July 18th was our 2 year anniversary! I really can't believe we've already been married 2 years. Time flies when you're having fun!
To celebrate our anniversary we went camping! TJ was so excited that Friday morning he woke up and started bouncing on our bed saying, "We're going camping! We're going camping!" So cute. We drove up to Dog Lake, near Mt. Rainier National Park, and parked the truck. TJ's pack is on the left. My pack is on the right. Next purchase = hiking backpack for me!!! Poor TJ had about 50 lbs and mine was about 15 lbs.
Destination - Cramer Lake. It's about a 4.5 or 5 mile hike in.
We made it! It was a beautiful hike. This is the view of Cramer lake right by where we camped.
First thing we did was build a fire. The mosquitos were HORRENDOUS!!! Unreal. I think this is the only time I have purposefully stood in the smoke of a fire to deter the mosquitos.
Cramer Lake. So beautiful.
Cramer Lake in the evening. Love the reflection of the trees.
Tinfoil dinners...mmmm....
Our yummy dinner!!! We had to eat in our tent to avoid mosquitos. Steak and potatoes, doesn't get much better than that!
For TJ's birthday he got a fishing pole (courtesy of me and my parents) and he got to use it for the first time! He was so excited. I just relaxed on the rocks :)
Fisherman TJ
We went fishing after dinner and TJ caught his first fish with his new pole!! It was just a little guy, so we threw him back :)
Love this little stove. It is awesome. This was our breakfast the next morning. Oatmeal. So yummy!
Us with our shveet headlamps :)
Our best friend this weekend. We went through the entire bottle in 2 days. Somehow I managed to come out with minimal bites - only some around my ankles and elbows, and a few on the forehead - but poor TJ has a ton of bites!!! We figure he's got right around 100, no exaggeration, and half of those are on his back! Needless to say our first stop when we got home was to buy Afterbite at the store - our current best friend.
This is part way up the hike to Cramer Lake. The lake you can see in the back-left is Dog Lake, where we started.
Saturday morning we woke up early, made breakfast, packed up camp and hiked out. We drove up to Mt. Rainier National Park and drove and hiked around a lot of cool places.
First stop was Grove of the Patriarchs. These trees are HUGE! This is a picture of the roots of a tree that fell over.
Us and the Twin Douglas Firs. I can't remember all the stats on these, but they have been growing for 1000 years and they are seriously ginormous. It's beautiful in here.
The sign pointing to this tree said "Big Cedar" haha! TJ measured around and it would take just over 6 of him with arms outstretched to get around the bottom of the trunk.
This tree had fallen over the path. I was kind enough to hold it up for people walking by.
Further up the drive on the way to Paradise (in Rainier Ntl Park). This is called Box Canyon. From the top of the wall to the water surface is 180 feet.
This is Stevens Creek. We stopped and hiked around here for a while. Everything is just so beautiful up there. I love it!
Off to the side of the big waterfall in the previous picture is this little waterfall. It was in the shade and you got a nice spray standing in front of it. Very refreshing :) This is me just giving TJ some cheese.
Reflection Lakes
We finally made it all the way up to Paradise and there were a million and a half people up there! There were cars just lining the road, it was insane! You can see the line of them in this picture, and there were miles upon miles of cars.
By the time we were done all the walking/hiking we were pretty darn sore. We figure we hiked about 15 miles total in the 2 days.
And that was pretty much our weekend! We had an absolute blast.
Perfect way to celebrate 2 awesome years of marriage.
