our beautiful gifford pinchot

this past sunday we took a day trip out to gifford pinchot national forest. it's my favorite place to explore. this time, we drove east along the columbia gorge, headed north towards mt. adams, and then back west through the forest following forestry roads, going past the ice caves and many old lava flows from mt. st. helens.

at the foot of mt. adams, we pulled over to eat our lunches by a stream we found. so i took a few pictures and soon realized that i forgot to charge the batteries on my camera before leaving that day. it died shortly after this first stop. i tried not to be too upset, but i did miss out on so many beautiful pictures of mt. adams, the changing colors of the leaves in the forest, mt. st. helens, and pictures of the kids enjoying it all. but here's what i did get: damian's backside. haha.

everyone's hungry!

not the most flattering shot, but here's a picture of how big my tummy is getting:

our stream:
after driving a while longer with my camera off, i was able to get a couple pictures at goose lake:

and, go figure, the only deer we saw was at a gas station. :)