El Capitan In Photos

This took way too long to get all of these pictures up... so writing seemed daunting... somehow it was less so if I told myself I didn't have to write in paragraph form.

It was so fun.

Kind of cold in the mornings, perfect in the afternoons.

Which is dreamy to me because I live in an oven. Remember?

Except when I had a fever and couldn't warm up and had to sit in the bottom of the tiny hot shower for like an hour at 6am.

I couldn't get enough family.

Or enough little crispy chocolate chip TJ's cookies.

Or enough of Ian's camp cooking.

Or enough of the wise old trees.

The beach was gorgeous.

Besides the tar stuck to all of our feet. Eww.

We hung.

We ate.

We had s'mores around the fire.

The cousins ran around, jumped off of logs, explored, climbed trees, rode bikes, went for hikes.

We woke up with cold noses.

And didn't brush our hair for three days.

A success.

Seven months and eating solids

It's official. These pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago when it wasn't quite as official. He was spitting more out than he was taking down. Maybe that's why he still looks a bit skeptical above. But today he ate a whole jar and a half, which seemed like a feast. His little spirit fingers went wild and his wrists and ankles did a thousand circles... which is what happens when he's excited. And I didn't have to trick him by waiting for him to open his mouth for something more appetizing like his fists, before I snuck it in.

He's really eating people food. Whipped into an inedible consistency of course, but people food still. And for the third time, I feel kind of scared, then amazed, then relieved... when I remember that the goal IS to raise them-- which means they evolve, and that eventually they have to eat like the rest of us. And not only smell like sweet (ok-- or sour) breast milk. And even though his nose might turn orange from too many carrots, and his wildly colorful spit-up will be so much more dangerous for my upholstery, and all bets are off on just how nasty his poop will smell... I somehow feel a little safer knowing that I'm not the only one that can keep him alive.

Excuse me while I take up 2 weeks of blogging with vacation catch-up

MY beautiful nephew, baby Isaac.

After Newport... we dragged Lacy and Joe and kids back to our house for a few days of fun. Above, we did the usual hotel-pool-borrowing. And the iphone documentation.

They actually slept like this. For part of the night at least. Before Millie melted down past bed time and ended up in one of the beds, and then Sophia came to us in the middle of the night complaining about Joseph's feet being in her face and ended up in the other one. But it was just too cute to me, we got the air mattress ready on the girls' floor.... and of course it looked WAY too fun for just Millie and Joseph. They were all so excited to sleep together on it. ...

Or I thought they were 'till I looked at this photo again... maybe it was just my kids crowding yours, Lace? Look at their faces. "uhh... what are they doing in our bed?" Either way, it felt so good that they were old enough to pile into a room like cousins should.

Below: On a day-trip up to Idyllwild. Most of the pictures are in the Red Kettle where we ate lunch because... we didn't do much more. Turns out not much was open after that. Slow season I guess? And it was still pretty hot up the mountain, so the kids wore out fast. So maybe we did drive an hour plus for burgers and shaved ice. Note, it's more fun to go to Idyllwild during the winter. Thank goodness for really great company. And thank goodness kids don't care if they get to pick a toy from the charming little vintage toy shop in an old town, or Walgreens by our house.

Both of my girls are really into posing for the camera right now. Have you noticed? I'm really thinking I should be taking advantage of it. I've had big plans for a real "shoot" with them some day. And I just know that by the time I get around to it, they'll both hate the camera again. Just wait.