a visit to rexford

What could possible be so great as to merit flying across the country (on a red-eye, no less) with two high-energy munchkins?

A visit to Grandma and Grandpa, of course!Upon arrival, we were a haggard (not like Ted) and disheveled bunch, but Pippin's enthusiastic welcome perked us up.

We timed the visit to coincide with the MD Grossmans and the boys had tons of fun frolicking around with their cousin Joey, who provides his own report here.



That's Uncle Josh rescuing Levi from the pond.



Apart from frolicking, favorite activities included boating on the Mohawk and the Alplaus, going to the great playground at Glencliff Elementary, reading Kipling's Just-So Stories, and getting ice cream at Stewarts.

It was HOT! We sought relief from the sprinkler-- something we can't (or at least shouldn't) do here in CA.

gothics

Following our precious one night at Putnam Camp, we scored tickets for the exclusive Ausable Bus and got a ride up the Lake Road to the start of the trail. At the start of the ascent we passed Beaver Meadow falls:
Then we climbed. Steeply.
After a sustained climb of about 3000' we reached the summit, which was partially shrouded in swirling fog.On the return, we cruised along the ridge, picking up Armstong and Upper Wolfjaw before beginning the descent in earnest. The like the climb, the descent was STEEP. Watch Amy shrink into a speck in this sequence of photos taken from the same spot on the trail:
Overall the trip was deemed fun and worthwhile, especially because it elevated Amy to the peakbagging status of "ten-er", but it quite strenuous, reminding me of why I got into such great shape when I spent the summer in the area.

As is typical of these hikes, Amy reached her "fun quotient" a few miles before we finished. This shows how she felt towards the end of the long walk out:
Or, more accurately, this:

pc is the place to be

During our visit at the beginning of the month, Grandma and Grandpa were generous enough to allow us to escape to Putnam Camp unencumbered by dependents:

play-doh shabbat

The artist:

imperial theme

Our boys at play:

Levi copies whatever Micah does. In this case it's singing the imperial theme from star wars. He's turned into quite a mimic and picks up words almost instantaneously. He is very free with hi and bye, dog, cat, truck, ball, bird, grandpa, phone ('bum'), and hot ('ha'). Tonight he was playing with some ice-water at dinner and he picked up 'cold' from us immediately.

santa paula punchbowl

In late July, we took Micah, along with his friend Lauren and her dad, Jeremy, plus my friend Dave, visiting from PA, for his second trip to the Punchbowl in Santa Paula Canyon. As expected we saw plenty of garbage and graffiti, but despite warnings (see the second page of comments) we managed to make it there and back safely without needing sidearms. The pool has partially filled with sediment, but it was still a nice hike.

tree-lunking

The entrance:Micah and Soren head in:
In the burnt-out bowels of the tree:Coming back out:
An actual cave (of rock):

big trees

Did we mention that Sequoia has some big trees?
The largest (non-clonal) organism in the world:

Also, did we mention that Nanny and Pop-pop rode up and joined us for Saturday night? It was great seeing them. Thanks for making the haul-- seven hours on a (motor)bike! We hope to have some of Pop-pop's pictures to add soon.
All that running, mugging and climbing is pretty taxing. Fortunately we brought baby crack:
Ahhhhhh!

sequoia excursions

This nice little pool is right above the Lodgepole campground in Sequoia.

Moriah and Soren:Micah and Matisse:Group shot:
Despite being dwarfed by the giant sequoias, lodgepole pines are still enormous.
We also climbed Moro Rock. Hopefully we'll soon be able to post some of the Buckleys' pictures-- we forgot the camera.

camping in sequoia

Back in February Amy said, "Let's go camping this summer". Much to our surprise, we had our pick of campsites in the Lodgepole campground in Sequoia National Park in August. Last weekend we finally made the trip. We were lucky enough to be joined by our good friends the Buckleys from up North. They made for great company.
That's Levi and Soren (1.5 yrs) chilling in their camp chairs. When that picture was taken, Micah and his buddy Matisse (3.9 yrs) were probably off building polar bear caves or fighting armies using sticks as guns. The boys had a lot of fun

and even were helpful:

As Tom Smothers said, "Some kind of help is the kind of help that helpings all about and some kind of help is the kind of help...that we all could do without!"

Our site sat right above the Marble Fork of the Kaweah River
Having outgrown our tiny 2-person backpacking tent, we got a new, six-person tent (thanks G&G) that can accommodate all of us. It even has 2 rooms! Here's the view we woke up to from it:The backpacking tent has been downgraded to the "play tent":

What did Micah see in the campfire?

Mythology informs his everyday existence--he is so steeped in it. Ironically, he found the marshmallows to disgusting to eat after roasting them and his preferred 'smores recipe was a cold piece of chocolate on a graham cracker, hold the marshmallow.