Stop. Growing. Up.

Road's End

 Saturday, we went on a mini hike with our dearest friends Tim, Nikki & Sophia.  I thought I'd have Tim narrate the whole adventure, seeing as though, most recounts done by Tim nearly bring me to tears (of laughter people, no sad stories told from his mouth)
Enjoy!

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This is a lot of pressure. See, yesterday Kat called to tell me 3 things:
1) Tim, I will be sharing the pictures from our wonderful Saturday hike with you via dropbox this very day.
2) Tim, would you mind guest blogging and writing the words to accompany the pictures from our wonderful Saturday hike?
3) Tim, the sermon today at the little Mennonite church was really good and Jake will tell you more (he didn't).


This is quite the honor, I'd say.

Several weeks ago we started scheming up an out-of-town trip with some of our favorite companions; we wanted to camp on the beach for a couple of days. We have our favorite spots along the central coast, but we wanted to visit Big Sur, which we've barely explored. Apparently, part of the highway fell in the ocean, though, so it's pretty hard to get there. Side note: does it bother anyone that over 100 feet of asphalt fell into the Pacific ocean?

After more plans (we always have plans and dreams, don't we?), we downgraded for the sake of Little Ones. Or, at least for the sake of our own nerves, which I sometimes like to call my Little Ones. So, a day hike at Road's End it was. Road's End is the very end of highway 180. We wound all the way through Sequoia National Park and into Kings National Park just past Cedar Grove. It's no joke, folks, no joke. Bear country, and all that.

As the observant reader can see, here we are on the road, so we didn't quite make it to the end of the road (fear not, the road was not closed and if it had been, my fellow hikers would've tired of my endless rendition of "The Road's Closed" in my best Canadian accent). We stopped short by a couple of minutes to hike to Sheep's Creek Cascade, a part of Don Cecil trail.  All said, we went about 4 miles. Jacob and I, as you can see, manned the baby backpacks with great vigor.

Halfway up the trail, we encountered the burnt woods. Lightning, or some force of man, torched the ground and a few trees. For being so destructive, it was really quite beautiful.

This was the only time Violet didn't enjoy being in the backpack. In the past: mixed reviews. On this day she wanted as much backpack as any of us could handle. On the way up the trail she pointed out objects she knows, only to have Jacob repeat their names back to her in German. She played us merry little tunes on her harmonica on the way down the trail. She thinks I'm hilarious when I trip (too much time with aunt Nikki). I love her like my own. Hope that's okay, Jake and Kat. 

As I said, burnt and beautiful.

Well, hello there, ladies.

Family photo: 4 smiles, 5 pairs of eyes on the camera, 1 Tim's upper-inner (just trying to keep up with Papa Jack's upper-inner from the 80's in the previous post; it's a Dad thing).

To make up for my upper-inners sinfullly abrasive presence, I read Rilke at the top of the hike. The water drowned out most of it, but that's just as well, really. Poets are chasing the waters' timbre anyway.
"When you were children you had planted trees.
They've grown too huge for you to hold.
Yet wait,
for there are breezes... for there are spaces...."
Rainer Maria Rilke "O You Delicate Ones"

After the hike, we ate and le the girls do some stretching of their little legs (fate would have it that I measured Sophia's inseam last night: 8 inches. It's safe to assume that Violet's inseams take after her dad's and clock in somewhere north of 10 inches, for the time being). We packed up to leave, Jacob and I each requested one more stop. His was Grizzly Falls. The heavy snowfall this year has left the run-off in our neck of the woods impressive. From deep in the Monarch Wilderness, snow melts and flows from peaks over 11,000 feet high, running through back country and over each crevice, once dry, to fall some 75 feet in an awesome display of mist and power. Feeling small is what I need some days.

Violet was unsure of this new twist in the trip. She was the only one with her wits about her, really: "You guys! That's an absurd amount of water spilling over great heights with such force it could do us great bodily harm!" I imagined her yelling. The rest of us felt our primal unconscious bubble up into our awareness and run rampant across our faces as we crept closer and closer, with no care for our safety or dryness. Kathleen, she of The Many Shades fame, one-up'd us all and defiantly stood up to the spray, thumbs-up and all. I think we can all agree, she's pretty great. Jacob snapped the pictures, while Nikki and I each held Little Ones.

The next stop was to scope the canyon views, terribly majestic. Looking across to the burnt orange cliffs, lined with shades of glacial erosion, was like those stupid optical illusions so popular in the 90's. You know, the ones that demand optical yoga, focusing and unfocusing, in order to see some cheesy and simple image somehow spring up from chaotic lines. The towering canyonside was like that, but not as stupid. It made me dizzy, but I was comforted by the fact that there was no secret, hidden image. All that was, was.

I can still hear the water if I close my eyes, smell the fragrant pines. I still feel tiny from staring at giant peaks and falls.

Sacred moments where we all become Little Ones.

this week (via Instagram!)

my sweet flower

this picture makes me feel like she will be in kindergarten soon, waiting against the fence for mom or dad to pick her up. slow. down. time.

fun at the park with ms. sophia

so happy to have dusty buns left overs for lunch. go local!

this is  warm weather staple for us. Homemade tandoori naan Pizza. oh-so-good.

yup. she loved it. "my toes? my toes? pretty toes?" never thought I'd be that mom.

once a month "frousin" (friend that is a cousin) dates. we were in Phở food heaven

"we're going to the zoo zoo zooo"

On Saturday morning we woke up and met our dear friends Tim, Nikki & Sophia at our local zoo.

For those of you who may have just started reading, let me formally introduce. Tim (left) Nikki (middle) Sophia (right) Flamingos (far right).

Jake and Tim  were roommates in college, their friendship has been going strong since then.

Not to mention, Nikki is one of my most favorite people in the world.

See the hesitation in their faces?

Sure, we all made jokes about the bear's cave having a less than artistic rendition of "forestry" painted on its walls.

And why yes, we did snidely question if monkeys ate pellates out of a card board box in the wild.

While, we are so grateful to share  our beautifully painted earth with our kids...

At one point we all expressed a sense of sadness for these locked in animals.

(call me a tree hugging animal lover. i don't care)

Never the less,

 We carried on with joy.

Feeding the giraffes was the highlight of the trip.

Nature has a way of reminding you how small you are in the grand scheme of things.

Well, in most cases at least...

 

How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children.

-Charles Darwin 

 

Happy Weekend, everybody...

GOODBYE OCTOBER!

Today was a great way to end the weekend as well as the month. We finally planted out winter garden.

Our crops include a selection of: carrots, broccoli,spinach, brussel sprouts, red leaf lettuce, chives, butter lettuce, cauliflower, celery and red cabbage.

We usually have to work int he garden in shifts because of our wild flower Violet. This usually causes garden jealousy with whomever is on "duty". We've tried having Violet outside with us, but this usually results in rocks in mouth, and or cat poop/cactus in hand. But this time, THIS TIME when violet was sleeping, we gardened. Together. sigh.

 Later that day we met up with Tim, Nikki & Sophia and of course Funcle Jordan (funcle=funny uncle) for some Halloween festivities in Tower District.

Does anyone else get legitimately frightened by the pumpkin man in the background? I DO!

I'm trying to sneak attack Violet with her Thing 1 hat.

Aren't Violet and Sophia's costumes cute? Nikki and I made them. The red top and bottom are from target. The white circle in the middle is fabric we cut out and hand stitched on. I knit the hats and added little tassels on top.

Pretty close, don't you think?

Happy Halloween Everyone, and Happy November tomorrow!

wordless wednesday.

Welcome Summer

It's going to be 108 degrees today and I'd like to formally welcome Summer to 2010. I told Jake that it really felt like summer this year. Our weekends have been filled with friends, family coming in from near and near (EGYPT) swimming, BBQs, frozen yogurt, and this is actually the first time I've actually sat down to take a break.

In TWO months Violet will be 1 year old. No longer a little tiny baby, but a vivacious, curious, TODDLER who is becoming her own person everyday.  Our friend Michael Chapman gave us (well mainly Violet) a huge compliment that I can't stop thinking about. He said, "Violet is one of my favorite PEOPLE." He and his wife Melissa explained that he mean to say "PEOPLE", not  baby and I really realized that she was her own person. It's so easy to say, "Violet acts just like...", or "Violet looks just like....", "When so-and-so was her age they did the exact same thing". I'm guilty of trying to solve the personality too, but REALLY.. REALLY at the end of the day, I just want Violet to be VIOLET. She doesn't have to be exactly like her mom or dad or aunts or uncle, I just want Violet to be exactly who she is intended to be.

The only choice Violet doesn't get is, she has to player soccer...Sorry kid, those cards have been dealt for you...(only kidding, kind of)

Our Family from far and wide!

Fun swimming sessions, some liked it, others didn't..