Monterey

Early this month we were able to travel to Monterey, CA for the California Farm Bureau Annual Meeting. This country girl had to adjust to driving in heavy traffic, having the help of a bell man, and valet parking. You can laugh, it's OK. There's something to be said though for being able get something out of the pickup with out having to call someone to bring it to you. By the time our stay was over I was getting used to it, but our trip did give me the opportunity to be thankful for a long list of things I've grown accustom to living out here in the sticks.



My parents were able to meet us in Monterey for a little vacation of their own. We spent the better part of a day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Hannah and Helena are enjoying looking at sea horses and other sea creatures.



In one exhibit you could look up and see a whole school of "saltines" as Hannah called them, swimming around in a circle. They are sardines to the rest of us. She's always good for a laugh.



The jellyfish were my favorite exhibit.


We got to see penguins amongst several other animals.



Oh, look! Two penguin babies just hatching from their egg!



The girls enjoyed playing in the "coral reef." Hannah is dressed as clown fish "swimming" through the reef.


This was Hannah's favorite part of the aquarium. Can you tell? This was a three-sided glass room that a wave crashed over every so often. Helena wasn't too sure what to think of it.



Through a comedy of errors, misinformation and assumptions we ended up playing right next to the wharf after spending too much time looking for lighthouses. I guess we weren't meant to visit a lighthouse because the two closest to the bay were closed. We needed some time on the beach anyway and it was a beautiful day for it. We played on the beach while Memaw Mary and Papa Lee kayaked on the bay.


It looks like Helena for once is telling Hannah what to do, and Hannah doesn't look like she likes it. But I don't really know what was going on here, I just thought it was kind of funny.


Ben and I spent our 8th anniversary in Monterey and driving home. We were both so busy getting ready for the trip that we forgot to get each other a card. Here was my attempt at making up for my forgetfulness.


It was a great trip but boy were we glad to be home!

The Tree

It's been way too long since I made a blog post. My main excuse is that we have been really busy. Here's the beginning of an attempt to catch up.

Every year we go out and cut down a Christmas tree. We normally don't go anywhere for Thanksgiving and do it that Friday or Saturday. We were fortunate to get to spend time in Chico and Sacramento this year with Ben's family. We also don't normally leave town in December, which we did this year. I suggested I just buy a tree in town. Ben suggested we wouldn't have a tree if we had to buy it in town. So I conceded and we went out tree hunting on Sunday afternoon with a "it's now or never" attitude. We were due to leave town in a week and I was worried it would snow so much we wouldn't be able to get one.

Here's Hannah making a snow angel. She hasn't quite mastered the leg swing to make the skirt on the angel so I guess for now she'll be making boy angels with pants.

Helena and I after picking our tree. She didn't love our adventure into the woods. I think not long after we parked the pickup she and Hannah got rolled out of the sled into the snow. It was all downhill from there.

Hannah loves to have snowball fights. Here she's playing with Memaw Mary while Memaw lets her win.

There was a lot of snow this year at the lower elevations. We think some of the prettier trees are higher on the mountain but this year we had to settle for the best we could find. Hannah really got into decorating the tree this year.

Helena also tried to help decorate, but only after eating chocolate and markers.

Here's the tree in all of it's glory on Christmas morning. It leans a little but that just shows that it has been well loved by several little kids.

Hiking Petroglyph Bluff

We went hiking again yesterday before a storm blew in here. The girls' friend Maggie had been begging her mommy all summer to hike up this hill. They were kind enough to invite us along for the adventure. Here are the girls all bundled up for the hike. It wasn't that cold but it was kind of windy.

The girls and I all ready to go.



It is a fairly steep hike but is short. Hannah made sure we stopped for several breaks. We did finally make it to the top.

Hannah sitting on a rock "wall" overlooking the valley.

The girls and I.

They found this cool rock they could climb inside. Many of the rocks up there had very large holes in them.

Hannah coming out the top of the rock. She was willing to serve ice cream cones to any of us that wanted one. Maggie was the only one that took her up on the offer.

Helena crawling around underneath the rock.

We have really enjoyed our hiking this month. I look forward to doing some more short hikes on mild days this fall and winter.

Wildlife Refuge

The troops were getting restless around here. All work and no play was making this bunch of girls a little on the cranky side. I decided that we were going to do something different today. Anything! As plans settled into place for the day I decided a trip to the wildlife refuge was the thing to do.

The first thing we planned to do was hike the Sheepy Ridge Wildlife Trail. We didn't see much wildlife, or maybe it's that we scare away everything before we even get to see it. Here's Hannah at the trail head. This is the first trail she has ever completed without being pushed or packed. It was short but quite steep.


Proof that there was a Mama pack mule carrying Helena, water and snacks.

The arrow shows the stone "lookout" that is the trail's end. Its construction was completed in 1938 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as a place to observe the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge.

Here's another view.
We made it!

Here's the view from the lookout. The small wetland area in the foreground is the Discovery Marsh where we walked before heading home. The water in the background is Tule Lake.

Hannah wasn't much for spending time in the lookout. We were there for about two minutes and she was ready to come back down. We took a look through the visitor's center and then walked around Discovery Marsh. It seemed like there weren't very many different kinds of birds there today. I think we will have to make it back again soon. Hannah said she really liked it. So far she has colored in a new wildlife coloring book, drawn a picture of us looking at a Bald Eagle, and taken our new bird identification book with her during her quiet time.

This was a nice place to go that was close to home but Hannah still felt like we went somewhere. Every night she asks me if I'm planning to go town tomorrow. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with her. She wants to go town everyday and I would be perfectly fine without going for months!

Fair Time

Our county fair was last week. It seems as though it is the ONLY thing that happens in our small town all year long. As a result we tend to dive head first into the activity.

Hannah made some entries into the fair for the first time. She painted a picture of a sun and a monkey to enter. She got blue ribbons on both pieces and not to mention a premium check to put in her piggy bank. I entered some photographs and strawberry jam. I was pretty happy with how my entries did.

Saturday of the fair was our big day. Last year the families in our area started a float called Copic Bay Kids. We don't see some of these people much the rest of the year, but this is a chance to come together as neighbors and work together. This year's theme was "Magic on Main Street." It gave us a bit of a challenge but with a little help and a lot of work we came up with a good idea.

"Copic Bay Kids bring you Magic on Main Street"

Watch carefully as the magicians pull little bunnies out of the hat. The girls and I were in the hat. If you were wondering what in the world I could have been doing with the water trough, well here it is as a top hat. With a little welding help from Ben and a lot of hard work, we were able to turn a water trough, some steel, pipe, plastic, and hay bales into a giant top hat. Thanks to everyone that helped make this float possible!

We are the ones on the left. Of course Hannah had her bunny ears on the whole time until we reached Daddy with the camera, when they fell off and I couldn't reach them. Oh well!

Saturday at the fair was also "Tough Enough to Wear Pink" day sponsored/promoted by Wrangler and designed to increase awareness about breast cancer. In support, we decided to incorporate pink into our float rather than red. We were proud to find out that the kids won with their float. We had decided a head of time that if we won anything it would be given to a special little friend that is fighting cancer. All of our hard work paid off and we were so happy to be able to bless him.

Fast forward just over and hour or so and you will find Hannah and I in the show ring for Pee Wee Showmanship. Pee Wee Showmanship is for those kids that are too young to join 4-H but want to have fun showing an animal. We had been bottle feeding Sunshine all spring and summer so she seemed like the perfect animal for Hannah to take. We spent time training her to lead, washing her, and grooming her. Hannah also learned that her calf was a heifer, what she eats, her breed, and some other things.

Photo by The Huffman Family

At this time Hannah is due for a break. She doesn't really want to hold her calf. We had to wait quite awhile to go into the ring and then had to wait quite awhile in the ring.

Photo by The Huffman Family

She did however do what she does best and that is talk. Here's one of the judges asking Hannah questions about her calf. We were proud of Hannah. She placed third in the class for doing such a good job answering her questions. The judges were pleased to see that at three years old she knew that her calf was a Black Angus. And in Hannah style, she made the judges chuckle when she answered her questions. It's tough work, but I'm looking forward to many more years of teaching the girls to show livestock, and learning some myself along the way.

Photo by Cindy Micka Wright

Hannah and I at her first "show."

Photo by The Huffman Family

Hannah had literally been talking about riding the Ferris wheel for a year. Unfortunately she was not tall enough to ride it this year. Hopefully next year. She did find lots of other fun rides to go on with her friends. One Mommy has a stronger stomach than I do, so she offered to take the kids on the Strawberry ride.

We came off of four full days of fair and Hannah immediately started asking when we could go back. I'm sure for the next year our conversations at times will revolve around the fair as we make plans for next year. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Backyard Fishing on the Farm

The girls will be on a float in the parade at our local fair in a couple of weeks. One of the things we needed for the float was a water trough. Stay tuned for fair pictures next month and hopefully it will make sense then. I went out yesterday to drain the trough. I couldn't see any fish but it did occur to me that we had recently put goldfish/feeder fish in it. The other tank of the same size was also inhabited by fish. This one needed to be reset so I elected to take the girls out for fishing adventure today. Our mission was to capture all of the fish and transplant them to the other tank.

I don't know if you can tell but they each have a little pink fishing pole with bobbers on them. Hannah is thrilled to be "fishing." Shhhh....don't tell her you have to have a hook and bait too, to catch fish. After I got hit countless times by the bobber while she was "casting" it into the trough, I was thankful there wasn't a hook on it.


Oh look Mommy netted one!



And Hannah petted one!


Helena is just happy to stand back and watch today. I think she thought it was a little cold to be dipping fish out of the water.

Mr. Bull wonders what in the world we are doing.

Her attention span was not long and she ended up kicking through the puddles. This meant that she got cold and got to spend the remainder of the time in the warm pickup. Poor kiddo!

We would have been done rather quickly but we had some of these guys in there too. I didn't know how many there were and they were the color of the nasty water. The only way to find them was to watch where they swam and stirred up the junk at the bottom of the tank. We were all loaded up to go and Hannah kept telling me that there was another one in there. I kept waiting and looking but never could find it. Finally right before we left I checked again and there was another one. Man, she's right an awful lot!

Loaded, "secure", and ready to be transplanted into the other trough. We caught 15 in all, 10 orange and 5 brown ones. They were added to a tank with four other fish about three times their size. It's probably a bit overpopulated but they will have to wait until after the fair to move back home.

My Quest

I have been trying to get some decent pictures of both of the girls. This has proved to be a little bit challenging. My aunt and uncle had some pictures taken of my cousins at about this age in a grain field and I have always loved them. I thought I would give it a shot last night. We are going to have to go back out because I'm not sure what I was thinking putting Helena in a yellow shirt. She sort of disappears into the grain. Oh, well it was good practice. There are definitely things I could do different next time.

I was happy to finally get a picture of Hannah smiling. I guess the key is to feed her sugar and then have Mommy make kitty sounds while frantically snapping pictures. What ever it takes to get a real smile.

"Camping"

We received a tent and sleeping bags when we got married. I think we have used the tent once and definitely not since having kids. I haven't been brave enough to take the girls camping yet. Call me a wimp if you want, but it just doesn't sound the least bit relaxing. I would like to enjoy my vacations if at all possible. So, an improvised "camping trip" was in order.

Hannah's cousin was up at their Grandparent's house enjoying a camp fire and was planning to sleep under the stars. I thought, we could probably manage a little camping in the back yard.

So, the plan was to set up the tent, go up and roast marshmallows, and then come back down and sleep in the tent. Helena was ready for bed so I put her to bed in the house. Hannah, Ben and I set up the tent and got it all ready.








We roasted our marshmallows and returned home to sleep in the tent. After laying next to Hannah and repeatedly reminding her to close her eyes, she finally fell asleep. It was about this time the neighbor's dog started barking. At some point I managed to get to sleep, that is until I heard Helena over the baby monitor. I raced from the tent to her room to find her Daddy with her, and she was crying "Mama, Mama...." I got her back to sleep, but then I couldn't get back to sleep because of the darn dog barking. About midnight I called for a retreat to the house. I carried a sleeping Hannah to her bed and fell asleep myself. About 5:00 am I woke up to the sound of the spray planes firing up for the morning. This is when I realized I would not have gotten much sleep out there anyway. Hannah woke up the next morning in tears because we weren't in the tent. Next year my dear, next year......