the Martins went over the mountains... to see what they could see

And we saw a weekend full of fun and sunshine!

Friday 8/14 Julie, Evyn, Andrew, and Grandma took a trip to the Benner cabin. Evyn has been there several times, but this was Andrew's first trip there.

Evyn and Grandma took lots of hikes, collecting huckleberries along the way.

Saturday afternoon we went to "the beach," aka the lake at nearby RB Winter state park.
Scott and Grandpa came up on Saturday night.

Sunday we celebrated Grandma's birthday before Grandma & Grandpa packed up and headed out. We stayed through until Monday afternoon.

Lots of pictures below! And you can read our trip report from last year (including a visit to the bat caves) - day one, day two, and day three :)

Andrew napped under the shade of the pines

huckleberry bounty

watching the hummingbirds

avocado!

not a good picture, but one of very few that prove Julie was there, too!

Evyn loved the doggie door.
The tent was fun for play - but we slept inside the air-conditioned cabin.

campfire - waiting for s'mores!

mesmerized by the fire

hunting for huckleberries at a nearby overlook

waving goodbye to Grandma & Grandpa

kicking the ball up & down the hill, just like last year

Andrew in the tent

5 month update

Andrew turned 5 months old on August 12th. He's tasted two foods so far - banana and avocado. He enjoyed both, and has made great progress learning how to eat from a spoon in two short weeks. The bananas constipated him, so for that reason and a few others we're still moving slowly with foods, he's not getting them every day yet. He weighs 17 pounds and is too long for a few of his 6-9 months onesies - so he's growing well!

Andrew has been rolling both ways for over a month now, and is scooting around! He can move a foot or more pretty quickly with his own style of Army crawl/kick combo. He'll push himself up on all fours, but isn't quite sure what to do when he gets there. We expect he'll be crawling very soon.

Comparatively, at 5 months Evyn had done a short Army crawl (about 6 inches) once. She had just started rolling the week she turned 5 months old. She was eating solid foods daily, and weighed 16 1/2 pounds, but was nearly two inches shorter than Andrew (she was 25 1/2", and Andrew is somewhere around 27"). Though Evyn wasn't very mobile, her manual dexterity was quite impressive - leaps and bounds beyond the level Andrew is at. She could sit and play for extended periods of time - Andrew, on the other hand, hates to sit, and gets a little wobbly after 5 minutes.

Both kids took their first trip "to the mountains" at 5 months old! We just returned yesterday from our most recent voyage - I'll post pictures soon. In the meantime, here are some photos of Evyn at 5 months old, circa September 2004: