Some pictures from Charleston

I got to have nice long visit with my family in Charleston a couple weeks ago.  My first visit to my folks new home in the south.

Brian, Dad, and I went fishing out on the oyster flats in the rain the day I arrived.

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Brian took care of the fly fishing.

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Dad and I took care of the actually catching fish.

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The weather felt familiar for the first few days (cold and rainy), but we got some nicer days towards the end of the week.  We made it out to Capers Island for a picnic.  A different sort of snag forest than I am used too.

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We had a guest appearance from our good friends, Diana and James.  I dragged them down from North Carolina to run a 10k with Kim and me.  Here is our before shot.

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A couple shots from the run over the cooper river.

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worst selfie ever (but kind of hilarious).

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after shot at Minero’s for post race lunch.DSC_1376

My folks and Rocky were nice enough to pick us up in Charleston by boat, so we would not have to take the bus home (the bridge into Charleston was closed for the run).

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After the weekend, the crowds cleared out at the Comfort Inn, and Kim, Rocky, my Mom, and I got to go see the Angel live oak.  Pictures do not do justice to what a massive and pretty tree this is.

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It was a great trip and I was very sad to say farewell, but it was nice to get home to these two.

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Thanks for holding down the fort and taking care of our growing posse of ladies, Bret!

Hagg Lake Mud Run

Happy Valentine’s Day all.  We had a great weekend.  We got to see lots of friends and family, we went for a nice hike in Tillamook State Forest, and I ran a 25km run.

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Oregon is really green and lovely after all the rain we’ve been getting.

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Oval loved the hike, she would have enjoyed the run to if she could have joined me.

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The mud run run really lived up to its name.  I didn’t get any after pictures, but I was definitely pretty caked in mud.  I never fell on my butt, but there were some real slippery spots, so it was slow going a lot of the time.  I worked off the chocolate cover strawberries Bret greeted me at the end with for sure 🙂

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Just in case you thought Bret didn’t do the zip line too…

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Before shot…  all geared up and ready to zipline!

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a couple of other shots

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relaxing with these folks

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monkeys and butterflies

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the trees don’t love the monkeys so much

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Lots of time at the beautiful beaches

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We got back and went down to California for a visit with Bret’s Dad.  We got some beautiful, but cold weather.

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Then we got to spend a day with these two before heading back to Oregon.

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It has been a while

We have definitely settled back in to our Corvallis life after our European adventure.  Emily’s parents and sister came to visit but other than that I have been really busy at work and staying close to home.  Emily has taken a couple of short trips to see friends but mostly we have been homebodies.

We had a wonderful trip to Bandon Dunes with Emily’s folks.  I don’t have any pictures of the dunes but took some pictures of the coast on the way back and on a run while we were there.

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I got a new camera and started playing around with taking some hummingbird pictures.

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We have also gone out for a few hikes this season.  The pictures below are from a Mary’s peak hike.

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And Fitton Green

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Our friend Kelley is staying with us during testing for my work and we all went to the coast a couple of weekends ago. It was a really nice day and tons of fun!

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And finally, our friends Chris and Nikki left for Alaska this week. Best of luck you guys on your new adventure!

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We are off to Costa Rica soon, so hopefully we will have some updates from that trip after the new year!