cali trip: day 8

after a TERRIBLE night’s sleep, we got up, made eggs and bacon for breakfast, cleaned up and tore down. we were off, back into the park for some real sight seeing.

first glimpse of half dome.

after finding a place to park, we were ready for our first hike to find bridal veil falls.

dave, shane, and nolan scrambled way up the rocks.

layla, micah, and I only scrambled up the bottom ones… see those two people behind layla? this was right before they both fell into the water, waist-deep. the rocks were very smooth, which is why I did not let the younger two keep going, much to their disappointment.

back in the valley.

we had some lunch, perused the gift shop, and then headed out to find yosemite falls.

they had several of these fences, presumably around trees they wanted to protect. this one had a chipmumk hanging on the side, completely immobile. I seriously thought it was dead. it just sat there. after several minutes, it finally turned its head. so weird.

view of the very top of yosemite falls.

view of half dome through the trees en route to the bottom of yosemite falls.

when we got in there, it was awesome. there were rocks and pools at the bottom of the falls. tons of kids wading and swimming. we all kind of wished we had bathing suits, because it was very hot.

so pretty.

we did scramble down some rocks and put our feet in. the water was so cold!

after being super careful about making sure everyone’s shoes were accounted for, that no one fell in, and keeping tabs on layla who was determined to take her wading to the very edge of what can still be called “wading” and not “swimming”, I managed to drop one of micah’s socks into the water.

el capitan.

one last shot of half dome.

waiting for nolan to meet us with the truck. layla was “soooo hot. she was gonna die.” it was hot, but she’s just a tad dramatic.

the drive out of there was long and hot. we saw a lot of nothing, and then some farms and ranches. we came though turlock (home of colin kaepernick), and found a dairy queen for some well-deserved blizzards.

the dairy queen, in addition to being air conditioned, had this huge industrial fan.

between that and the ice cream, I was frozen.

I was happy to get back outside and warm up. everyone thought I was nuts.

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project life–week 3

nothing too exciting here: and yes, that is a picture of project life! I find myself taking pictures of things I would have found very weird a few months ago, but when you have the ‘daily life’ thing in mind, and stuff your grandchildren might enjoy seeing, it puts a different perspective on things. the latter half of the week: I LOVE wednesday’s picture… layla walking home from the bus. we do this EVERY day, and this is what it looks like now. I’ll have to remember to take one in the spring, and again next fall. I also have one of the pull-out double size journaling cards, which I used to tell the story of layla’s new bedding, which used to be mine. and that’s week 3.

tag!

so this is mostly aimed at mary, but anyone can feel free to participate because i think it's kinda funny. i got 'tagged' by innocently reading a friend's blog, so now i feel compelled to comply. Find the closest 123-page or longer book to you and turn to page 123. (No cheating!) Find the first five sentences, then post the next three sentences. okay, so the closest book would be the soundtransit 'ready to ride transit guide', but i'll spare you that... what's next... from 'child honoring: how to turn this world around', raffi cavoukian, sharna olfman; editors: to illustrate this, here is one afrikan story. once upon a time there was an old man who wanted to have a monopoly of knowledge. he collected all the valuable knowledge, skills, and wisdom in the village, put them in a calabash (gourd), and tightly corked it. well, that was a bit random, but i think that's the point. have fun!

and today i...

...found two cereal containers (tupperware knock-off type) and their lids which have been floating around the garage for a year now. i brought them in and they are currently in the dishwasher so we can actually use them for our endless supply of life and cheerios. 2 more things out of the garage... (or 4 if you want to count the lids!) woo hoo!

vacation–day 6 (saturday, august 14)

saturday afternoon, we were invaded by LOTS of dapelos! uncle bear, mimi and lots of ‘kids’ showed up for a yummy bbq, some swimming, and street baseball. but first some of the kids had to pose in their ‘matchie’ shirts that gramma and papa brought back from australia. being ‘matchie’ was a VERY big deal. uncle david got to practice his very favorite hobby: sleeping with babies. we ate wonderful food outside in the ‘new’ backyard. everyone ate big marshmallows for dessert! (after the big kids made fools of themselves trying to throw them into each other’s mouths across the yard. and then there was more swimming… and then, the long-awaited street baseball! after some confusion about appropriately-sized plastic bats, the big kids and little kids hit whiffle balls all over the neighborhood! a lot of the balls didn’t survive, but all of ted’s sprinklers did!

2017–week 6

sunday: so it begins… that fun evening game where you’re keeping one eye out the window at the falling snow, and the other eye on your phone, bouncing back and forth between the forecast and the news source for school closures that may have been already announced. i may or may not have yelped in glee and thrown my phone in the air when i refreshed it for the millionth time and saw BELLEVUE listed as closed! no work for me! monday: most of these will go into a separate “snow day” insert in the book. school was cancelled for pretty much the entire western half of the state, so much fun was had, playing in the snow. i took a picture of shane taking a picture of his measurements of snow on the fence. lol. a “new and improved” way to do dog sledding… i think they’re both confused. layla seemed to think this was the best way to get micah across the ditch full of frigid water… somehow, he made it, and then they decided it would be a good idea to jump it. i’m pleased to report that no one...

rachel's continued ramblings

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