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Fern is now my official representative in the 1/4 scale dolls. I love Willow’s quiet grace, but I am neither quiet or graceful. I love Olive’s take charge spirit, but that’s not me either. Fern, little as she is, is someone I completely understand. Which is why I knew, when she was sad and missing her mom, that a dog would be just the thing to cheer her up. Turns out I was right.

I’ve enjoyed spending time with the On Our Own family so much that I think I’m going to spend an extra week or two with them and see how Olive’s story turns out. Olive reminds me very much of my sister, Melanie, so I’m going to send her on the kind of adventure she would have loved when she was a kid.

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I mentioned last week that many of these pictures come from the Columbia Gorge. Fern’s brave sword stance is by the creek at the top of Multnomah falls, while the pictures of her holding onto a rope on a trail are on Eagle Creek Trail (the center of last year’s Columbia Gorge fire), and her plunge in the water takes place in Punchbowl falls, also on the Eagle Creed trail. Olive’s bike ride through the woods is at Cape Lookout, on the Oregon coast.