When you have a family as big as mine there are huge age gaps.  So for instance I was an Aunt before I was born.  I actually love all the age gaps because when we get together, there are almost always folks around the same age or season of life to hang out with.  I think it also helps keep me young because I was gifted with teaching skills, I often am the one teaching many of the younger generation things that they would otherwise maybe not learn.

So this time is no different.  The 2nd picture is of my youngest niece when I was teaching her to use a standup paddle board.

As you can see, she learned the hard way, but to her credit, she only fell 3 times.  I’m not sure if that was due to the fact that she just picked it up quickly or the water was so extremely cold that she just decided she did not want to keep doing it. 😉  I really was shocked by how well she did on it.  You see she is extremely tall for her age, my brother is 6 feet 4 inches tall and she grew almost 12 inches this last year alone and so she is definitely in the awkward stage with her balance and muscles.

But then we can gather multiple generations of our family and take them on a walk, that kind of turned into a hike to find some elusive hot springs. It is always fun!  Only 2 out of 8 of us who went have ever been to natural hot springs, so we knew how great they would be.  The others just came along for the ride.  Those that were up for the adventure donned their swimsuits and we dug out a big enough hole for all of us, and soaked in the 100 plus degree mineral water.  It was so great and relaxing for our muscles.  

It was right next to the lake and there were already shovels there, so we just had to dig the small hole bigger, then ease ourselves into it.  We definitely were not jumping in because it was all lava rocks, but oh so nice to be able to sit and soak while looking at Mt Hood and the lake.  We even got to make some new friends along the way.

Plus we got to totally tease the others who would not join us, because they were on the side of the lake freezing while we were nice and toasty.  They loved giving me a hard time about doing the whole hike on crutches, but the hot spring soak was totally worth it and got my sprinting speed up on the crutches, so I can beat quite a few people on my crutches now because I’ve had so much practice.  Maybe next time, I will bring all my sets of crutches and walker and we will have medical device races. We could even do relays, oh I think I just came up with a new game that is definitely going on next year.

Well on to the next adventure!.