Hollow Tree

There just has not been a whole lot going on these past few days. I spent three days glued to the computer writing lesson plans for the kids upcoming school year. That is so much work but once it is done it is the biggest time saver for the rest of the year. We spent the afternoon yesterday at a friends house. That was a very nice time of fellowship.
The boys have been talking about the Hollow tree in the forest so I decided to go check it out. It is cool. I tried to capture the fun of the tree on camera but it doesn't do it justice

 on our way to THE TREE

 Here it is

 In he goes

 Down he goes

 And out he comes down through the bottom. Best hiding spot in the woods!!

 Tommy and his new buddy Willy

 Can you see the temperature this afternoon... Not quite 60* out.

...Kat says HI NANNA... Love you!!!!

Indpendence Mine

 We Decided to get out of the house and head out to Willow to see the Independence Mine. It was just a short half hour drive through the beautiful Hatcher pass to get there.

 The view on the way up

 Some cute Kiddos

 We brought the dogs. They were so happy to go!!

 We paid $5 to park and then we paid for the guided tour another $18 It was so worth it he told us all about the history and took us into all the old buildings. We got to see the bunk house mess hall and even an old school room.

 Baking room with a huge electric mixer

 Old oven

 Meat Locker

 Kitchen

 Cooks apartment

 Old Generator

 Rich in History!!!

 Bunk Room

 More Bunk rooms

 Lunch break

 An old Minning train the kids got to climb all over and play on

 The Dogs loved it... They were not allowed to go into the buildings and cried the whole time we were inside without them.

 So of the old buildings were falling down and ruined.

 The mines waterfall

 After the guided tour we hiked up one of the mines entrants it was very cold inside. You could only go back a few feet

 One of the old mine tracks falling apart