Sierra Camping Trip

We just got back from our camping trip to the Eastern Sierra Mountains!

Tailgate picnic at Fossil Falls

Tristan in the Fossil Falls

Fossil Falls

Piper was hot!

Cinder cone

This was our campsite at Onion Valley, elevation 9200 ft.

Burgers for dinner

Breakfast on a rock!

Overlooking our tent

Our hike...

Snowball fight!

Playing in a creek

Fishing

Mud!

Piper's fish was this big!

Very dirty baby

Helping Dad break down camp...

We kept the bears in the bear box.

Feeding the fish...

at the...

Whitney Fish Hatchery.

Rest stop at a Park in Lone Pine

Happy baby

What the Rain Brings

Rain can bring changes and surprises. At our house, (a 1950's beach bungalow) it brings an exterior door that swells and needs to be slammed shut, so much for teaching the kids NOT to slam doors, a garage that leaks through all three of its doors, and a muddy chicken coop. The rain also brings a day or two of a perfect excuse to stay indoors and just "be", conversation at the dinner table about where thunder and lightning come from, and for a few months a green front lawn (we don't ever water the front yard).

The rain also brings us some visitors. Tristan found this very large worm under a board. Normally any worm we find is skinny and under three inches long. This one was a whopper! Since it was so large, we could get a really good look at how it's muscles moved it around, and then we debated on where we should release it. We thought about the garden, thought for a moment about giving it to the girls to eat, but in the end we put it in the compost bin. I wonder if it will get any bigger?

Had fun at the Zoo today. The kids got to make friends with some goats, saw some beautiful birds, went to the reptile house, and the insect house to see some unbelievably large creepy crawlies. I think I might check my sheets before I crawl into bed tonight!

Family Day

Whew! This week was a busy one.
Sam was out and about from San Diego to Bakersfield almost all week long with work. He drove over 800 miles over the course of four days, so we did not see him very much. I was busy with the home front, which was busier than normal without Sam. So, today being Saturday, it was family day. We drove down to the Ocean Beach People's Cooperative Market first and enjoyed a yummy vegetarian lunch. Spinach salad, roasted potatoes, pasta salad, and brunch burritos. Sam had a bit of business to do there as well. What with trying to get a coop started right here in San Clemente, they are a wealth of information.
From there we drove over to Balboa Park to the San Diego Natural History Museum. Tristan and Piper have been into dinosaurs for well over a year now and the museum has a good ongoing dino exhibit, and now a 3-D Imax film called "Dinosaurs Alive". Although the movie was good, with neat computer animation, Tristan and Piper had some trouble because the glasses were adult sized. It might have been a good thing that they did not see all the dinos in 3-D and get the pants scared off of them.After the movie, we strolled around the park for a bit. Balboa is one of my favorite places out here. There are street performers and water fountains, gorgeous architecture and wedding parties, joggers and families, and people from all over the world out enjoying the day.












The kids started to get tired, so we packed Bert up and started heading home. On the way home, we got in touch with Jill and met her for dinner, grabbed some coffee afterward, and then went to her house so Tristan, Piper, and Jolyon could see her two cats, Tootsie and Lulu. We finally started to head home around 7:30.
Now we are home, the kids are asleep, and the house is quiet. Time to rest after this busy family day.

Cruisin through Ohio

Random Pictures of Us

Happy tongue baby.

The Monarchs are back!Dahlia

Pretty lettuce plant.

Piper & Delilah.

Lime tree blossoms.

Garden beds in the backyard.

Tristan in the coop.

Happy Joyon.

Jolyon in his super baby suit.

These are Jolyon's "faces" that he likes to make. Very entertaining.

"O" baby.

Angry baby.

The Greatest Show on Earth

It has been years since I have last been to see the Ringling Bros. circus. The last time I went, my family and I still lived in New Jersey and we went to see it at Madison Square Garden. I know I was under ten years old. Well, today we saw Ringling Bros. "Zing Zang Zoom" show at the Honda Center in Anaheim. What could be more fun than the circus? It was a great show, Tristan like the two women shot out of the cannon the best, and Piper liked the elephants. Jolyon liked the "Dadas" (his word for any animal), and I of course liked the liberty horses.