Categories
Lola parks video blog

A proud moment for doggy parents

We have been so spoiled this fall with warm weather and I could not be happier with all this sunshine we’ve been getting.  On Oct 23 we took the pup out to Point Isabel Regional Park in Richmond for some sunshine and, to our great surprise, an open water swim!

Carleigh and I had visited here once with the dogs since it’s a huge off-leash area that has some of the most amazing views.  The night we went the sun was just starting to set and it was incredible seeing the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco city skyline with the sun setting.  Beautiful!  Since that visit I knew I had to bring Kevin here to check it out for himself.

We went down the rocks a bit to watch some of the dogs that were swimming out in the bay chasing tennis balls.  Whenever we’ve taken Lola out to swim before she would only go as far as she could touch the bottom, she was never comfortable actually swimming.  After a few minutes of watching a Labrador retrieve a tennis ball over and over again, Lola slowly started venturing out to the deeper water and eventually made it all the way out!  It was definitely one of our proudest dog parent moments.  🙂

At first she would only chase the dog and not even look at the ball.  But eventually when the other dogs left for home and we were standing there with a dripping wet tennis ball, Lola begged us to keep throwing the ball and the rest is history!

Here’s a video of Lola on one of her first attempts in the open water (and if you look closely you may see the Golden Gate Bridge and the SF city skyline in the background).

Lola’s that speck in the center of the photo

Kevin getting ready to throw the ball

Kevin tried to take a photo of her shaking her coat out on the shore:

As soon as we got home Kevin plopped that sandy, damp girl in the bathtub for a desperately needed bath:

Even though bath time is not Lola’s favorite, I’m sure she thought it was a good price to pay for the open water swim she got that day.

Categories
foodie Jessie video blog

My 28th birthday

My birthday landed on a Thursday this year so I went to work like any ol’ day but came home to this wonderful little surprise…

Walking in the door I was greeted with a “Happy Birthday” banner

Then a batch of balloons, streamers, and a giant gift box.  What did I do to deserve such an amazing guy?!

What was in that giant box, you ask?  A sewing machine!  I’ve been wanting to learn to sew for years now and I am so excited to get started on these projects that I’ve been waiting to do forever now.

That night Jessie took me out to Yoshi’s in Oakland for some sushi and live music.  Yoshi’s is a pretty famous jazz club with locations in both Oakland and San Francisco and I’ve been wanting to go there for a while now.  The night we went, though, was a rare night of bluegrass music and not jazz but I was happy as a clam nevertheless!

A friend she met through her last job at the wine bar in Los Gatos happened to have three tickets to see his friend play the night of my birthday so she generously asked if I could tag along and alas, I ended up getting a fun night out on the town for my birthday!  Sure beat the alternative of me and Lola watching tv that night.  😉

The group was fantastic.  His friend (the blond on the left in the following photos) is now a featured musician at the club and will be performing with select musicians throughout the year.  For her debut she chose two women to perform bluegrass music with.  So the three of them aren’t really a band, this was the first time they ever played together, but boy were they amazing.  They played such a great mix of folk, bluegrass, and blues.

Here’s a video of the group performing one of their crazy-fast fiddle songs.


Jessie always has this amazing way of celebrating me for my birthday.  Last year she took me out to try escargot and then treated me to the Bridge School Benefit concert to see Pearl Jam, Modest Mouse, and Elton John, amongst others.  I sure got lucky in the sister department too!

The big plan for my birthday was to celebrate on Saturday night (so that Kevin could join in on the fun and not be at work) for some dinner and live music at Pena Pachamama in North Beach.  Pena Pachamama is a small, hole-in-the-wall Bolivian restaurant and music venue that serves mostly raw, organic food and has live music every weekend.  We reserved a table for 5 (me, Kevin, Jessie, Carleigh, and Scott) and spent a few hours there soaking in the amazing food and amazing sounds.

The girls! Me, Jess and Carleigh

Halfway through the show a few traditional Bolivian dancers came out to strut their stuff.

It didn’t take long for Carleigh and Scott to take over the dance floor!

Then me and Jess braved the floor as well…

Once the table full of intoxicated girls took over the dance floor we knew it was our cue to leave, so we danced our way out of the restaurant and onto the streets of North Beach.

Me and Kev outside of the restaurant

I had SUCH a good time with my dearest family and friends and could not have asked for a better birthday weekend.  And I couldn’t end this post without saying that the evening ended with me yelling out the car window to a trolley-full of tourists “It’s my birthday!” (after which said trolley-full of tourists yelled out “Happy Birthday!”) and then I yelled out “Occupy the trolley!” (and no, I was not one of those intoxicated girls I mentioned earlier, I was just on a high from good food, good music, and great company!).

Categories
Bailey Jessie

Pre-Halloween pumpkin party

My sister Jessie, Kevin and I hosted a small Pre-Halloween pumpkin-themed party in mid-October.  The plan?  Make/bring food that centered around the glorious pumpkin.  And boy did we have some good food!

The menu:

Appetizers: pumpkin hummus, sliced apples and ginger snaps with pumpkin pie dip, medjool dates with chopped walnuts and dark chocolate

Dinner: vegan pumpkin pistachio pasta, vegan pumpkin pizza, vegan smoky braised Mexican pumpkin over brown rice

Dessert: pumpkin bread, vegan pumpkin brownies (this recipe is AMAZING!!)

The spread!

The pups working hard to look cute in hopes of some snacks

Couple of beggars

We had a yummy time eating our way through the pumpkin food and boy were we stuffed at the end.  Lola was wiped out as well…

The tired little hostess

For the party Kevin and I got some decorative mini pumpkins to put on the table and Lola could not let them alone.  So the next day I decided to let her check one out and she was in heaven…

Chewing the stem: her favorite part

Mouth full of pumpkin

Categories
Brianne & Brian camping hikes Lola Not San Francisco vacation

Big Sur camping weekend!

Kevin, Lola and I took a marvelous four day weekend to go camping in Big Sur!  We met up with our good friends Brian and Brianne from Long Beach and we had a blast!

Friday, September 30

We left at 6am on Friday morning in hopes of beating the traffic and of getting into the Big Sur area early enough to find a camping site.  Yes, we were those people that didn’t make reservations.

We are in desperate need of a bigger car…Lola could barely fit in the backseat with all our camping junk!  And the other sleeping bag may or may not have fallen on top of her during the ride a couple of times, haha.

Any gloomy morning can be brightened up with a dozen cupcakes!  Kevin baked those for Brianne since her birthday was just after our camping trip.

Nothing makes me happier than seeing dogs hanging their heads outside of car windows.

We made a few stops along the way, taking in the amazing views of the California coast.

I truly love this state.

“Hello!“

We drove up and down the coast trying to find the perfect camping spot.  After a few sites told us there were 1-2 spots left but either the campground was too expensive ($65 a night?!) or there were too many bugs or it just didn’t feel right it was approaching 12noon and we were starting to get nervous.  One campground (Kirk Creek) we had passed previously we had heard some good things about but after seeing the sign “Campground full” we didn’t think much of it.  On our way back up the coast in hopes that we could snag one of those spots that we had previously passed up on Kevin said we should just drive through the Kirk Creek campground to see if we might get lucky…and we did!  We actually got the last spot in the entire campground.  And the campground was amazing to boot!

We set up our tent, took a little nap in the sunshine, and while patiently awaited the arrival of Brian and Brianne we decided to start cooking dinner before the sun started to set.

On the menu Friday evening?  Sweet potato chili (recipe here) and cornbread cooked in the dutch oven (recipe here).

Pouring the batter into the dutch oven

Letting the magic happen

We had never cooked anything other than a cobbler in the dutch oven before so we weren’t sure how it was going to turn out.  We had to let it sit for 45 minutes to cook so we decided to enjoy some beverages and watch the sun start to set.

Classy boxed wine from Target

Wine in hand, sun shining

Brian and Brianne pulled up just as the cornbread was finishing up so we could dig in!

It turned out perfect!!

We set our chairs out overlooking the ocean and the sunset, eating our giant bowls of chili and fresh cornbread. Not too shabby!

Enjoying the view

For dessert we surprised Brianne with the cupcakes that Kevin had made…yum!  We played a game of Rummikub and tried to keep warm by the light of the lantern (we forgot to buy firewood that first night, d’oh!)  Kevin, Lola and I hit the hay a little early because of our early morning and because it was so dang cold outside with that ocean breeze.  But it was a great first day nonetheless!

Brianne’s birthday cupcakes

Saturday, October 1

We woke up bright and early and got started on breakfast…breakfast burritos with soyrizo!

Kevin cooking up some breakfast!  Our campsite only had shade in the late afternoon so at just about 8:30am the sun would rise above the hills and we’d get an early start on our suntans for the day.

We left mid-day to drive up to Monterey to pick up a few things (air pump for the air mattress [kind of important] and firewood) and we had lunch out that way as well.  I gotta say, it was a little strange being at a Target in the middle of our camping trip.

We got back to the campsite mid-afternoon and took a short hike down a trail that leads straight from the campground down to the beach.

Beautiful!

Lola is so at home at the beach

B & B climbing the rocks

Brian surrounded by water

Pretty seaweed!

Kevin and Lola always have to climb to the highest point and look down at me for the obligatory photo.  This trip to the beach was no exception.

Lola’s paw prints, the ocean, and the sun setting

We found this cool damned-up area that had a small wading pool and a small waterfall that was just Lola’s size.

She spent a good while “fetching” for rocks (they all sank to the bottom but she never stopped trying to look for them!)

Me and Lola

Lola wading in the pool and me in the background

Brian’s dangerous leap-from-one-rock-to-another-over-a-wading-pool stunt.

I love this photo of Lola.

We headed back up to camp to get started on dinner while the sun was still out.  On the menu Saturday evening?  Cheese enchiladas, cilantro lime rice, and avocado/tomato salad (courtesy of B & B).

Brianne cooking the enchiladas in the dutch oven!  We weren’t sure how it would turn out so we kept our fingers crossed.

While B & B were cooking, Kevin and I decided to go sit and watch the sun set (something, we realized, we haven’t done much together surprisingly!)

Those clouds were amazing!

After the sun set we were happy to find out that the dutch oven is the perfect place to cook enchiladas!

Cooked to perfection

Eating by moonlight

Dig in!

That night for dessert we had the ultimate camping treat…s’mores!

Sunday, October 2

We woke up bright and early to find little muddy paw prints on our storage bins and even on the side of our car…crazy raccoons!  Luckily they didn’t get anything (that we know of).

After a yummy breakfast of pancakes and bacon (or fake sausage for the veg-head over here), we left mid-morning down the road to Sand Dollar beach and picnic grounds.  It was pretty overcast and chilly that morning but luckily the clouds burned off and we had a good dose of sun for the majority of our time there!

View of Sand Dollar beach from the top of the stairs

Stairs down to the beach

Brianne, Brian, Lola and Kevin testing out the water

Brianne at first thought those were bear paw prints until she realized that Lola made them, haha!

I took a few portrait photos, the only one I was missing was Brian!

Brianne

Lola

Kevin

Kevin and Brian braved the coooooold waters and went swimming for about 30 minutes.

Lola watching Kevin and Brian in the water

Eventually Kevin and Brian made their way out and Kevin immediately made a new friend (some other dog, I swear that guy is the Dog Whisperer!)

We made our way back up to the picnic area for some lunch.  After eating, Brian and Kevin decided to attempt to hop over a 4.5 foot tall fence.  Surprisingly, they both did it (after many attempts, I might add).

Alley-oop!

I don’t think so, sir.

Me taking a self-portrait in between their attempts to jump over the fence.

Success!

Kisses from Lola over the fence

A view from below

B & B!

Back at the campsite we sat and tried to soak in the final rays of the sun.

Looks like I got a bit of a tan from the beach, hallelujah!

On the menu for Sunday night?  Burritos with Spanish rice and more of that amazing avocado/tomato salad (courtesy of B & B).  And for dessert?

PEACH AND BLUEBERRY COBBLER straight from the dutch oven!! (recipe here)

That crust was so good!  Next time we just gotta let it cook a little longer but otherwise it was amazing.

I thought I’d take a picture of our dish-washing station…Brianne, Kevin and Brian hard at work!

Group photo by campfire!

We had such a fantastic time…not only did we score an awesome campsite, the weather was lovely, and the company was superb!  I think we should probably put in our reservation now for this time next year at Kirk Creek, what do you say B & B?  🙂

Categories
Jessie

Our new hobby: Rock climbing!

Kevin and I decided to check out a local rock climbing gym to see what all the fuss was about and soon found ourselves in love with a new sport!

We’re now members of the Touchstone Climbing association and so far we’ve only climbed/used the gym facilities at the Great Western Power Company site in Oakland (it’s less than a mile from our house just on the other side of the lake…we even ran to/from the gym one day for a workout.  Yeah, we’re hardcore).

About a month ago we took Jessie on a guest pass and had a good time climbing with her…

View from inside the gym, the large gray tower to the left is an old smokestack that measures 150 feet tall

We decided to start out with some bouldering (climbing a short wall without being attached to any ropes and with a drop mat at the bottom)

Kevin doing some interesting moves

Jess taking a break to smile for the camera

Wouldn’t you know, me and Jess bought the same rock climbing shoes! Hahah.

Getting strapped in! Until we’re “pros” we have to show the staff that we know how to rope up as both a climber and as the one who is belaying the climber

Jessie making her way up the wall (she got a little over half way!)

Me making my way up. I had a little harder time this day so only made it up about half way (maybe a little less). I think there are good days and bad days when it comes to climbing, just like with every physical activity!

Kevin on his way to the top!

He did it! He’s a total natural.

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Uncategorized

Kevin’s Kitchenaid

A couple of weeks ago Kevin passed the final oral and practical exam needed to earn his aircraft mechanics certification!  It was a wonderful end to a big chapter in our lives.

We’ve come a long way since the middle of his second semester when I posted this short post about him aceing his midterm.  Two years of schooling, Monday through Friday evening, plus Kevin working Saturdays and Sundays.  I can sit here and lament about how awful it was without him but I can only imagine how hard it was on him working/going to school 7 days a week.  And now that his final exams are done, he’s now a certified aircraft mechanic!

So shortly after he aced his exam we went out to our local home goods store to purchase something that Kevin’s had his eye on for years to celebrate…a Kitchenaid mixer!

And of course I documented his first attempt at making cookies using it…

Kevin taking his Kitchenaid out for its maiden voyage!

A true baker requires lots of tools

Lola waiting (in vain) for a bit of cookie dough

Mmm mmm mmm!

So I forgot to take a photo of the finished product (chewy, gooey chocolate chip cookies) but just take my word for it that they were amazing.

How I love that little baker aircraft mechanic of mine.

Somewhat related to Kevin’s baking…but probably not enough of a story to make into it’s own post…

For Kevin’s birthday in early September I tried my hand at making a New York cheesecake and I’m happy to report it turned out pretty darn good!

I followed this recipe to the T and we were super happy with the results.

Not too shabby, eh?

Check out that golden crust, mmm mmm mmm!

The happy birthday boy

Oh how I wish we had some leftovers tonight! 🙂

Categories
Alameda Lola Not San Francisco Oakland parks

No dogs allowed

Moving to Oakland has been a bit of a culture shock when it comes to having a dog.  We were plain spoiled living in San Francisco with their 35+ dog-friendly off-leash parks and their countless other parks that are accessible to dogs on leash.  This is one of the biggest things I miss about living in the city.

Oakland has a total of 5 dog parks and just about every other piece of grass in the city is off-limits to dogs.  It doesn’t even matter if the dog is on leash, our little Lola is not allowed to set a paw on the grass.

Granted, living in the Bay Area we are still pretty spoiled compared to other cities across the States.  Even with our measly 5 dog parks in Oakland, surrounding us are cities that have as many (or more) dog-friendly spots that we’re just a quick drive away from…and we have been taking advantage of those spots!

Joaquin Miller Regional Park

This is an amazing 500-acre park set in the Oakland Hills with miles and miles of winding trails.  It’s a great place to let Lola off-leash except we have to pretty careful for the joggers and mountain bikers.  Kevin and I have gone to this park twice now and each time we can’t believe that this amazing forest is just minutes from our apartment near downtown Oakland.

Kevin getting a whiff of wilderness (I don’t think he knew I was taking this photo when he bent down to smell that fallen tree, haha)

Sun through the trees

Me ‘n Lola

Piedmont Park

There is a small city surrounded by Oakland called Piedmont and they have a great park that allows dogs to run off-leash.  The trails are mostly paved but when you’re in the park you’re surrounded by a huge canopy of trees that no matter how bright and sunny it is at that time, it’s cool and shady in the park.  The creek running through the middle doesn’t hurt the view either.  Kevin and I have gone walking the trails and me and Lola have gone running a couple of times as well.  This is a little gem!

Alameda dog exercise area (aka Alameda dog park)

Now sure why it’s got such an official-sounding name, I just call it the Alameda dog park.  This is a huge fenced-in dog park just minutes from the beach on the island of Alameda and the best part is it’s only a 10 minute drive from our apartment.  I take Lola here at least once a week and she has a blast running around with the other dogs.

No dogs allowed…

After a trip to the Alameda dog park last week Lola and I drove by the beach in Alameda and I couldn’t pass up such a beautiful sunset so I pulled over, brought Lola out, and had to tie her up to the fence because of the “No dogs allowed” sign that greeted us.

“No dogs on beach”

Lola didn’t seem to mind!

That girl is always happy, no matter if she’s tied to a pole or not.

Sun setting over Alameda

Can you spot San Francisco in the distance??

Categories
Brianne & Brian hikes visitors

Moaning Cavern adventures

On Saturday, Sept 9 we left at the crack of dawn (5:30am)  to meet Brianne, Brian, Judy and Lisa near Sonora for some cave spelunking and exploring!  Brian and Lisa were planning on doing an adventure tour of the Moaning Cavern and invited Kevin along (which was perfect timing since Kevin’s birthday had just passed so it was his birthday present!) and Judy, Brianne and I settled for the walking tour (which was about as adventurous as we were ready for).

It’s not often we see the sunrise!

Moaning Cavern Park

We had anticipated a 3 hour drive but it only took us 2 hours (I was driving, go figure 😉 ) so we got there before the park even opened.  We entertained ourselves with a furry little critter that became a close friend for a half hour or so…Smokey the cat.

Yawn! It was early for Smokey too.

The gang met up with us not too long after the park opened and we made our way to our respective tours.

Judy took this photo of the group before we went underground: Brianne, me, Brian, Kevin and Lisa

Damn, I forgot to buy my commemorative Moaning Cavern hard hat.

We asked if it’d be possible for our walking tour to start earlier than their adventure tour so that we could meet them at the bottom of the cave after they repelled down and luckily that worked out!  So Judy, Brianne and I followed our tour guide while K, B and L anxiously waited for their tour to start.

The first stop was in a little back room which had the above map posted on the wall.  If you click it to enlarge the image you can see blue arrows and green arrows–the blue ones were where K, B and L went repelling down the 165-foot drop through the earth and the green arrows were where Judy, Brianne and I went walking down the stairs (like sane people) to meet them in the middle of the cavern.  After we met up, K, B and L continued their tour farther down the cave and came back up a couple hours later.

The hole through the ground that K, B and L were going to be dropping down into.  Crazy!!

The narrow and steep staircase that J, B and I went down.

Spooky.

We stopped for a bit after the narrow staircase to talk about the cave and the different formations found there and about all of the people who, over thousands of years, had fallen to their death and whose bones were discovered recently (creepy!)  This is the platform we stood on and the 234-stair spiral staircase you see to the right is the one that Judy and I went down later to meet K, B and L after their repelling adventure.

Can you spot Brianne?

Judy braving the staircase!  It was really creepy, I was gripping the handrails like nobody’s business.

Kevin was the first to volunteer to go down, he made it look so easy!

Kevin, aka “Cliff”

Then I decided to go back up the staircase so that I could take photos of Lisa and Brian as they repelled down.  This photo was taken mid-way up the stairs looking down at Judy and Kevin.

Lisa making her way down, she looked like a pro!

Brianne and I holding down the fort

The view from the very top of the staircase.  You can see my shoes in the bottom part of this photo and the two orange blips are Kevin and Lisa, the white/green blip is Judy.  I’m getting spooked just looking at this photo.

Brian making his way down

Judy took this photo of the three of them finished rappelling.

After the three of them got untied from the rappelling ropes, they continued even farther down below the cave through crawl spaces.  Kevin said that they had funny names of some of the crawl spaces: Godzilla’s Nostril, Pancake Room, Meat Grinder, Black Hole and, my personal favorite, the Birthing Canal.  He said that there was one point where you had to lie on your back and pull yourself through this extremely narrow space, it was so narrow that the tip of his hardhat was hitting the top of the space at times.

While they were crawling through the earth, Judy, Brianne and I made our way back out into the open air to do a little bit of exploring but mostly just chatting and waiting for our adventure trio to return.

The Moaning Cavern Park has quite a few activities including panning for gold and a zip line.

The park even had a cockatoo named Cuddles!  He was super friendly and he entertained Brianne and I for a good half hour or so.

Pretty bird.

One other park visitor encouraged me to pet him (even though the signs said “DON’T PUT YOUR FINGERS IN CAGE”).  It was a little freaky at first but you could tell he was totally in love with being pet on his neck.

Me and Cuddles sharing a moment.

After 1.5 hours or so the adventure trio made their escape and met up with us.

The tired, but happy, adventurers!

They weren’t kidding about wearing old clothes.

We were all starving afterwards and took up the suggestion of one of our tour guides to check out The Pickle Barrel for lunch in Angel’s Camp.  My favorite food in the whole entire world is sandwiches and after going vegetarian I felt like I haven’t been as excited to eat at delis because generally the only veg option is Subway-esque (yuck).  But The Pickle Barrel actually had two delicious options and I was as happy as a clam getting my sandwich fix.  And I don’t think the meat eaters of the group were disappointed either.  🙂

The little downtown area of Angel’s Camp was pretty cute so we spent a little time exploring.

I think Kevin might have a chance to get into the “Independent Order of Odd Fellows”, what do you think?

Creepy statue in one of the antique stores.


Photo of the sidewalk tile commemorating the 1983 frog-hoppin’ winner “Johnny Jumper” (that’s the year me and K were born so I thought it appropriate to take a photo of this one).

After getting cleaned up at the motel we stayed out (thanks for letting us crash with you guys!) we went out to try the “best pizza in Sonora” at Mountain Mike’s.  Not too shabby!  We spent the night playing Phase 10 (an awesome card game) and then before saying our goodbyes the next morning ate at the “best breakfast joint in Sonora” at Woods Creek Cafe (super cute place covered in cow memorabilia and pretty good food to boot!)

It was so great seeing the gang for the weekend and I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday gift for Kevin to land in my lap!  🙂

Categories
camping Dorothy & George family hikes Judith Lola Not San Francisco Sarah vacation

Edmonds family camping trip!

The Edmonds gang spent months in anticipation for our camping trip to Taylor Creek and the time had finally arrived!  Kevin’s family has been camping at this spot for nearly 30 years (!) and this was my third trip to TC.  The last time the whole gang went camping together was at Granite Creek in 2009 (just a couple of months after moving to SF and a few weeks after adopting Lola, see the post here) and the last time we as a family were at TC was in 2007 so it was definitely time for another camping trip!

This campsite is about as rustic as you can get: no running water (except for the spring up the road), no cell phone service, and no toilets (not even an outhouse).  But it’s got everything else that other campsites are missing: it’s quiet (rarely do we spot other campers when we’re there), there are unobstructed starry nights, we’ve got a private creek and private hiking trails.  And that’s why the family keeps coming back after all these years.

Wednesday 7/27

Kevin, Lola and I woke up earlyearlyearly and got on the road at 7:30am.

Lots of fog over the Oakland Hills to greet us

Beautiful views of countryside and clear skies (somewhere off of Hot Springs Road)

Kevin and Lola in the car

We passed a ton of cows on the drive up the mountain…

Mama cows and their babies

Moo.

Lots of meadows–I think this one was aptly named “Big Meadow” (so creative, I know)

Pancake rock!

We arrived (9 hours later!) and were sad to find out that the family’s favorite spot was already taken.  🙁

We drove up the road a bit and found another spot that wasn’t as good but we were pleasantly surprised that it worked out as well as it did.  Kevin, Lola and I held down the fort for a couple of hours before the next group arrived.

We read a couple of short stories to each other with Lola listening in

Beautiful day!

The swimming hole right next to our campsite…perfection!

The next group to arrive was George, Dorothy, Judith, Joshua and Katelyn and it was just us until the third group arrived on Friday.  Our first evening was mostly just setting up camp, eating hamburgers and hot dogs (and veggie burgers/veggie skewers for the vegetarian in the group!) and hanging out around the campfire.

Kevin and George with the bonfire

Thursday 7/28

The group woke up bright and early for another fun day of camping.  Except for this little girl who did not want to get up…

Lola, snuggled up

We were finally able to encourage the tired pup to get up and get the day started!

First thing on the to-do list?  Gather fire wood.  George, Kevin, Joshua and Lola were in charge of that item (thank you guys!)

Alley oop Lola!

While the muchachos and Lola went to get fire wood, the rest of us muchachas got dressed for some creek time…

Katelyn and her genius innertube

Dorothy and Judith hanging out by the creek

After the guys got back with the firewood it was creek time for them too!

Lola’s favorite thing to do was hop/jump/leap across the creek to fetch her ball (oh yeah, and shake and get all of us sitting on the bank wet too)

Kevin, George and Katelyn (the brave ones) in for a dip

After some time by the creek it was time for lunch and time to put up the hammocks!  Kevin and I purchased these hammocks in Nicaragua in 2004 and had yet to use them so it was about time!

Can’t get much more relaxing than this

Bliss.

Kevin squished into the seat hammock (and his butt was about 1.5 inches above the ground, haha)

Dorothy and Kevin relaxing in the shade

Lola couldn’t wait to test out the hammock either, haha

Lola guarding our campsite (her favorite place to be: the kitchen)

Katelyn keeping cool in the shade

Friday 7/29

Another bright and early morning!  After breakfast (breakfast burritos, mmm!) we went for a short hike to another swimming hole down the creek.

Pine cones covering the ground

George, Kevin and Lola trying to find us a nice spot to sit and relax

Lola again loved jumping over the creek to catch her ball.  We got her in the creek for a bit too, here she is jumping to catch a ball.

Beautiful skies!

Can’t get enough of these rock formations, trees and sky views

Lola looking back at Joshua and Kevin

My favorite photo of the camping trip!  Lola in the foreground, Joshua and Kevin in the background.

Can you spot Lola?

Back to the campsite to wait for our third group to arrive (Sarah and Rob!)  We spent the time eating lunch and putting reading glasses on Lola (just what any normal family would do, right? You can blame Katelyn for this one, haha)

Lola, the librarian

We were expecting them mid-day so when they hadn’t arrived by mid-afternoon we started getting worried and sent out a search party.  Ten minutes later the search party spotted their car and back to the campsite they went.

Just a little after they arrived the group got dressed and took a 20 minute hike to what the family calls “Flat Rock”–a really awesome spot where the creek has a waterfall and it flows down huge, flat rocks making great spots for sitting and relaxing.

Flat Rock

The girls: Katelyn, Sarah, Judith, Dorothy and me

Tall rocks and bright blue skies

Sarah and Rob

Lola biting the mini rapids

Katelyn and Josh building a damn, Lola biting the rapids

Kevin, George and Joshua decided to hike up the mountain a bit while the rest of our group made our way back to the campsite.  Here are some photos that Kevin took on the hike…

The view of Church Dome (where we’d be hiking to the following day, yikes!)

I love this miniaturized (is that a word?) photo that Kevin took

Lola with her hiking backpack

After the two hikes and three swimming holes that day Lola was pooped!

Proof of above statement

What makes a good evening while camping? Talking around the campfire of course…

George and Sarah

Dorothy and Kevin

Sunset

Saturday 7/30

Another early morning camping (our last full day, waah!)

Kevin putting on his shoes, enjoying the view out our tent

After breakfast the group packed into two of the cars and made our way upupup the road to the trail head for our hike to Church Dome.

Joshua, Sarah, Kevin, Rob and Lola sizing up Church Dome

Lots and lots of water breaks…

My cute little hiking husband

Sarah and Rob

Family photo!  Me, Kevin and Lola

What a view!

Beautiful flowers in between rocks

Kevin and Lola looking out onto the meadows and forest

After hours of hiking upupup we finally made it!  Time for lunch.

Group shot at lunch (thanks Sarah!)

While half of the group was satisfied with the hike and ready to make our way back down, the other half didn’t get quite enough and wanted to push on a little farther.  Can you guess what group I was in?  😉

While Judith, Dorothy, Katelyn, Lola and I stayed back to take a short nap, the rest of the group made their way up to the top of Church Dome.

Lola digging a hole (first time I’d ever seen her do that!)

She was trying to get to the cooler soil for her nap, so adorable.

From our spot down below we could see a few ants walking at the top of Church Dome–they looked a lot like the rest of our family (click the photo to zoom in; Sarah, Rob and George on the left, Kevin and Josh on the right).

Once the other part of the group met up with us it was time to make our descent off the mountain.  But first…a group photo!

Beautiful.

Although the hike down was much faster, it wasn’t necessarily any easier (let’s just say that a few butts slid down the rocks).

Lola was pretty exhausted too.  I had never seen her so tired before!  Every few hundred feet she’d make her way to a shady spot and lay down.  Poor girl!

Lola’s 198th break

So Kevin, being the great dog dad that he is, decided to help our little girl out by giving her a piggy back ride!

She only stayed on for about 10 minutes but I think it helped the tired pup out a lot

View of Church Dome…I can’t believe that just a couple of hours before we were on that peak!

Happy (and tired and sore) hiker Lisa

Not five minutes after backing George’s truck up on the road his back tires got stuck in the soft dirt.  D’oh!

The group trying to get the truck out by digging holes and putting in big rocks behind the tires.

When that didn’t work, George had the whole group (minus me and Lola) pile in the back of the truck to weigh it down and hopefully get the tires to grip the dirt to move on out.  That didn’t work either!  So the last resort was hooking Rob’s Ford Escape SUV up to the front of George’s truck and with luck we were able to pull the truck out of the dirt!  None of us could believe that the little Escape could pull out such a huge truck but hallelujah it worked!

No one can say that we didn’t deserve a nice dip in the creek by the time we got back to the campsite and that’s exactly what we did.  We can’t say that the creek wasn’t any cleaner after we got out, but at least we were.  🙂

Dinner was massive burritos and dessert was peach/blueberry cobbler (well-deserved after our long day of hiking!)

Judith serving up the cobbler…yum!!

Our last sunset

And we spent our last evening around the campfire enjoying each other’s company…

Joshua, Katelyn and Judith

Joshua, bright fire, and grey skies

Writing with light in the dark–that’s me writing out “Taylor Creek” using a flashlight (I was writing in cursive backwards while Kevin took the photo, see our “Earth Hour” post with other photos like this here)

Sunday 7/31

The rain finally decided to make its full appearance on Sunday morning as we were packing all our stuff up.  Although it didn’t make for a very pleasant last morning (especially since we were trying to keep all our junk dry while packing it up) I’m just happy it otherwise stayed dry the whole week!

On the drive home…until next time Taylor Creek!

Categories
Alameda Bailey

Baby/dogsitting, music festival and scavenging

We’ve been keeping ourselves pretty busy at our new home in Oakland…

Scavenging

We’re still looking for a couple of pieces of furniture (most urgent? A desk!) so decided to check out a place my co-worker told me about called Urban Ore in Berkeley which is a salvage yard full of any ol’ thing you can think of…

Urban Ore Ecopark

Like toilets

Or headless mannequins

Or pink polka-dot dogs

Or rooster dolls

Or highway 101 signs

Unfortunately we didn’t find anything that sparked our fancy but I think we gotta give it another few shots because the inventory changes so frequently.

Stern Grove Music Festival

On July 17th we met up with our friends Darinee and Danielle who we met at Redlands at Stern Grove for one of their summer music festivals!  I hadn’t been to a Stern Grove festival since my first weekend in San Francisco (see post with Jessie in ’09 here).  The headliners were The English Beat, an 80’s group that had a few hits and overall they were a great group to see live.

Some of you will remember that this was the day of the Women’s World Cup finals so Kevin and I met up with Carleigh and Scott that morning to watch the match and we were planning on getting to the park in time for the cover band but of course the match went on super long (but SUPER exciting, on-the-edge-of-our-seats excitement!) so we had to stay to see the end of the game.  Because of that we didn’t get to the park until pretty late when it was already jam packed full of people and The English Beat were setting up on stage.

I called Darinee to find out where they were sitting and once we were finally able to spot them we had to then make our way up an extremely steep hill with all of our food and Lola in tow which was not an easy feat!  At one point Kevin decided to pick Lola up and walk her up the hill because there were so many people she was stepping all over.  I have never seen anything like it!  Kevin carrying a 55 pound dog up a steep hill with all of these people surrounding us.  I’m just glad that he didn’t fall backwards from the weight of carrying her!  That man amazes me.

The hundreds and hundreds of people at the festival (this was our view, of the trees, haha. At least the acoustics were pretty good!)

View up above

Me and Kev

Lola not too happy about laying on a steep incline

Random little boy playing air guitar

Sun through the trees

Darinee and Lola, BFF

Lola trying to relax on the incline!

This was Kevin’s first time at the music festival and we had a blast, especially with the company we shared the day with!  We hope to make it out again this month while the festivals are still going on.

Babysitting Mia

On July 22 we had the amazing opportunity to babysit 13-month old Mia!  It was Matt’s birthday so Mika took him out for a night on the town and asked if we’d watch her for a few hours which we enthusiastically agreed to.  Mia is in love with dogs and so they said that we could bring Lola with us if we wanted to which was a bonus.  Seeing those two together just about melts my heart!

Mia’s favorite thing to do with Lola? Play catch.

Mia’s second favorite thing to do with Lola? Tease her (and just about give me a heart attack) by putting Lola’s ball up near her mouth.

Mia’s third favorite thing to do with Lola? The anticipation of getting a wet, slobbery kiss from her! Every time Lola would walk by her she’d lift her arm up to her face and laugh hysterically in anticipation of the kiss. So. Cute.

After a yummy dinner of pasta, peas, and berries (that girl can eat!) we took a short walk to the park down the street for some play time.

Mia and Kevin

Precious.

Me and Mia just after coming up from a flip

My favorite picture from the day!

Kevin flying her around and Mia coming up for kisses from Lola

Diaper booty and palm trees

Walking home, trying to get a kiss from Lola

Happy girl!

Dogsitting Bailey

That same weekend Carleigh and Scott were moving from their apartment in San Francisco to an awesome little place in Berkeley (they followed us across the bay, yay!) and so asked us to return the favor (since they watched Lola the day we moved) and dogsit Bailey for the big night.

Bailey. Wiped out.

I decided that these two pups needed a photo shoot down by the lake…

Sun setting over the lake. I don’t think I’ll ever get over our view!