Worm's World - July 2012

Josh's brother Worm came to play with us for a week this July, and man did we exhaust ourselves having fun!  With the 4th of July falling on a Wednesday, the celebrations started the weekend before and ended the weekend after, so it's been a long 9+ days of celebrating, and that's on top of having a guest.  Started off the week with lots of surfing and playing on our friend Dan's boat, then there were fireworks on the 4th, more boating, golfing, frisbee golf, volleyball, concerts, BBQ's, Smokers, and dinner parties. Hard to believe you can even fit all that in in one week.  Unfortunately I didn't do a very good job of capturing many of Worm's activities on film, but I swear, he was there.  It's been great having Worm around though, and fun to spend some quality one on one time together, and Josh was happy to have his brother around to play with.  Come back soon Worm!

Dan stretched out in the sun looking like the perfect jeans model!

Josh hanging on a boat and enjoying some live music at the Commons Beach Sunday Night Concert series.

On our boat cruise to the jumping rocks in Rubicon Bay we found this crazy water pillow.  One guy jumps off the cliff and catapults another guy off the pillow into the water.  It was pretty cool!

Josh and Worm paddle boarding to Obexers to pick up breakfast. They were a little shaky at first and we were worried our burritos would get wet, but thankfully the trip was successful!

Photographic proof: Josh finally got up, stayed up, and successfully made surfing turns!

After our volleyball game, Marco and Anna showed the kids how to have horse races...Anna sure is strong to have a big guy like Marco on her back!

Looks like they couldn't keep it up to the finish though, kids win!

Don't they make a cute horse couple!

Marco, Anna, Worm, Kevin, and Josh enjoying a picnic dinner at the free Brett Denin concert at Squaw.

After many years of getting my pearl buttoned cowboy shirt ripped off at the Marco Rocks BeaverFests, I had a small bit of sweet revenge as I ripped Marco's off him!!  (Too bad the revenge really needed to be aimed at Chelsea, Lizard, and Foop, but I decided that getting Marco was sort of appropriate anyway.)

A Little Family and R&R Time in Carmel - 6/23/12

Josh and I headed down to Carmel during my vacation.  It was the first time we've been there since my Aunt Lucy and Uncle Bob moved into their new house in Monterey and my other Aunt Joanne settled into her new abode as well.  We had a lovely weekend checking out their places, catching up, playing golf, and riding bikes.  We found a great new mountain bike ride in the Fort Ord wilderness area, but didn't get any pictures from that.  And we had a fun scenic ride down the coast from Pacific Groove to Spanish Bay (see pictures below).  It was really fun weekend, and thank you to everyone for being such great hosts!

Josh riding along the ocean.

Pretty artichoke flower in the garden at Mom's house in Fairfield.

Lovely outdoor dinner with Joanne up on the terrace at Rocky Terrace

Joanne has made lots of great renovations in the back yard of Rocky Terrace.

Hanging out with Lucy in the awesome oak treed yard at their new house.

Awesome ride along the coast.

K & J having fun on bikes.

Who knew Carmel was a Tsunami Zone!?

Pretty views.

He doesn't smile, but I know he enjoyed the ride!

Lassen Annual Ski Trip 2012 - 6/1/12

For the first time in several years, we were down to our core A-Team crew as we descended on the Lassen Volcanic National Park for our annual ski  and camping extravaganza.  As always we were at the mercy of the road crews to get the road open, and it wasn't until the day we left that we could actually confirm that the road would indeed be open!  Therefore, only the core crew was able to jump to it on such short call...John and Stacia, Ryan and Biby, and Me and Josh.  But we sure did have a blast!  The corn snow was superb, totally smooth and sun-cup free (thanks to the last storm on Memorial Day we surmised) and the camping was gorgeous.  Last year we thought we had the best campsite, but this year we topped it!  Still located in a free and "primitive" area, right on the creek, but this time we found a lot more tree cover and no obstructions to our creek views and access.  It was awesome for sure.  A great time was had by all.

Biby and Stacia helping Kishka get cozy up in the camp chair...talk about a spoiled dog!

 

 

We went to great lengths to mark our hidden campsite for our other friends...too bad they never showed up!

John, Ryan, Stacia, Josh, and Katharine getting ready to hit the trail.

Cool frozen pond in the middle of the snow field.

Josh was such a trooper...did the whole hike in huge pain from his broken toe...clearly this is not an event to be missed!

Looking down on Josh from the top of the world!

John and Stacia hiking up near the top.

John and Ryan celebrating a successful summiting.

Yay, Josh made it...good view looking down!

Josh, Stacia, and John smiling after skiing great corn on the top pitch!

The Transues ripping up Lassen!

The final hike out through the rock smash.

Celebrating around the campfire after a great day of skiing...our campsite was so cool with the ring of trees surrounding the campfire ring of rocks.

Pitched our tents right next to the creek.

Such a great spot with no one anywhere nearby!

Ryan gobbling up some soup from his tramp-style bucket!

It doesn't count as burning a flag when it's made in Belgian cardboard right?

Biby and Ryan having a little romantic time while relaxing over the creek.

Day 2 no one else wanted to ski, so I charged up the southwest facing pitch overlooking the parking lot on my own.

2 laps of some great steep corn snow...it was awesome, and with minimal exertion!

Looking down the top part of the pitch I skied, notice the parking lot way in the distance.

Looking up at the pitch I skied...First lap was just to the top of the snowline on the right, second lap I went all the way to the top of the little snow patch just under the top rocks!

Camping and Biking Season Opener 5/19/12

We headed back up to the Graeagle area again this weekend, this time to go camping on Goose Lake at the top of Gold Mountain.  Our group consisted of me and Josh, John and Stacia, and our friend Evan.  We camped on a little peninsula that stuck right out into the lake, so we had water on all three sides around our campsite, and we had the whole place to ourselves.  There was a ton of mountain biking right nearby, so with our bikes and our kayaks in tow, we were all set for a great weekend!  Everything was tons of fun, the company was great, and the weather was perfect...only hitch was a broken toe for poor Josh after smashing it on a rock mid-pedal on our first day mountain bike ride (it was a very rocky and technical ride)!

John, Kishka, Stacia, and Evan getting their campfire on!

Kishka snuggling in her little down doggie bag!

Keeping warm in our Outdoor Snuggies courtesy of Aunt Joanne!

Somewhere mid-campfire session, we finally noticed that millions of these little larvae were coming up out of the ground all around us...everyone got a little tweaked out, to say the least, and Evan even moved his tent up to the "safe ground" next to the outhouse after finding several of these critters on his pillow!

Josh, John, and Evan keeping warm by the fire on a cold morning.

Relaxing mid-ride at the vista point.

We did an extra little detour up the ridge for a look down at Smith Lake...Even enjoying the view.

Katharine, Josh, Kishka, Stacia, and John happy to be back on the bikes for another season...Josh really was happy, can't imagine why he doesn't look like it!

Another view of Smith Lake.

Back at camp, out tent was right on the shore of Goose Lake.

The camp kitchen and campfire were also right on the water...that's the beauty of a peninsula!

After a long, hard ride we took the kayaks out for a relaxing paddle around the lake...water was smooth and glassy.

Sitting down for a friendly game of Uno...or was it friendly??

Evan was the Master of Tea Ceremony all weekend...the fancy teas he brewed up were so amazing!

Gorgeous views of Long Lake on the day 2 ride.

It was a little too snowy to ride for most of the ride unfortunately, but that was good news for Kishka, who was all to happy to roll in snow!

John and Evan taking a little break after a long hike.

John and Stacia looking out over Long Lake.

Johnny and his ladies.

And the broken toe looking very purple!