by stress. I had been blacking out when I stood up, but that is because my blood pressure drops severely between the time of when I sit down and when I stand up. I also had my TB test done, and it was negative! I had to get that done for clinical rotations (those are coming up quick!). It felt like my body had been through the ringer, but I am doing much better now. 

This weekend was a great, busy weekend. I started off baby sitting my cousins after school on Friday, then  relaxed on Friday evening, watched a lot of 19 Kids and Counting, I am so glad it is on Netflix. Saturday morning, I got up a little earlier than I would normally on weekends, and I did some homework. Later that day, my family went to my little cousin's birthday party. I can't believe Isabelle is six years old! It's crazy. When I was babysitting my cousin on Friday, I told Isabelle that I would have a picnic with her after her party was over, so once her party ended, we gathered some veggies and summer sausage (circle meat in Isabelle's world) and we ventured to the front yard. I met some of her neighborhood friends, and we talked about our favorites, played tag and "I Spy", all while listening to Disney music from the Disney movies out there. She would get so excited when a song from Tangled came on Pandora. She would sort of sing a long to it, but you could tell that she had seen the movie countless times and knew the tune of the song. 

I love spending time with this precious, sweet girl. She is so humorous, and she makes me laugh every time I see her. Bless her little heart. 

The rest of Saturday evening, my mom and I watched What Not to Wear from TLC on Netflix. I am a TLC reality TV junkie. It's my guilty pleasure... I know most of reality TV is trash TV, but again, it's my guilty pleasure. 

This morning, I got up at 7:30 am, and relaxed before my volunteer shift started. A couple weeks ago, my mom was looking at volunteer opportunities to help me find some that I could be a part of, and she found a Friends of the Library Used Book sale! That is totally up my alley! I re-found the opportunity and signed up for it right away. I was assigned to be a greeter from 10:45 am to 2:00 pm. As I was walking out the door, I saw this beautiful spider web covered in dew. It was magnificent. 

When I arrived at the book sale, I met a wonderful, young woman who was my partner for the afternoon. We greeted guests at the door, she handed out maps and I counted the people and offered them boxes. We answered questions and my partner and I talked about our lives a little bit. It made me smile when she was interested in my blog. I love it when people talk with me about my blog. 

This was a great opportunity. I met some wonderful people, and had a blast. I didn't buy any books because I ran out of time, I was expected at Wahkeena falls shortly after my shift at the book sale ended. 

I definitely want to volunteer for Friends of the Library again.

They are a great organization.

Later that day, my parents took my sister and I up to our favorite day trip spot, Wahkeena Falls. I understand I post a lot of Wahkeena Falls, but it is my favorite place in Oregon. It is beautiful, and so close to where I live. We always bring food to grill up there, and my dad loves the fact that we are cooking our food out in the open. I love that fact too. 

This time of year is when all the land is blanketed in beautiful, colorful, crunchy leaves. In some places, you could hardly see the grass beneath the fallen leaves. I had the idea of throwing leaves up into the air and having my mom shoot a picture of them falling all around me, but it was dark in the "pit" where all the picnic tables rest and all the grills go, so all of the shots turned out blurry. Oh well, my mom took some great stills of me holding leaves, and I thought they were cute enough to put on Instagram and the blog.

My family has been coming here for about four years now. This is our kind of camping, where we bring chairs, bring coolers, park for the day, and grill, then hike up the falls and explore, hike back down to the "pit" and explore, and eat, clean up and then go home. We are not a camping family, we are a "day trip" family. I am perfectly fine with that. 

Trees look like veins and arteries to me. There is a connection there...

Trees give off oxygen, you breathe it in, oxygenate your blood. 

This is a bit cheesy, but "veins of the sky!"

I found these little sprouts under the grill, and I couldn't help but capture them. I showed the photograph to my dad, and he was amazed at the focus quality. He said it looked as if you had to climb the rocks to get to this forest of sprouts. I particularly love this shot. I took multiple, but was my favorite one. 

Early on in our Wahkeena Falls visit, my sister and I ventured up to the falls. The bridge up by the falls is in close proximity to the water, and therefore the mist from the falls attacks you. It is quite windy up there, you can get soaked, and it's a beautiful freak of nature. All of these fantastic and majestic "freaks" of nature are just amazing. That is the only way to describe them, that or "monsters" of nature. 

As a finale to our day trip, and last time we would be day tripping it to Wahkeena falls for this year, we decided to visit Multnomah falls right next door. It was getting dark outside, and we did something a wee bit risky (this is what your flash light option is for on your phone), we hiked up to the bridge in the dark. We had very little day light, well evening light left, and we hiked up to the bridge. We weren't the only ones hiking up to the bridge, and I tried taking photos with flash, but they didn't turn out at all. It was a fun experience though for sure. We hiked down in the dark, made it back to the landing, perused the gift shop, and left for home. 

I feel that the time was well spent this weekend. It was a glorious one at that.