Camping pictures and general blatherings

So, as mentioned in my last entry, Nate and Alex and I went camping last weekend. We were up at Nelder Grove, which is a little (7 spots) campground in the giant sequoia forest area south of Yosemite. We had a little bit of adventuring finding it (one of our roads went by several names, and the marker didn't match our directions) but we were enjoying the drive and so were a little gleeful about getting "lost", rather than stressed out about it. With the help of the GPS unit, we eventually wound our way in. While not as extreme as the road to Highland lakes (which is where we've camped the past few times before this trip), there was a little bit of fun dirt road to satisfy Nate's love for offroading. The campsite was just gorgeous. Ours was just next to an old sequoia stump from when the trees were still being cut down, and at some point someone had added a securely fastened rope and some foot/handholds to render it climbable. Lovely lovely forest with beautiful trees and growth, reminding me of my family's place in Washington, and with a beautiful forest smell. A burbling little creek was a very short walk away, covered with fallen log bridges and full of cute little two foot "waterfalls"... I really think it would be a great place for older kids as well. Alex definitely enjoyed the area, but he's not old enough to let clamber around on his own, the way an older boy could.

( A few pictures, playing near the creek - a little dark )

These next few are all of a fallen log at our little camp site. It was big enough and old enough to have turned into a pretty entertaining place to climb around, and Alex spent a lot of time carefully exploring it with me and Nate.


( More pictures )

So there you go, some of our adventures. Good enough? I do have more pictures if people want to see them.

This weekend is turning out pretty well so far. My mom took Alex for Friday night, and Nate and I took advantage and went out to dinner. We'd thought to go see a movie as well, but with Friday night being the release date of a lot of movies and a pretty popular time, the one we wanted to see was sold out. Saturday I was able to go and get my hair highlighted... it's a little blonder than I expected, but I think I like it. Unfortunately, it took quite a while (I have an insane amount of hair) and I ended up missing horrorvenus's clothing swap :( I swung by in case they were still around, but no one was home, so that was a little disappointing... serves me right for not planning better, though, I suppose. Lots of cleaning as the living room was quite a disaster, but now it's all nice and liveable again. And this morning, Nate let me sleep in a little bit while he got up and made yummy banana nut muffins for breakfast! :::loves on the husband:::

Seems like one of my wisdom teeth is coming in, so I suppose I really do need to see a dentist and make sure it's okay. On the one hand, I think many dentists are too quick to remove wisdom teeth, but I know there are times when it's both necessary and advisable to do so... so we shall see. It'll have to wait until after our trip to Vegas, though, so no use worrying about it until I know for sure.

A week or so ago, we lost one of our two goldfish in the front pond. So yesterday, Nate picked up two new fishies - a black/white shubunkin and a butterfly tail shubunkin. They are a little shy, but seem to be settling in and getting along with the big old feeder goldfish. We have jokingly dubbed them "Sushi" & "Sashimi" & "Bait". I don't think they understand, though, so really we're not being mean :) We'd lost Angel(us), our black/white angelfish, a while back and finally decided to replace him as well... so our saltwater tank has a new bicolor angel. He's yellow and dark blue, with a yellow tail, and is quite striking when he comes out of hiding. Since the Buffy naming scheme seems to be bad luck, we may go back to the Alice in Wonderland theme for him... undecided as of yet. I'd wanted to get some more macroalgae too, because yay plant life, but the shop didn't have any in stock. So foo. We'll have to get it another time.

Okay, I think that's all the important-ish stuff. Hope everyone on the friendslist is doing well and enjoying their weekend!