Desert In Our Future

We are a traveling family. Maybe we should join some type of roadshow or the circus. But the kids won't do any flips or hang upside down or do anything that would be remotely worth looking at. So we just scratched that idea. But with Erik in school, we travel and move like we're in the military or something. I am not a fan of moving. I lived in the same home until I went to college at the tender age of 19. But after 7 years of marriage, we will embark on our 12th move and this one is the biggest move so far.

Recently, a friend of Erik's got in touch with him looking for the phone number for another friend. The clinic this friend worked in was looking to hire an Audiologist but he didn't really think of Erik because Erik isn't done with his externship yet. But after some emails and phone calls and me going "Huh? What just happened?" we found out that Erik could be graduating in August instead of December and he was flying down to Phoenix, AZ for a job interview. Long story short, he got the job and we'll be moving to somewhere around Chandler, AZ!

It was seriously crazy! We weren't thinking of Erik looking for a job yet...not for awhile. It just kind of fell into his lap. But this place is just such a good opportunity even though I'm a little bit worried about the heat, my fair haired children shriveling up, and being in the desert 24/7, it's another adventure for our circus....I mean family.

Erik is going to go ahead of the rest of us to live the single life with his sister Kirsten and maybe find us some shelter. I'm going to stay in Portland and live the single-mother life and maybe finish out our lease in our current shelter. Not looking forward to that.

Although I am sad to leave Oregon and the family that I still have here, this feels right. I'm hoping to convince some of you to come stay with us in the winter....NO SNOW! Well, with my luck it will be some freaky global warming type thing that causes a ton of snow. It would happen to me.

Lame

Recently a friend, who will remain anonymous due to confidentiality purposes, told me that I was "lame" due to my lack of blogging. While this statement tore at my soul, I realized that it was true. I am lame. I have videos, pictures, and some witty (well, I think they're witty) remarks all ready for the blog. And yet I haven't posted any of it.

Why?

The only answer I can give can be summed up in one word....lazy. I am lazy when it comes to blogging. It takes such little time to put some pictures up and write a few comments about it but I haven't done it. Lazy.

Since the words of my friend have caused for such reflection on my life and blogging, I have decided to do at least one post a week for the next month. I know it's not much but everything has a beginning.

Baby steps people. Baby steps.

So stay tuned and maybe even check us out a little bit more. I know we're private and all and not very many people actually look at our meager little family blog but come on! I look at everyone else's blogs! :)

MJ

I know that a lot of people, including myself, are kinda tired of hearing about Michael Jackson and his death. It's everywhere and it's all people can talk about. I wasn't going to write anything about it because I'm done hearing about it and this is usually just a family blog. But I came across this picture and I couldn't help myself.

Sorry about the poor quality. The scanner didn't want to cooperate with this picture.

I really don't know how old I was. My guess is between 4 and 5. Mom, do you know? Anyway, the point is that Michael Jackson, or MJ, was my first crush. I used to say that I would marry him and I'm sure it got some nervous laughter from my parents.

Others came to hold my affections. Zack Morris from "Saved By The Bell" and Joey McIntyre from NKOTB, or New Kids on the Block. But Michael Jackson was my first crush. Fortunately my taste in men got better with time!

We're Kinda Boring

And I'm really okay with being boring. No drama to worry about...just easy going weekends at home with the family and a good book. That's all I really need. Erik....not so much. After a week of being constantly on the computer and working on some school related things, he informed me that we needed to do something. Anything. If you notice it's been almost a month since we really did anything and it was high time we got out of our house and explored the world.

Well, maybe not explore the world but we could go to the beach.

Only in the Pacific Northwest would you have to wear a sweatshirt to the beach at the end of June. It was a very sunny, windy day and the kids would not be deterred on their mission to make a sand castle.


Bryce liked looking at all the kites.


This was our kite situation. We had three kites but only one really worked that great and even with that one it was so windy it spent most of the time in the sand.


Bryce just liked to wreck all the sand castles we made. Good thing no one really cared.


Makayla got used to the feel of the sand in her toes and she wouldn't get up after that. She was a mess by the time we left but it was all good.


See what I mean about he kite? The wind made it very difficult to fly our little kite but Erik worked at it really hard until he could get it to fly fairly well.


Then we went to get some salt water taffy, ice cream, and the boys got to ride on a carousel. While Preston got the average horse on the carousel, Bryce got this mutant bunny-horse. It was kind of creepy. Fun was had by all and we are NOT boring anymore!

The Strawberry Festival

This past weekend my brother and sister-in-law were in town so we decided to spend the weekend in Albany with the family. It also happened to be the time of year for the Strawberry Festival. Now, the Strawberry Festival is interesting. It's held in town not far from Albany but it has it's share of crazies. Like real crazies. I was grateful for the clouds overhead since it would be too cold to wear tube tops and wife beaters and beer bellies. But I still kept my camera handy....just in case.

We decided to not to go to the actual festival but just to the parade and they have a 5k. My brother Jared and his wife Camille were running in it and Erik decided to go for it as well.

Here's Erik starting off.


And coming back.


He even gave us a thumbs up.


My brother Jared and sister-in-law Camille. She completed her goal of not stopping and not throwing up. Good Job!


And wouldn't you know it, Erik got third place in his age group! Great Job Erik!


My sister Heather and her daughter Deveny with Bryce. Waiting for CANDY!


The little miss needed a nap.


Now, I don't know why this guy was dressed like this or what was really going on but I thought I'd throw it in there for fun!

Erik Adam and Josiah at the beach

Here's some video footage of us at the beach after the climb. Thanks, Adam, for putting these together.

Video of Hood

Mt. Hood

This past weekend was great. My friends Adam Lenhard and Josiah Griffin came to Oregon to climb Mt. Hood with me.


Thursday afternoon They flew in to Portland and I left work early to pick them up. We drove straight to the mountain and packed our gear at the Timberline Lodge. This is a huge ski lodge on the south side of the mountain.


We climbed through the evening and reached the top of the Palmer Glacier, just above the ski lifts, just before dark. On the way up the wind was blowing pretty hard. We thought the temperature was probably below 0 degrees with the wind chill. Josiah's camel back tube was frozen as well as the insides of our water bottles. The climb took about three hours.

I had trouble with my crampons popping off of my boots at the beginning of the climb and took some time to get them adjusted. Just before we reached our camping spot they popped off again and I was having my doubts as to whether I was going to be able to climb higher on the mountain, as it gets much steeper up high.



We spent a comfortable night on the mountain. Dinner was two servings each of mountain house backpacking food, about 1600 calories, plus pepperoni, cheese, and lot of peanut m&ms for me.



My sleep was a little restless and we were up later than we should have been talking. We heated some water for breakfast and had some white chocolate hot chocolate to get up warmed up. After arranging our gear and making some last minute decisions as to what gear we needed to climb higher, we set out at about 6:00.

The climb started with disaster for me. One crampon immediately popped off and I was having some serious doubts about climbing the steeper slopes with this equipment. I tried one last time to adjust everything. Josiah ended up tying the front toe clip to my shoe lace and I pulled the crampons as hard as I could to make them as tight as possible. This ended up working well and I was able to continue with the rest of the climb without incident. I did get some blisters though, from the extra pressure of the crampons pushing through my boots at the heel and the toe.


The climbing was great. there was tons of ice and very little snow so everything felt very solid. We were worried about things warming up too much if we went too slow though and there were several 2 to 3 inch cracks in the ice as we made our way up.


The climbing really starts at a point know as "The Hog's Back". As we approached the hog's back several climbing teams were turning back. This shook our confidence as to whether we should continue. We knew making it to the summit should be no problem, it was coming back down that had Josiah and me a little worried. Adam was confident the whole time. The sun was already getting high in the sky and we could see it hitting the higher slopes across from where we were climbing.

We decided to go for it. We all felt fairly strong and now just needed to climb fast. At the top of the hog's back is the most dangerous section of the climb. We had to make a traverse with quite a lot of ice fall. About half way across lots of ice started breaking off right above me. I ended up crouching down into the mountain as ice fell all around me. I was hit in the fore arm by a piece about the size of a soft ball and had a pretty good bump. Luckily I was able to dodge the football sized pieces.

We made the rest of the climb to the summit with no problem and in very good time. It was about 8:30 and I remember thinking 2 hours and 37 minutes since we left our tent that morning. We were below the hog's back before the sun hit the slopes and we felt much better.

The decent was easy. I like to take it a little slower as climbing down hurts my joints and my blisters. Adam and Josiah were good to ease up the pace a little for me. We ate snacks on the way down and ran out of water a little bit too soon, but we all felt pretty good at the bottom.

Over all it was a great climb. 10 hours total. 3 hours to the tent site, 2 1/2 hours to the top and 4 1/2 hours down. I love climbing on Hood and this time I came back with much more respect for this mountain.

Silly

These two are incredibly silly with each other. I get the whole water thing but I have no idea what they are saying or why it's so funny. Oh well...I'm loving all the laughter and silliness going on.

Untitled from Rachel Witbeck on Vimeo.

A Texas Wedding

Erik and I had soooo much fun going to Houston for his brother's wedding. We left the kids with my folks in Albany, who were also hosting my sister and her family since they just sold their house and are moving to Texas right now so it was a lot of people. This is the first time since having our children that we've been apart from all of them for more than a couple hours. I was saddened but excited at the same time. I knew it would be good for Erik and I to have some time without the kids. Thank you mom and dad for taking on some extra mouths to feed! We really do appreciate it!

So here are a few pictures of our weekend in Houston/Galveston, TX.

Erik's parent's rented a beach house in Galveston that was really nice. If you've heard about Galveston, you know that it's been wiped out by hurricanes in the past. Walking to the beach and around the area, it's really sad. People are still trying to rebuild from last year's hurricanes. While walking to the beach, there were several people working on different houses and big diggers and other machinery just on the beach.

We had a good southern fish fry for the rehearsal dinner at the beach house. Here's Terry working on the fried goodies. It really did turn out soooo good!


The groomsmen at the ring ceremony.


Laura and Dane. Isn't she gorgeous! Every picture of her turned out beautiful. It was such a great ring ceremony...and really HOT!

The Witbeck Family. I felt like Erik and I were posing for a prom picture.

I like this one....


The food at the reception was a hit!


Josiah and I waiting for some CAKE! It was gooood cake!


After a lifetime of living on the west coast and going to Oregon beaches, I have never set foot on a beach with warm water. I was shocked! I literally tensed my body waiting for the coldness to hit me when the water was coming up around my feet. It was warm! It was heaven! Some were saying that it was a little bit chilly still. They don't know chilly until they've set there foot in the water over here. That experience alone made the trip worth it!

It was great trip and we loved seeing all the family! Congratulations to the happy couple! Welcome to the family Laura!