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The trip to Mt. Rainier was wonderful. Really cloudy the first two days, to the point where we couldn’t even see the mountain, but we got to spend the days hiking and exploring some of the trails. We even had some close encounters with lots of chipmunks and Stellar Jays, a few deer, and two Hoary Marmots (the whoriest marmots in the entire park, you should have seen the brazen way they winked at us). The weather cleared up on Thursday morning, so we were able to get some views of the mountain before we had to head back up to Seattle.

Here’s all the photos from the weekend.

Over the past couple days, Xebeth‘s been going through another round of treatments. It’s been intense and rather frightening at times, but, true to form, she’s still putting up a fight — matter of fact, for this girl, merely knocking on death’s door wasn’t enough. She had to knock, push the door open, and take a look around the other side for a few minutes before finally deciding that it wasn’t quite time to step through just yet and turn back around.

Personally, I think she’s just getting a little lonely in that big ol’ hospital bed, and is determined to give the rest of us heart attacks so we can all be lined up in a row on either side of her to keep her company.

Things are improving now, thankfully. She’s got her family and close friends around her there, and as much mojo as Prairie and I can send from Seattle heading her way. Between that and the girl having a stubborn streak a mile wide, we’ll be keeping her around for as long as we can — and relishing every last little moment of it.