Beauty, Clark!

We know-----you've seen Wright's Lake before, but we can't help it! We love Wright's Lake-----it is salve to our souls, or something like that. Dad and I drove up early on Thursday and took a scanoe ride first. The narrows were just right, cleared and accessible a fair ways past the loop trail bridge, up to the log jam you see beyond Dad. And the fish! Two weeks ago, Brett and Mireille saw not one fish---today there were hundreds. Yes, they planted---in fact, we saw a planting truck when we first pulled into the boat dock area. Teeming is the word, I believe.

Ahhhhhh----view of the shore in the narrows while gliding soundlessly down the stream. No loons this year. Did I mention the jillions of fish?

Then, we took a good hike. Here we are at Beauty Lake, and it was. We love our hiking poles---keep us from falling on our butts on the rocks.

We took the loop trail and then hooked into the fisherman's trail when we got to the Desolation parking lot and went all the way around the lake back to our site in the day use area.

And we'll never get used to seeing the bald eagles and osprey at Wright's Lake. This guy seemed bigger than last year. Did Dad get a great shot, or what? Be sure to click on it and get the full beauty of a bald eagle that lives just 50 minutes from 6715 Lindberg Ave. Beauty, Clark!

Living Room Updates

Evidently we never told Kev about the new piano, so here is an update.
We've also begun to fill the dining room wall with photos from our slides--

We just begun, so we'll continue to add pictures and make sure all of you are equally represented----maybe!

And the new piano---a gift from Lorrie Steed. Lorrie Steed's husband was distantly related to Dad. She moved to Idaho and couldn't take the piano, so we were going to store it for her, and then she said she would like to give it to us. Our part was to pay for it to be professionally moved and tuned. It is lovely, to be sure, and Mom is trying to put it to good use. You can see that we got some slipcovers for the couches. Pillow suggestions would be appreciated!

Family Camping

We spent four days together at Union Valley Reservoir. To our great delight everything about the trip and the campsites was better than we expected. For one thing - hardly any mosquitos! The Lake was very comfortable for swimming. Days were warm but not hot- unlike the "fires of hell" weather back in the Sacramento Valley and foothills.

Wading, swimming, sunning at the little beach near our campsites

The first kid project was the boats. The nail pounding resulted in no injuries. Painting produced some original colors and decorations.


We visited our old favorite, Wright's Lake, for a full day. Erin, Sara, Lee, Ali, Carissa, Derek, Grayson, Paige and Ben took a hike up the Twin Lakes Trail while Brett, Mireille and the boys canoed the narrows.

Kerry, Shanna, Susie and Caleb hiked to Enchanted Falls and the Loop Trail. Caleb loved getting into the water.Life in camp
Each night we had campfire. Smores, painting projects and snacks rounded out the evenings.

Gramma helping the kids with their personalized aprons

Here is the unofficial 2009 cousins camping picture. What a great week for all of the kids to get to know each other.

Lake Pal

Despite leaving for our Lake Powell trip with an injured team (Lee's knee and Carissa's arm), we ended up having the best trip yet. The 8 hour boat ride to our destination was sunny, beautiful and relaxing. The guys took turns playing captain up top until we reached a section called San Juan, about 75 miles from leaving the Antelope Marina in Page, Arizona.There were very few boats around, which was conducive to lots of swimming and wakeboarding, as the water was calm all day. Carissa was really slowed down by her broken arm, as you can see.Actually, tuving was much more dangerous for the other chilren, who nearly suffered a concussion when hit with a big fiberglass cast on a bumpy ride.My fears that she would sit inside crying and reading books were quite unfounded.I hope Dr. Brookenthal doesn't get a hold of these pictures.I'm not sure that driving a jet ski was on his approved activities list.The kids mostly swam behind the houseboat. Grayson wasn't too keen on it all until later in the week.But then he only wanted to go "'wimming".

And shoot the water gun.Derek took some time out for dominoes.And we ate way too much.And found plenty of time for wakeboarding, etc.Even Lee made it up, although he took it easy on the jumps.All in all, we could not have asked for a better trip

They call me the Glass Man...

So, here are some pictures of my thumb! I broke it playing capture the flag last saturday evening. It was the first game and first tag of the game, so that sucked! Anyway, I had someone drop me off at the Emergency room which is like 5 minute walk from my apartment. When the doctor, Dr. Hooker, came to examine me after the x-rays, he was like, "Have you ever broken your thumb before?" And so I went onto explain about my condition of enchondroma and he was extremely relieved, because they didn't know what was going with my thumb and the weird density of my thumb bone. They were afraid I might have had cancer, but didn't want to just blurt it out. Anyway, its slowly healing...I think. Here are the pics!

The first day it was MASSIVE! Especially the first joint!

I took these today, a week after it broke... still pretty swollen.

Nasty fat thumb!

My hand is all wrinkled from the duck tape cast I put on it to go swimming!

My "cast/eating utensil" Mmmmm... lower cholesterol!

"So good!"