Paulina 2023

We were able to sneak in a quick weekend camping trip to Paulina lake and Little Crater Campground the second weekend of September.  The weather was perfect early fall weather. Warm in the day and cool at night. Two nights of amazing sunsets as well. 

Friday night. 

Saturday Fun with friends 

Saturday Sunset

Hunter Fall backpacking

Hunter finished the first two weeks of school and as a school they went on a fall backpacking trip for 7 days. Each student could sign up for a 10, 35,45 or 70 mile trip. Can you guess which one Hunter chose? You got it…..he chose the 70 miler.

Here are the pictures of the students and a little write up of the week.

First day of school

First day of school for Noah (10), Abbie (9) and Preston (6). Hunter is already at school and we faced timed him. We love these 4 so much and are super proud of them. ❤️ 🏫

Hunter off to MWSB for the school year


We just got back from a week to Montana dropping Hunter off at Montana Wilderness School of the Bible. This is a 9 month program to set him up for a solid life foundation. 

Abbie couldn’t make it on this trip with us due to here high school cheer training schedule so we missed having her with us. 

To break the trip up on the way there we drove a little more than half way to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and spent the night. Weather was hot so we spent the following morning at the lake before traveling on. 

We stopped briefly in Missoula to check out the University of Montana and got huckleberry shakes in St. Regis, MT.


Day 2 ended arriving in Montana staying at an off grid airbnb near Craig Montana. 

Day 3 we stayed relatively local going to Great falls and visiting the Lewis and Clark center along with a state park - Giant springs.  Great falls is where the Lewis and Clark expedition had to spend a month portaging around 5 waterfalls.  
I’m the evening we explored more around our cabin. 


Day 4 we went to the east side of glacier national park.  An area called two Medicine Lake.  

 
Day 5 was drop off day for Hunter. The schools is in such a beautiful setting tucked back at the end of a canyon road (Dearborn canyon) with no cell service making it the perfect location to study and fellowship with the 65 other students there. 

We are hoping the other kids want to go as well. Here are some videos I took to show Abbie some of the campus grounds since she couldn’t make it. 

We feel really good about this school for hunter. 

Blacksmith 101class

I followed up my intro class from July with a 101 class in August at the “DIY Cave” in town. The project this time was wall hooks to learn a number of new techniques in shaping metal.   Couple more pics of the transformation/shaping process.  

Noah 16th Birthday Backpack

Noah wanted to do a backpacking trip with some friends for his birthday. Unfortunately, one of them broke his foot, so it was just 4 of us this year. A few years ago we did the same on his 13th birthday.

This trip we went to another one of the cascade volcanoes. Mt. Thielsen in southern Oregon. 

Variable terrain from burned out forest to mountain streams coming right out of the snow. Only downside is that the mosquitos were horrible.  

Blacksmithing intro

Today I took a 2 hour intro to blacksmithing class a place in town called the DIY cave. We have been there a few times before including one of hunters birthday building camp chairs (https://blog.donaldsoncrew.org/hunters-13th-birthday-party) and an intro  to welding (https://blog.donaldsoncrew.org/diy-cave-welding-class) class with the boys. 

The project today to get is started in learning different hammer techniques was a bottle opener.

Here is a picture of me with my two other classmates and a video of the opener in action.