Idaho and Montana

Day 2: Hello! Thanks for traveling with the Kalers. We are adding more numbers to our group... first of all,

Meet Snuggle Monkey. A gem from the SND auction that is making the jouney with us.
The Jacobs crew also met up with us in Newport and we are going to make it one big grand adventure!!! (total 8 kids, plus the monkey)Our first stop in Idaho turned into a little hike around a steel bridge.... good exercise and good inspiration for more art...

(Photos compliments of Alexis)

By the time we got to Montana we started splitting up our monkeys, just for fun!!

Then we met a real distraction... one of those "oh look, a little stop on the road." It is a the Kootenai glacier river, and turned into an amazing hike. We didn't have a lot of time so we actually made it more like a run.

Hmmmm... which way do we go??
The girls went one way and the boys went another... I (Cheryl) ended up running all the way to the swinging bridge with the boys. The air was fresh, the jog was invigorating.

The bridge was terrifying!!

We got lots of comments on the Seahawks shirts... proof we are surely out of Seattle now!

Now Winnie, Toby, her new friend the SUV, and all the occupants are blazing onto Glacier National Park.

See you there!!!

Newport, WA

Day 1: Meet Toby. Toby rides right behind Winnie and carries our bikes. He follows kinda close but we keep our eye on him through our handy dandy rear view camera. So far he is behaving just fine, and we think he's kinda cute!!We finally hit the road by about 11pm last night, thinking we must start this trip Kaler style or it may never start at all!! We slept at a rest stop in Cle Elum, and woke up this morning to a bright and sunny drive through eastern Washingon.

Then suddenly, we saw a band of wild horses!!

Alright, it is the Wild Horse Monument next to the Columbia River somewhere past Rosyln. It turned into a nice quick hike...
up a really steep hill, where I found myself much too winded (and wishing I was Julie)... and we started our first day of travel school, called:
"discovering salamanders." (Curriculum provided.)
The rest of the day was art and games and giggles, lunch in a random grass field, and Gladys (thats the GPS) accidentally taking us into Idaho, just because. We think she's in cahoots with Winnie and wanted to give her a new state sticker on her map.

We rolled into our campground where we were greeted by moose and found too quickly that the hot tub was calling our name. Tomorrow we move on to Glacier National Park in Montana, where we may not have signal for a few days... so we'll catch up with you somewhere this side of North Dakota!!

Cheers!!

Moving on....

"So Kalers, where have you been living the last two weeks?"

"THE BEST CAMPING SPOT EVER!!!"

(thank you RJ and Julia, we could have never made it without you....)

And now? We are moving on to see the world. Kalers officially depart TODAY (God help us).

STAY TUNED.....

And the winner is...

Ok team!! We won on Thursday. It's semi-finals and we're playing the Yankees.

We have the super faithful fan club here to cheer us on. We can do it!!

Friday's game was a close one, the boys played hard and ended with a final score 18-15, Rays!!

Thanks to our teacher Nina for coming and giving us the extra edge!! Camp Casey power!!

That put us into the final games on Saturday, where we had to beat the White Sox twice in order to win it. And you know what??!!!

We did!!!

Congratulations Rays and all the fans, it sure was worth it!!
For more headlines check us out on http://www.pacificlittleleague.com/content/view/28/51/

Camp Casey

One more adventure....

So Thursday Mom, JJ and Sergei are all scheduled to go to the third grade "graduation" camp at Camp Casey on Whidbey Island. But you know what? Those boys are jammin' in baseball and they keep moving on in the playoffs. They had a game Thursday night. So what to do, what to do? It really was never a question in the boys mind. It is baseball or bust for those guys... Camp Casey could wait!

The game was close and they won, and as the group of bleacher parents all exhaled (who knew you could hold your breath for an hour and a half??) Cheryl went running off (literally) with the boys to catch the ferry.

We got stuck in line and decided to celebrate the win with some ice cream.

I think it was the biggest icecream cones I've ever seen. It went right up to Sergei's nose!Enjoying the ferry.... the ice cream had us all so full, we didn't even care about the smores at the campfire anymore. It was a good thing, since when we got there they were just coming inside to do skits. They arrived with great news "WE WON!" and jumped right into the excitement. Didn't miss a beat.

The next morning, the boys were up at like 5:am (huh? aren't we tired?) and off to explore the fort. Here are some pics of our hike.

Later we went in separate groups to the sea-lab, where we got to learn about native Puget Sound sea life. (See the photographer? We might get in the newspaper. But just think, you saw it here first!)The crab wanted to give my hat a little more good luck!!

Oh, we did have free time, which meant of course...

Sergei and JJ play more baseball, and mom gets to chase after some birds.Overall it was a blast of a camp out, and I am very proud of the our graduating boys. Now we are off to more baseball, semi-finals!!!!

Happy Graduation JJ!!

JoJo

This year I am on the Orioles team. I think its funny because I already had an Orioles hat from being in Baltimore in the summer. I was actually part of the (real) Orioles "dug-out club" and have a Chic-fil-A back pack. (but don't let Mommy get started on Chic-fil-A!)

Mommy thinks I am a pretty serious player. I like to make sure my team knows where the outs are and I always pay really good attention.

Mom says the best part of my "swing the bat, scratch the dirt, scrinch the nose" warm up routine is definately the scrinch the nose part. It does help me hit the ball!!

Playing first base.... it is tough to keep your foot on the bag and still get the ball!!

My season is over now, but I get to go to Cal Ripken camp this summer and now I can say I've played on his team!!

See you later!!