Camping in Downieville

The boys went camping for 4 nights up at Lakes Basin (and I went to work, so there will be no photos from that trip to share), but I spontaneously met up with them on the North Yuba last night after Mom decided to ride her bike to the campsite and invited Megan & Dan to join her (so we crashed the family campout).  Always fun to go camping, even if it's for 16 hours.  

The photo above is what Josh was doing while Ben dragged out the process of eating his green beans, his "favorite vegetable" according to him.

Uncle Dan gave Josh a few pointers in the fishing department, many thanks for encouraging the little man.  

 

And the birthday breakfast....  so sorry to the whole family for Mr. Ben's let's all get up at 6am and start celebrating ASAP.

A visit to the coast

Earlier this month we went to the coast for a few nights, I have been meaning to share the photos and life has gotten in the way.  So, better late then never, right?  The top two photos are off the back porch of Dad's house watching the fog roll in while having a campfire.  I enjoyed watching the boys hang out on the porch earlier in the afternoon, so easy to see myself in that exact same spot.

Really, what trip Half Moon Bay is complete without a loaf of artichoke bread?  We're sorry to say that there was no bread left by the time we met up with the Renekers.

A walk out to the point with Dad and Rebecca.  We camped at Costona for 2 nights and they joined us for the afternoon and a lovely dinner at the restaurant at the campground.

The great part about this photo, is the one below is from the last time we were at Costona in August of 2004.  There we are in the exact same spot in June of 2014.... some things really don't change....

Great to spend some time with Ben, Katie, Roy and Henry, even if only briefly.  The boys had fun playing together.

Slices of Life, May.2014, part 2

 Slices of Life, part 2, May 2014 edition.  Am I going to be able to stop and think back on this month and remember what we did, where we went, what our favorite things were?  Nope.  so here's a small selection of those things.

Dan welding on the parts for his Soap Box Derby car, he's got a week to get it together for the test run, so the pressure's on. Very curious to see how it turns out.



 

Memorial Day weekend was spent out at Berlin Ichthyosaur State Park in the middle of no where Nevada.  While I had a shortened version of the camping trip, I ticked all my camping requirements (no cell service, read an entire book cover to cover and took a nap).  The boys got 2 extra nights hanging out at the campground with the Dixons and the Sagebiels.  On the drive out there I listened to a NPR piece about people who don't experience their memories b/c they're too busy taking photos, so I spent my 36 hours of camping not taking photos (the photos here are with the iphone and were all of 10 minutes of the trip).

Swimming season has begun, in full.  Can you spy Josh leaping into the pool in this photo?  It's so nice to have a fabulous pool at our disposal, yeah!

And these final shots were yesterday morning, Josh was playing Words with Friends with my phone and Ben was lying in bed reading a book.  

So what have we not shown?  My photography open reception, the greeting cards I've made at 5:30am, the last day of school field day, lots of trips to the gym, the advancement ceremony for Cub Scouts, a few (cough cough) ice cream cones at Treats, a few more glasses of wine.... slices of life, some captured, some most likely to be forgotten, but all of it experienced to its fullest at the time.

The winery face

Josh on an "adventure" to a local winery for an Outside Inn blog post, grumpy, hungry and somewhat impatient.  I think this photo is priceless.

Slices of life, May 2014

I tend to stay fairly on top of my Outside Inn blog photos, they're edited, organized and usually have a purpose.  Whereas the family photos are just small glimpses of life, that don't always have a end goal and I know that if I don't share them and some of their context, they'll get lost.  So the photo above is from a family picnic with s'mores for dessert.  

We had a heat wave last week and got into pool season.  My favorite tid bit was the conversation Josh had with my mom about the ice cream (b/c she has somehow decided that after swimming they always get ice cream, but because it's early days she didn't actually have any in her freezer).  So Josh says, "Nana, we're coming over to go swimming, did you get any ice cream?"  "No." To which Josh replies with complete seriousness, "Well you can go get some at the store."  I love that fact that while he was being rude, he saw the problem, saw the solution and didn't realize that demanding that someone go out for ice cream at that minute was something that isn't socially acceptable.

Homework.  Josh was working on some math problems in these photos.  He's definitely got a little math brain, amazing to see him work through problems.

Camp Augusta.  Dan's in Colorado this week and Ben left him a voice mail that went something like this, "Hi Dad, we're going to Camp Augusta and we're very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very excited."  I caught Josh's second swing on the pendulum swing and his little eyes when he dropped looked like they were going to pop out of his head, that look of sheer terror and excitement at the same time.

Playing Sorry at the breakfast table this morning.  The part that I like best about this photo is that the boys are sharing one chair.

Ben dressed for his field trip to Malakoff Diggins in a leather shirt that was originally Dan's dad's.

And the last photo is a collage put together of some of my local photos for an upcoming photography show I'm doing here in town. Wish me luck!