Lenkaland

This weekend we escaped for an overnight get-away, visiting cousins who live by this lake.  The lake was a challenge to photograph because the sun was so-very bright.  A cold wind whipped up off the water, but you couldn’t tell by the flashing blue.  Not a glimspe of snow in any direction, which is unusual for this time of year.  The ski resorts are not pleased.

But the kids were plenty pleased on the playground.  Ian was glad to be done with the long, long car ride (really only an hour).  We’re inspired to visit more often.  My cousins better watch out

Ian’s new delight is cars.  He loves his cars.  He picks them based on a very important feature.

Orange.  They must have orange.  The white truck came in the same set.  I think he gave it to his cousin

We walked out on the dock, bundled against the icy wind which felt odd next to the sun drenched sky and sparkling water.  We didn’t stay long because the wind drove us away.  And the kids wanted toys.  Adventures to be found at our cousin’s house.  The weekend was off to a bright start.

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Another lovely day, though the chilly winds arrived earlier. More good times with cousins in the sunshine. We found an interesting beach sculpture. Much laughing. Stories shared. Good times.

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Merry Christmas and happy Boxing Day! We continue the holiday adventures with a trip to Santa Cruz. My aunties and cousins are here to (not all of them, but enough to make it a party). What better way to celebrate winter than a trip to the beach? We lucked out, too, because the sun is shining and the water sparkles. A December treat.

I know the photo sizes are a bit off here. I’m posting from the hotel. Many thanks to my dear husband for getting the camera-connection-kit so I can share all this goodness right away. You rock.

And I wish you and yours a very happy holiday season!

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I am the luckiest on earth.  I got to spend the day with these two kids:

We had a fun day.  Anika has Fall Break this week (no school!).  I figured a day trip would be my big adventure for the week.  So we drove an hour to Bishop’s Pumpkin farm, which has way more than just pumpkins.  We started with a healthful lunch of pizza and nachos.  It’s vacation!

My favorite part was her announcement, “This is the best lunch ever!”  I’ll remind her when she starts asking for fancy restaurants

We climbed aboard a hay-strewn trailer to ride out to the pumpkin patch.  Pulled by a tractor, it was a great way to travel!

The search for the perfect pumpkins began . . .

Triumph!  A perfect pumpkin!  Thank goodness he liked a small one.  That dry vine was tough to get broken off that tiny pumpkin, though!

Anika’s perfect pumpkin.

Very quickly, Ian’s pumpkin became an awesome gun.

They both liked green-streaked pumpkins this year.

Ian stood up on the drive back, wind in his hair, facing the future.  I had him sit for the bumpy section, but it seemed so fun, I couldn’t make him sit the whole way.

They also had these wild squash that we wanted to turn into octopus jack-o-lanterns.  But we’re on a tight budget so we left that project to our imagination.

Lovely autumn sunshine.

Anika and Ian set up shop in the old-town Dead End Saloon.  They waited patiently for customers.

Ian’s favorite activity was a rusted old tractor that he could climb and move the bars.  He was “shooting bad guys” of course.

The field of giant pumpkins.  We didn’t even try to bring one of these big ones home.

When I wondered why I made this big effort, why I dealt with the heat and the noise and the hectic-ness of the day . . .

I stopped wondering.  I know why.

Our time together is our most precious gift.

After all, they grow so fast!

Luckily I still get to enjoy Ian’s “CHEESE” face

And his pig impression.

We got to brush patient goats.

Then we found the hay-covered trampolines.  A strange entertainment to me, but the kids loved it!  We spent ages as they ran and tossed the straw in the air.

And made straw angels!

A beautiful sunset

And back home again:)

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When life invites me to dance, I dance.

As best I can, of course.

Or I make it possible for others to dance.

Anika dances with the ocean.

We gave Monika a ride back to her family.  I thought we’d be in Monterey a day at the most.  But it just so happened that a family friend was off on vacation, and she had a little dog that would be lonely, and would we like to housesit?

I had to rearrange a few things, but the extra days were awesome.  I’ll be writing more about our adventures.  I have a couple 100 pictures to share .

For now we’re home again.  Ian has his Pirate Lego again.  And he shouts “Play me” every few minutes.  Again.

All sorts of invitations to dance.  Tonight, with pirates

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I played with iMovie last night. My Kodak PlaySport (Zx3) HD Waterproof Camera takes great video, but I get issues with the sound going muffled and strange.  Water covers the microphone, I think.  I try to wipe it off, but I still get chunks of movie with unpleasant noise.  I needed a way to dub over the video.  I found these fun film trailor templates in iMovie and hoped I could put one together between settling in and playing with the kids.  Sure enough, easy peasy, just import my videos and drag sections that I like into parts of the storyboard.

I’m making one for our little hike, now.  Pretty fun!  Soon we’ll all have movie studios!  :)

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The less I write, the harder it becomes to write.  The stories jumble up.

The big things.  School finished.  My camera broke (bummer).  I’m feeling much better (super-hurrah!).  Though I’m in that place where I feel like I should be back to my old self, I still get hard reminders that, no, not there yet.  Sudden crashes or insistance that I refocus on healing.

But we just returned from a week vacation in Tahoe.  Lovely days.  And I miss collecting our stories.  I miss you.

Ian found me.  Sleepy boy is a mischevious boy.  Off to play Angry Birds with him until it’s time for bedtime stories.

Our family in sunny Tahoe.  *Taken with a Canon point-and-shoot.  Good job, Mom!

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Spring break! Means I visit my to-do list and try to whittle it down to a managable size. Haha! Anyway, I noticed photo-files spiraling out of control. If I don’t stay on top of them, the mountain becomes an . . . Everest. Which I will never climb. Because I don’t want to climb Everest. Too cold. I don’t want my photo collection to become scary-giant-size.

Besides, look what I discovered!

We visited Santa Cruz in mid-December with my Mom.  Happy times.  Who want to lose happy times?

Not me!

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I’m way behind on posts here .  Photos and stories are stacking up.  This past weekend, my aunt treated us to a weekend at the Embassy Suites.  We’d never stayed in one before, so it was a brand-new adventure.  Her daughter, Monika, is a great friend for my kiddos.  She took them on endless laps around the balconies.  We visited with my cousin who is expecting a baby any day now and shared stories and excitement for the big birth-day.  A welcome break from the everyday.

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We had a mini-trip planned for Friday night. My cousin/best friend who is expecting a baby next month was renting a cabin for her husband’s birthday so we thought we’d come share the fun a little while since Tahoe is about an hour from here.

Five hours into the drive as snow tumbled from an ink-black sky and red-tailights shone along the white road and we sat dead-stopped 5.8 miles from our destination, I catalogued what we had in the car. Blankets, check, food. . . do rice-krispie treats count?

When Anika asked, Are we going to be here all night? it didn’t seem like a far-fetched question anymore. After all, we drove past Donner Lake, site of a terrible winter tragedy.  But I didn’t tell Anika that story.

We made it through in the end.  And the cabin had ten feet of snow around it.  Luckily they had dug a canyon to the front door by the time we arrived.  We visited with cousins and celebrated our crazy day.  We stayed Saturday night, too, because getting on the roads again sounded like too much adventure for two days.  We didn’t leave the cabin once.  The snow was soft enough that I didn’t worry about slipping and hurting myself too much.  But I sure will never live where it’s really snowy.  Too much work

Luckily by Sunday, the roads were dry, the sky blue with fluffy clouds, and the adventure left us with happy memories.

We made leprechauns on Saturday with Anika, Theo, and Ian.  Fun!

Snowball fight!

Giant icicles!

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