October/November

We stayed a couple nights in a beautiful home in the Columbia River Gorge in October with the Barnettes, Batemans, and Humpherys (our dinner group friends here in our apartment complex).

 

Halloween - Teresa pulled off a pretty awesome punk rocker-esque costume for our church’s “trunk-or-treat” (decorate the trunks of your cars and the kids come around to each car in the parking lot).

I call this photo “Missing the Big Picture”. So often I am focused on the minutia right in front of me and ignore the magnificent in the background. I become too caught up in what’s coming next to step back and appreciate the big picture. Bridal Veil Falls, in the background, is actually pretty gorgeous (and worth the “stepping back” to appreciate).

Jeff’s birthday – I chose to take a bite out of my birthday pie (Favero family tradition!).

Thanksgiving was awesome at our friends, the Eagers. Napoleon, a refugee of several years from Liberia, was there also and recounted some of the wars, violence, and suffering of his people. It was very memorable, and made me feel very thankful for home, family, country, freedom.

September – Oregon coast, Columbia River Gorge, California!

Septembers are always full of beauty up here and we took advantage of it this year. For Teresa’s birthday we headed to the coast (Seaside, OR) and then into the Columbia River Gorge for Labor Day.

There is a loop of farms & vineyards near Hood River that they call the “Fruit Loop”. We enjoyed the gorgeous views of Mount Hood with our good friends the Gneitings (from Idaho) & the Martins (from Alaska).

Teresa bought heaps of pears for a great price & proceeded to can them all the next week. Delicious! Later, she did the same thing with apples and then peaches. What a woman!

Oh, Dave and Josh – it’s the simple things, isn’t it?

The Gneitings daughter, Becca, got dirty playing with the car’s exhaust pipe.

These are some gorgeous views in the Gorge when I hiked up “Angel’s Rest”.

At the end of September, I was fortunate enough to still be out of school and drove down to California to pick up Teresa’s dad. He had ridden his bike in the Seattle to Portland bike race in July and got in his mind that he would come back to Portland and ride all the way down to California! So I picked him and his bike up near the Redwoods and got to see some of God’s beautiful creations.

Here are a couple nice views of the mouth of Klamath River in northern California.

This is the morning we sent Teresa’s dad off on his own for the next 1-2 weeks (he rode to the coast and then all the way down to Fortuna, CA).

August – Jeff flew to Utah twice!

After returning home in July, I found out my Grandpa Flamm had passed away. I was able to fly back to Utah again for his funeral and see my family and relatives. It was a good experience.

The day after the funeral we visited the resting place of Grandpa’s body. It is in the mountains looking down on Ogden. We sat in the grass under the shade of the tree next to his grave for a while – a nice, peaceful spot. I’ve always felt a little weird at cemeteries, and haven’t really had much experience with death. But I felt ok this time, just smiling there with my family, thinking about all the goodness of Grandpa.

This is Fia - my sister, Rachel’s, little girl. Isn’t she darling?

Later in the month I took my scouts on a 5 mile hike and then to our ½ week of scout camp for the 11 year old scouts (called Camp Helaman). Wow, they can be a handful!

July is always eventful

I don’t know why, but July always has a lot going on - and I always have a bunch of pictures to choose from.

I finished 7th quarter at chiropractic school, and decided to take the summer off for a much needed break. Teresa was rocking it at the bank, and I was looking for work here and there.

I went down to Utah for a week to help the Faveros move to their new home (old place now called “house” & new place: “home”). Unfortunately, Teresa still had to work, so she kicked it at home and watched scary movies all alone.

 

 

I couldn’t pass up the chance to go up to the Ranch with the my family, and I enjoyed the spectacular views from a new path that had been formed to reach the top of the plateau (“the bench”). I just had never realized the vastness of the area up above the Ranch! And it was fun to look down on the Ranch from a new angle.

But my Dad got a tick on his leg! Luckily it attached to the scar he had earned from some crazy driving up at the Ranch a while ago.  

Teresa’s parents drove up to visit and for her Dad to ride in the Seattle to Portland (STP) bike race – a 206 mile bicycle ride! Here he is before and after. What an animal!  

Then, on the very last day of July, we had the chance to adventure through the Ape Caves in Washington. Our good friend, Chris Bentley, was working up here for the summer and it was his last weekend.

 

The Ape Cave is a huge lava tube (12,810 ft – the longest lava tube known in North America) just south of Mount St. Helens that was discovered in 1947 and must be traversed with flashlights or lanterns. It was kind of freaky.

Funny thing about this picture is that before the flash I could only see Chris holding a flashlight to light up his face!