I was going to do a 'September in Pictures' post, but as I scanned through my phone's pictures, I realized I had far, far too many for a single post. Looking back over the month, I didn't realize just how much I did get done. I only saw what I didn't get done, but that is an unfortunate habit I have...

In late August, one of my big brothers came home. He is in the Navy and currently stationed on the East Coast. It was the first time he has been back since he joined; so having him home was really nice. He and I used to do a lot things together, but since he has been away for 16 months, I kinda forgot what that was like.

The parents wanted to do something special since he was around. We decided to go to the beach for three nights. I'd been to the beach earlier this year, but we haven't gone as a family unit since my grandma passed away in 2010. We usually go to the Long Beach Peninsula. It's an incredibly boring beach (not really any rocks or shells, except we found a place where someone dumped their whole collection.), except for the North Head lighthouse on Cape Disappointment at the very beginning of the peninsula.

We stayed in the nicest cottage about a fourth of a mile from the beach. I felt like I could just live there forever. They have done so well decorating the entire thing with the awesomest pictures and stuff. These pictures are mostly from those three days. Be proud of me. I refrained and didn't post all of them ;)

Here are a *few* pictures:

A bowl of chili with cornbread probably doesn't seem impressive, but I made the chili from scratch. My mom wasn't feeling very well a day or two before the beach; so she wasn't able to make plans for our meals. I decided I would. We have never had that much food at the beach. I put together ingredients for pancakes, baked oatmeal, mac and cheese, frozen meatloaf (Also made that. Never have before. It's not very photographic, though), and the frozen chili. I've mostly grown up eating Nalley canned chili, and I was a little skeptical, but it was really good.

The first day we went over to Oregon and explored Fort Stevens. This was just a pathway to a bird observation bunker.

A random view from the bird observation bunker.

There was this rickety platform where you could see to Washington and then farther into Oregon. I don't mind most heights, but this structure was moving...that kinda got to me.

This was the real reason why I wanted to go to Fort Stevens. The Peter Iredale shipwreck from 1906 ( I believe). It wasn't quite as epic as I envisioned, but through the years, they have taken away parts of it. The bar where the Columbia River (which also divides Oregon and Washington there) meets the Pacific Ocean can be pretty dangerous, and they've had a lot of wrecks. I think the two lighthouses on Cape Disappointment are the closest of any on the West Coast.

This isn't an impressive picture. It's part of the actual Fort Stevens. This fort has been attacked by ships (I think submarines to be more specific) in two wars. In the Civil War and then by the Japanese. Neither of the attacks were very serious.

Finally a picture of the beach!! This was as much of a sunset that we ever got. It was pretty cool and rainy.

Second day we headed up the Olympic Peninsula because my brother wanted to see some rainforest, and places on the Olympic Peninsula get 144 inches a year (I cannot even imagine. We get 8 inches of precipitation). We drove up twoish hours to the Quinalt Rain Forest, but this was along the way. Just pretty places out the window.

The morning lighting was just so nice, and it was gray enough to disguise the car's dirty windows.

Green. Water. Cloudy. What more can I say?

My dad, brother, and I went on a four mile loop through the Quinalt Rain Forest. It was amazing. I love the moss. As a writer, I tried to dissect every sense in places like that to see if I could describe them with words, but man, a Navy jet kept going over and making so much noise...then the loop went around and past the lodge...so there was the food smell. Folks, evidently a rain forest smells like BBQ ;)

Along the loop was a marsh. This is the marsh area.

Everything was so beautiful. I started realizing how pitiful us humans are. We (at least I) try so hard to make beautiful places, and so often these places fall short, then we look at God's handiwork, and it's just so beautiful and perfect.

It's hard to tell exactly what this picture is of because so much is going on. But what happens in the forest is trees fall, and then small trees begin to grow on top of the old ones. Pretty soon the old ones decompose. Then it looks like it was just planted on the ground. In the meantime, though, the process can look pretty crazy. Example: This picture. I can't imagine that tree getting much bigger and still being held up by that other one. It's pretty cool all the same.