Happy Birthday Honey!

Time flies and Rachel is having another birthday. As we get older, we seem to care less and less to be reminded of our age. However it can be fun to see how much has changed. Here are some pictures of the past and present.

Happy birthday honey!

Backpacking with Kids

Later in the summer I took Benjamin & Emma on a backpacking trip.  We met up with several other families for an overnight outing into the wilderness.  The hike is only 1 mile into the wilderness, but that is enough to get the experience going for the kids.  I'm hoping they will learn to enjoy backpacking as much as I do.

Here we are starting off with the Cushings.  We hiked up the North Fork of Big Pine Creek.



We have a good view of the middle Palisade on the first mile.

Upon arrival, we setup camp and had some dehydrated dinners.  Yum!



Later, other families arrived, such as our friends from Big Pine.



The next day we hiked up to the water falls.  Our visit consisted of throwing rocks into the water and lunch.  The kids all had a great time playing with each other.



So, when is the next backpacking trip going to be with the kids?

First Geocache

For Father's Day, the kids got me some geocaching supplies to that we can place our own  geocaches.  For those who are unfamiliar with geocaching, it involves treasure hunting with a GPS.

We placed our first very own geocache out in the desert south of Ridgecrest.  Check out our cache's page!  Due to some smashed fingers while placing the cache, we named it "Smashed Fingers".

Vacaville

In June we visited the Quains up in Vacaville.  We always love visiting them!  Spencer was giving his missionary farewell talk in Church, so that gave us a good excuse to drive up.

We took our new Rav4 (whose name is "Blue" by the way).  We have the 3rd row option, not that any adult would ever want to sit back there (Spencer knows; he sat back there for too long) but little kids will endure it just fine.  We can fit our whole family in Blue and get much better gas mileage than with our minivan.

We visisted Mount Tamalpais.  I'm still not sure how to pronounce it, so I just say "Mount Tam".  It was weird to think that Percy Jackson was there not too long ago...





[caption id="attachment_1431" align="alignnone" width="450"] Spencer & Henry[/caption]

The roads around here are pretty windy (as in lots of quick turns back and forth - not lots of wind), which means someone always looses their lunch.  This day was no exception.

We also visited the beach.  It was a pretty awesome day for being at the beach in San Fran!  We played and played, making sand creations to funnel water around.  Here is the clan:





On Sunday we got to hear Spencer's talk.  He did a great job.  He will make a wonderful missionary.  After Church we took some pictures in our Sunday clothes.

[caption id="attachment_1435" align="alignnone" width="600"] The Quains[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1436" align="alignnone" width="600"] The Quains[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1438" align="alignnone" width="429"] Spencer and his parents; Spencer and us[/caption]

I don't know why, but I find this picture hilarious!  Casey was trying to keep the branch out of our faces while taking pictures.

[caption id="attachment_1439" align="alignnone" width="600"] Casey![/caption]

We also had fun just hanging out!

[caption id="attachment_1440" align="alignnone" width="429"] Hanging out[/caption]

Henry also removed all the wipes.  Can you see the guilty look on his face?

[caption id="attachment_1441" align="alignnone" width="600"] Now we don't have any more wipes![/caption]

Camping

I'm a little behind on my blog (OK, I'm a LOT behind).  I guess life has just been very busy:)

Our kids love to go camping.  In June I took them up to Horseshoe Meadows.  It is at 10,000 feet altitude, so much much cooler than Ridgecrest.  That makes the weather bearable.



We found a geocache near the meadows.

Then we cooked our foil dinners in the fire.  We also tried some popcorn, which amazingly enough actually worked!



The next morning, we headed out on a hike on the Cottonwood Lakes trail.  We went as far as the first stream crossing.

The kids were exhausted, but always enjoy going camping.  They keep asking when we're going camping next.