Happy A Day, Christine

Disneyland ended up not happening for our family.

First of all, the day that the band would be performing there, was the first day of Gay Days.

30,000 gays and lesbians all wearing red shirts to get each other's attention,

did not quite appeal to us.

Kind of ruins the innocence of Disneyland.

Also, because the band would be coming back home for another competition that same weekend, we would only get one day at Disneyland.

We vacillated back and forth about going on Thursday instead of Gay Day Friday, to reward James for doing so well at staying dry (that was the original reason we were going anyway), and he had 17 days of dryness. Thursday would have marked his 21 days, which was the goal, but then he shot that whole plan in the foot by dishing out #1's and #2's this past Sunday and Monday. Sigh.

The kids were all upset, of course.

(Christine imagining that she's surfing in Hawaii)

We decided to celebrate Christine's A Day (which had been Tuesday, the 29th) by going camping up near Camp Geronimo. We let the kids miss school yesterday (that's unheard of for us) and had ourselves a nice, although short, family vacation.

(In true teenager-style, Christine slept whenever she could)

Camping was complete with all the things that make it exciting, like setting the tent up in the dark, killing the van's battery because we used the headlights to see to set up the tent and because certain kids left the van door open, James acting totally hyper vs. Joseph who was seriously tired, teeny-tiny walking space in the tent, complaints about who got to sleep where, Jalen Andrew awakening in the middle of the night a little freaked out so that I got to stand up and rock him in the cold night air, other kids waking up with full bladders - same cold night air, and of course dirt, dirt everywhere. Other highlights were very delicious tinfoil dinners, quite sweet chocolate strawberry cobbler, a warm night for all - when there's that many people in the tent, it stays well heated, a great blazing fire, gorgeous stars, going to sleep to the sound of elk making a very peculiar sound, Jalen Andrew falling asleep quickly, beautiful weather, and being together away from the phone, the computer, and the t.v. The next morning we enjoyed a little hike around the stream bed, and then headed off to find geodes. We found quite a few, not really big ones, but still it was fun to hunt for them, and then crack them open. Before heading home, we found a place that had lots of petrified wood with sea life fossils encased in it. That was pretty exciting as well. Joseph summed it up best when he mused, "Isn't it incredible to be holding all this history right in your hand?"

(Mom- the butterfly whisperer)

(Although Rebekah commented early on "Wonderland to wilderness?!"

she really did have a great attitude)

(Happy A Day, Christine! Can't believe it's already been 14 years!)

(We're pretty lucky to have such a good driver, tent setter-upper, fire maker,

and marshmallow toaster. Thanks for all your hard work on your day off!)

(Happy Campers.)

(Joseph wanted me to take a picture of his clean hands that he had just washed.

He cracked up when he saw the picture, realizing for the first time that it hadn't

just been his hands that were dirty.)

(Jalen Andrew discovers the joy of throwing sticks into blazing fires.)

(On our way to find the fossils, we ran into a very smelly, dead coyote

that had been skinned. As we approached it, James commented

"Now that's definitely a dinosaur!" You can thank me now for not showing you the

picture that Rebekah took of the dead thing.)