She Knits Shizknits

one last trip before school starts....

The Summer of Fun ended with a quick trip out of town to Big Bear.  Friends were gracious enough to lend us the use of their cabin, so we made the 1 1/2 hour trip to the local mountains with plans for fishing, hiking, and bike riding.

We left after attending an early-afternoon pool party for another friend, so we didn't get to Big Bear till around 5pm on Saturday. The small men did great on the trip, despite the curvy mountain roads. It might have helped that we set up a laptop with movies for them to watch (I don't have a built-in DVD player in the Funbus). They were paying more attention to the movie than the curves so we only had to stop at a turnout once to let their tummies settle.

Since we arrived a bit late, we just had time to unpack and eat dinner at the local Mexican food joint before going back to the cabin to crash for the night. I must have been tired because I was asleep by 10:30pm....which is usually when I am getting my second wind at home!

Sunday morning, we woke up bright and early for our fishing adventure. The small men have never been fishing, but they were really excited to try their hands at it. We went to Alpine Trout Lakes, since it was supposed to be a great place for the kids to catch fish.  They stock the small lake (more of a pond) with lots and lots of BIG trout, then give you poles and bait....unfortunately there had been some flash flooding the night before, so the lake was really muddy.  The guys running the stand warned us that the fish were having a hard time breathing, much less seeing and eating bait, so we didn't have a very good chance of catching anything. But the small men wanted to try anyways, so we rented our poles, got our bait and dip net, and headed off to the lake.

It was early so we practically had the whole place to ourselves.

Our fishing adventure started on this dock. The Dearest showed the small men how to cast...

Then we gave each of them a pole and let them try it for themselves.

We had allocated only two hours for our fishing adventure, since we thought the small men would get bored quickly.

That turned out not to be the case...despite the muddy water and non-cooperative fish, both Monkey Boy and Little Man were having ball. MB needed some help with the 'winding'- he was so much smaller than his pole that his arms were getting tired when he tried to reel in the bait. So the Dearest helped him out...

After five hours of fishing without a single bite, MB was still having fun:

And so was Little Man...

Neither of them wanted to leave, but they were satisfied when the Dearest promised to buy them their own poles and a tackle box and take them fishing at the lake close to our home.  I was very surprised at how much they enjoyed fishing even though we didn't catch anything.

We stopped by the cabin long enough for a quick wash up, and then headed out to Big Bear Lake to find a place for the small men to ride their bikes. They wanted to find 'jumps'- this being the sticks, it was pretty easy to find a few trails where the locals had dug some little BMX-style ramps.

MB was up first...he needed a bit of help going up the hill as it was pretty steep...

Then the Dearest let go and it was all up to MB and gravity:

Look at him go!

I especially like the grin on his face....

Doesn't it say "determination", "speed freak" and.....GET OUT OF THE WAY, MOM!

Notice how the grin is even bigger now that he's practically ready to run me over??? Then it was Little Man's turn. As a member of the First Born Club, LM is decidedly more cautious: But he gives it his best try... You can see just how concerned he is about making it down this hill... Even when he's at the bottom.... I also realized that LM sticks his tongue out when concentrating....which is something I also do!

After the small men were done jumping, we went for a short hike around the lake. Then it was time to head back to the cabin for dinner, a showing of "The Jungle Book", baths and bedtime for the littles. The Dearest and I stayed up late to watch Stardust, which I highly recommend, especially if you liked LOTR or Princess Bride.

 We woke up this morning, grabbed a couple of granola bars and got on the road ASAP in an effort to avoid the Labor Day traffic. Luckily we made it home in record time, despite Monkey Boy upchucking his breakfast less than 15 minutes after we started down the hill. Thank goodness I have an extra carseat in the back of the Funbus...we cleaned MB up, threw the nasty clothes and shoes into a plastic bag (I *always* travel with extra plastic bags LOL), switched seats and got back on the road. There were a couple more tummy-taming stops on turnouts before we managed to make it to the highway, but no more barfing. Yay!

The best part? We got home in time for the small men to join the other neighborhood kids in closing  the waterslide season. Our neighbors had pulled out the waterslide again and as soon as we got home, the boys threw on their suits and jumped into line. After a couple of hours of sliding, we were all ready for the day to end.

Tomorrow is Little Man's first day as a first grader- I can't believe it! (I'm prolly going to be saying that at the start of every school year!) So I'm off to bed now, since I have to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn to walk him to school. G'night!

a weekend in the country

One of the Dearest's brothers, Workman,  owns a little cabin in the mountains near Lake Isabella, about four hours' drive from our home. Workman emailed us last Thursday night and asked if we'd like to take the small men up for a visit. The Dearest asked me about it around 11pm Thursday and after realizing that we had nothing planned for the weekend or this week, we made the decision to take an impromptu trip to the sticks.

Friday morning was a  whirlwind of preparation: we couldn't take the Funbus because the road to the cabin is dirt, rutted and quite steep. So we packed all our stuff into the Subie and picked up Little Man from his last day of VBS, then started our drive. For the record, we didn't make it more than 20 minutes before Monkey Boy asked, "Are we there yet?"

Thank goodness the Dearest had brought his laptop and some movies for the kids to watch. That worked pretty well to keep them happy till we got to Mohave. Then the road became more twisty, windy and puke-inducing. Luckily we made it all the way to the cabin with just many complaints of achey tummys and one false alarm stop.

Workman, who was cleaning out his recently-purchased house down the hill, came up to greet us after we had unpacked and settled in.  The small men were instantly in love with Uncle Workman's Ranch. The Dearest and I took to calling it "Workman's Adventureland"....so much dirt!  So many old pieces of machinery! Lizards! I-beams as windchimes! Winches! Motorcycles!  Tractors!  What more could any boy ask for????

The cabin has a nice view of valley, complete with the requisite junker cars and old crap piled up around it.

I was able to get a photo of Workman, the Dearest and the small men all together, with Lake Isabella in the background...

(not sure about the look on Workman's face....! LOL) If you look closely, you can see that Monkey Boy already has a piece of found rope around his shoulders, and both boys are wearing special gloves that Workman gave them so they could play around the cabin.

Monkey Boy decided that he would play with this old jackhammer, while Little Man found a huge pipe threader...

Workman and his wife Mo have had the cabin for years, going up every few weeks to stay for a month or so. Since he works in the movie industry, Workman gets extended periods of downtime between movies- that's when he comes up to the ranch to decompress. He's a dynamo- constantly in motion and capable of improvising the craziest contraptions to make things work.  He and Mo have a sense of humor about living in 'the country', as they are still city-folk at heart.

He showed the small men what they could and couldn't play with around the cabin, then we took a break for dinner. The sun was setting by the time we finished eating so we went up onto the "viewing deck" to watch it go down.

Handrails? Who needs handrails in the country?

It's a great view, as long as you stay three feet back from the edge!

The next morning we headed up to the Trail of 100 Giants so the small men could see the giant sequoias. After a twisty, turn-y one hour drive, we arrived at the trailhead.

We took the 1/2 mile Trail through the forest and marveled at the all the huge, ancient trees.

Photos do not do justice to the size of these amazing trees. It's hard to judge their size until you see people standing up against them. The small men found this huge stump...

Little Man thought this pinecone was "as big as my head"...

There was a lot of climbing on stumps,
 

Jumping onto rocks...

Photo opps inside giant trees...

And finding of "moss"...

We passed by this giant rootball from a fallen sequoia to take a photo.

We have a photo of the Dearest and me kissing at this same exact spot, waaaaay before we had kids or were even married. I'll have to print this photo out and put it in a frame with the other one! We even had time for a quick family portrait.

We had a picnic lunch before driving back down the mountain to the cabin. Luckily both the small ones fell asleep for the drive down so we didn't have to worry about upset stomachs with all the mountain switchbacks.

By the time we got back to the cabin, Workman had pulled out the dirt bikes.  Of course the small men clamored to get on and go for a ride.

Yes, I know no one in these pictures is wearing a helmet. In the city, our rule is "if it has wheels, you need to wear a helmet to ride it". City rules don't make it out to the country, I guess! At any rate, no one was hurt and the small men loved riding the dirt bike.

That night the Dearest made his signature tri-tip for dinner. Workman's wife, Mo, had driven up while we were gone, and she joined us for dinner.  S'mores were cooked up for dessert while we waited for it to be dark enough to go up on the roof and look at the stars.  The small men eventually got their first real look at a starry night sky. Little Man tried to count the stars and gave up after "22 gazzillion". We were lucky enough to see several falling stars, too. Then it was time for two very sleepy little boys to get into bed, as it was nearly two hours past their normal bedtime.

The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast and the small men did some frog catching with the Dearest while I started packing up the car for our trip home. Monkey Boy was *so* excited to catch a frog, can you tell?

After letting frogs go back to their home in the water meter, we put the small men into the car and got back on the road. The drive back was four hours door-to-door, despite having to stop several times for unexpected potty trips (can I say how much easier it is for boys to do the road-side emergency pee than girls???). All in all, a great first trip to the country. The small ones can't wait to go back and play in the dirt some more!