February 11th, 2013 by Busy Mommy

May 28th, 2012 by Busy Mommy

After discovering Tioga Pass had just opened a few days prior, I had a thought run through my mind.  Funny thing was Ben had the same thought run through his mind, and when he suggested we take an unplanned weekend family getaway to the mountains, I could only agree.  We found that our favorite little cabin in Twainharte was available for the 2 nights we wanted.  After much packing we left town- the Vitamix, the Juicer, the jar of Kefir, the coleman stove and pans, etc. for cooking on the side of the road (hey, 3 people all on special diets have a LOT of cooking stuff they have to cart around- the days of Oreos and subway style sandwiches on vaca are gone forever).

The most important thing that Nolan wanted to do as we embarked on our trip is to throw rocks in the water at some point.  We promised him that this was certainly a fulfillable wish.On the way up we stopped at our favorite produce stand.  While the Daddy Lam has his own ideas of what constitutes cool rocks (ie. the sierras), Nolan found his own little patch of rocks he was quite happy with in the form of the gravel walkway at the produce stand.  He was in no hurry to leave as you can see since he even removed his shoes. After arriving at the little cabin, we promptly ran around a bit and nolan “hiked” to get a little activity after the long drive. The cabin is owned by the Crane family and it’s perfect.  Mr. Crane is obviously a very skilled craftsman and artisan- everything is not only handmade but well made and well appointed.  Since we pretty much only eat food that we cook ourselves these days, I set to making a pot of our beef stew that we love made with homemade beef and lamb broth.  Ben and Nolan spent a little quiet time perusing a topo map.  Nolan and I got to spend some time coloring and reading and he played with some stickers. That was about all we could manage before the three of us Ben and I crashed and had to firmly tell Nolan it was time for bed.  His tank pretty much never gets to empty and even when it does he can always find a way to run on fumes.

Saturday morning we took our time getting ready and with no real special plans aside from making and eating our lunch somewhere at some point, we drove on ahead towards Kennedy Meadows.  At one point we turned left down a road and ended up at Clark Fork of the Stanislaus river and had a lovely picnic there down by the river- Ben was our chef and whipped up some of the best tasting food I’ve had in awhile- the burger patties were supreme, as was the shallot/squash saute. While he was cooking I was hanging out with Nolan on some large rocks by the river and Nolan was drawing in the sand. We took silly pictures…. All was well until I left, literally for like 3 minutes, while Ben was still very close to Nolan but had his hands full of burger meat, and I could hear that old familiar cry of my little bear.  I came back to find Nolan cuddled in Ben’s arms, his head resting on Ben’s shoulder. He had his first little fall- he must have hit his head on a boulder or something because his head had a nice sized patch of blood coming out of it.  And yes, I’m just that mean that I stopped long enough to take a picture of the whole thing.I even asked him to give me a sad face after he’d perked back up.His spirits perked up fairly quickly after the little episode and he resumed his playing for awhile, but after a short time his energy seemed to wane again- I think the fall took more out of him than he thought so we just cuddled a bit before finishing up our picnic.Nolan fell asleep in the car pretty quickly and took quite a long nap while we drove.We drove up 108 and through the Sonora Pass- it was absolutely breathtaking. We stopped the car at one point to take in the river, and Nolan woke up sooner after so that we could all hike along the river a bit and see what there was to see. Of course, Nolan’s favorite part of this day so far was getting to throw rocks in the rivers.  We decided to move on to Kennedy Meadows and take the short jaunt to the large open meadow there where Nolan could really throw rocks into the river to his hearts content to finish up our day. Wow the water was absolutely FREEZING but Nolan somehow managed to sit on the shore with his feet in the water for quite some time.  I asked Ben if you can get frostbite from cold water- I really couldn’t comprehend how he could keep his feet in that water- everytime I tried it I had to pull my little puppies out pretty quick as it was so icy cold it really hurt!  But Nolan just kept sitting there with his pail and his rocks and his feet in the water, enjoying himself in that focused way when he’s busy doing something he finds important.We enjoyed finding different rocks with interesting colors and patterns that really came alive when we got them wet.  Ben laughed at me when I formed the “cool rock club”- only the coolest rocks got to be in the club. I did bring one home that wasn’t in the cool rock club, but I loved it nonetheless because it was flat and smooth- a good rock to write something on and felt lovely just to hold it in the hand. Now that I’m writing it all out it sure sounds like we packed a lot in to one day!  We headed back to the cabin and as the sun was setting we were driving at one of the higher points of the highway for the ground dropped off on both sides and you could see far to both sides.  We stopped to enjoy the view and Nolan went “rock climbing”. and once again, after dinner, we were pretty much ready for bed right away again. Boy after seeing all we did that day now, it’s no wonder we were pooped!  Everything done with a small child requires twice as much energy and time- but it was a lovely day.

Sunday morning both Ben and I felt a little more tired, no, wasted, than the previous day and we figured it would be a good day to NOT do any more hiking, but to mozy slowly on home and stop at Railtown for Nolan in Jamestown.  Wheww was it hot!  The train ride itself was really neat- especially everything the volunteer had to tell us about the history of the railroad and gold mining in that region, but I think Nolan had the most fun just playing with the Thomas the Train set up in the store, and he did so for quite some time.And that’s all folks!

May 24th, 2012 by Busy Mommy

Had fun arts-itizing a number of our vacation pics….