The Extended Family

More coverage of my sister-in-law's younger brothers.

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Hiking the Timberline Trail

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I don't think I've been on a true backpacking trip before. Back in high school, my friend Bart and I planned a multi-day trip to Carl Lake, but we ended up turning around after one night of camping at Cabot Lake because it was raining so much and we'd rather stay at his family's cabin instead. I also hiked up to Moraine Lake as a scout leader, on the way to South Sister, where we camped in preparation to summit Oregon's third tallest peak, but we left all of our gear at the lake on the second leg of our climb. That was back in 2001. I first learned of the Timberline Trail by reading a brief summary of it in, of all places, Portland Monthly. Sure, it was 35 miles farther than I had ever backpacked before, and it involved two more days and nights, and I would be going solo. But the summer of 2016 is all about change and new beginnings for me. Day 1: Timberline Lodge to Ramona Falls I slept in Tuesday morning, as I was up late Monday night making my final preparat...
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Father's Day

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I grew up in a culture that did not celebrate Father's Day. At least that's what my memory tells me. So it has been a decade-long transition period of letting my wife and kids worship me for a day. This was an uncomfortable thing at first, but now I wish they would treat me like this every day. They let me sleep in and brought me breakfast in bed, with both Edward and Ian helping me eat it. Usually I'm up at dawn with Ian, feeding or changing him. But today I got a free pass. They presented me with gifts: a belt made out of a bicycle tire, with a star wars-themed buckle; a drawing Ed had made (with me as Darth Vader--yes!--and him as Luke); a dinosaur magnet that Aaron had made at school; and a hammock (which has been sitting in the garage for a few weeks now). At church the women presented all of the fathers with chocolate dipped Oreo balls. Even though they had cream cheese in them, I enjoyed them and hounded them for more. The primary aged kids--including Aaron and Ed-...
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Ian Reaches 6

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Ian has reached the age of six. In the past year, he has begun kindergarten, not gotten his hair cut, and transitioned to riding a bike with pedals. Ian had his first birthday party at JJ Jump with half of his kindergarten class, which even included a couple of girls--girls! Ian gets along better with Edward, as demonstrated by Ian always attacking Aaron; he often sits on Aaron's head and never misses the chance to attack whenever Aaron is on the ground. Ian likes to talk. A lot. He enjoys jumping on our neighbor's trampoline, usually with the older kids in the neighborhood. Ian maintains strange eating habits: he will take his breakfast (often chicken nuggets) under the table, while eating extremely slowly, so he can sit near the heater while watching My Little Pony (he's seen every episode about five times) on his little laptop. He may or may not have an Oedipus complex like Edward had, as he says he loves Meg the most and thinks she's cute. Here is a quick interv...
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