{this moment}

Our Table

Sometimes when it is just mama and babes the table does not get cleaned up before bed (more so when the littlest is still awake at 10pm).
I love a clean table in the morning, a blank slate. But sometimes the peek into the day before is fun too!
This morning there is the canning I did yesterday, which gives a feeling of accomplishment and warmth as I think about my own way of providing for my family. Crayons, there is always some sort of art going on here even in the in between of a busy day. So many cups! So many napkins! Maybe we will have to paint those napkin rings I've been meaning to get to. My grandmas African violet planters made just for her. The pewter candle holders, one of my treasures from Connecticut, with beeswax candles rolled for me by Riley. And Tom Sawyer. Lots of Tom sawyer listening around here lately. As I come in and out and hear bits and pieces I smile and am glad for how familiar my kids are with Tom and Huck and Becky!
I'm glad to smile at this mess I did not get to instead of grumbling about it. Just a little bit of slowing down and enjoying what we have.
Happy Thursday!!

{this moment}

Road Trip!

We got a little crazy one day last week and left town!

Three and a half hours later we arrived at Bodie! What is Bodie you ask? A famous ghost town in the California mountains! I have always been into things like this, and even have watched a couple documentaries on Bodie with my step dad back in high school. But I have to tell you, this was WAY MORE AMAZING then I could have imagined!

One of the things that made this all the more awesome was in my genealogy crazed studying I learned that my great-grandfather Frank worked at different things and one of them was mining. He, Grandma Ruth, my grandpa and his two older sisters would have lived in a town very much like Bodie. In fact They lived in Standardville, Ut. owned and run by The Standard mine company the same company who's mine employed Bodie. It was neat to imagine my grandfather running around streets like this and going to a school like the one here. It was also scary and heartbreaking to imagine grandma Ruth living somewhere just like here without much medical help so far removed and watch her 13 year old daughter die from juvenile diabetes.
 

 

We were blessed with beautiful weather, the thunderclouds moving in gave us much appreciated shade! Weather in Bodie is crazy, it regularly freezes during the summer, but it is in the high desert and gets high temperatures. In the winter it can get to -30! Nothing but hops grew for the people who lived there, everything was brought in from outside!

In the museum it was neat to see the payroll books and again made me think of great-grandpa Frank and what he might have done or not done with his paycheck (there were 46 bars in Bodie at it's height!).

The interesting things to see in the museum were nothing like the houses, you could not go into most but you could peek into the windows and see all the things just suspended in time. Left there decades ago. It was fascinating, ere, fun, and sad all at once!

Here is the mine where the men and boys worked. You had to be 16 to work in the Bodie mine, unusually old for that time in history.
It was a wonderful trip, even with the long drive and the (pain inducing) park entry fee. We will be back!

Then we started the drive back!

It was fun to see the sliver of Mono Lake on the road to Bodie it is one of our favorites (Dan still has not been there!)!

And to make it all the more blissful we got a most wonderful rain storm that followed us from Bodie almost to Minden! It had started to sprinkle on us as we left Bodie but on the road it just poured and poured! I am not sure there is a more beautiful drive as 395 from Bishop to Minden!

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Summer So Far...

Summer so far, well we have been having tons of fun but unfortunately that translates into few pictures and even less computer time...
I never did get any pictures from our 4th of July trip to Grandma's except for a couple on my phone, but after a week at Grandma's and then the boys week at Grandpa's I did snap a couple!


Here is our gang at Manzanar after doing the Jr. Ranger program, Grandpa, the boys and Novella & Koa drove up and met us in Bishop. We had a fun night of lots of cousins and just two adults! Crazy!!

The beauty out there on 395 takes my breath away every time! Just beautiful!

Speaking of beautiful... Miss Fern has been making lots of crowns and rings from our over abundance of clover in the grass!

Miss Leili thought I should get a shot of her way up in the tree, what a cutie! She is lots of fun these days!

One evening we had a fantastic rain storm with thunder and lightning, rain is rare here and it has been an especially dry year here (like everywhere). SO we all hoped in the car and chased it across the valley! We saw lots of great lightning and got to jump out and feel the rain. Plus the kids though it was great that we were "storm chasers"!

For my birthday I took the kids camping with a couple other mama friends and their kids! We went to Pyramid Lake, it is on the Washoe Indian Reservation. We got there in the evening and enjoyed swimming and dinner, then after we had gotten in the tent to go to bed a wind storrn came up and blew our tent away... in the dark... with us in it... Re-staking a tent in the dark is quite exciting! ;)

 

I got the pleasure of watching the beautiful sun rise on my birthday! It was so silent and beautiful. And a wonderful way to start a new year.

We swam and played before heading home, it was a fun birthday!
So thats all the pictures on my camera. Thats it! But boy is that not all we have done! And there is SO much more to come!!

{this moment}

A moment from this week that I want to pause and savor...

{this moment}

A moment from this week that I want to pause, savor, and remember...

{this moment}

a moment from this week I would like to pause and savor. XO

{this moment}

Our Birthday Big Girl!

Leili turned 3 this week! She got to party for 2 days since Dan got home after she went to bed on her birthday. We are so thankful for our beautiful birthday girl! Our lives would be so boring without her!!
Day1!
 

 

 

 

Day 2!!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This & That!

Things have been quiet here, sorry. But I have kept a list of a few things that I wanted to share with you all! Hooray!



:: Bird & Little Bird Family Read Aloud Book Along!

Such a fun idea! Families reading the same book aloud and then of course her SUPER cute "extras" to go with each book! Just shoot her an email saying your family would like to participate. This Thursday she is announcing the first book. We love to read aloud and are always looking for new titles! Currently we are on book #5 of the Nancy Drew series! My grandma bought be them when I was young and boy are the kids enjoying them!

:: Ben & Birdy's Recipe for DILL PICKLE POPCORN!

Ok so a little story for you all, first you must know I am a dill pickle fanatic fan. ;) Back in high school I got to go to Edmonton Canada for EFY and also got to stay with an awesome family, while there I discovered dill pickle potato chips! Seriously! If I had a contact in Canada or lived close enough to the border I would totally be eating these right now. Anyway a friend from college who happens to be Canadian but who now lives in the States (but no where near me) was flaunting her dill pickle popcorn spice! Seriously I am thinking I should move to Canada just for the dill pickle love! So I have been wanting some to say the least. Which lead to some googling and then this recipe. It was pretty good! But I'm still hoping to get my hands on the good stuff...

:: SARDINES!

I know! Seriously Danna? My Daddy was always a sardine guy and it always grossing me out! Well last summer when my boys stayed the week with my Dad he and Jake ate quite a bit of sardines and saltines from what I have gathered. I know they are so good for you, and I know they are sustainable and one of the cleaner fish, but... Well I buy them for the kids because they are so good for them and really its and easy peasy snack! Recently a friend shared her sardines with me, Bar Harbor Maine sardines. And... they were totally good! Of course they are a little expensive, so I buy some of those and some of the Trader Joe's ones the kids don't mind. ;)

A Baby Sardine

A baby sardine

Saw her first submarine:

She was scared and watched

through a peephole.

"Oh come, come, come,"

Said the sardine's mum,

"It's only a tin full of people."

:: Cloud Dough!

Oh yes, the mess! We really enjoy making and playing with play dough but today a friend shared this recipe and the ease sounds great! I haven't tried it yet but we are SO making this!!

4 cups flour

1/2 cup baby oil

THAT'S IT!!

Stay Tuned for more!

{this moment}

A moment from this week that I want to pause, savor, and remember.

{this moment}

Dandilions!

Spring has sprung and so have the dandilions all over town!! There are fequently dandilion flowers in my hair or sunhat, the girls love to pick them. But they also know that the greens are editable and yummy to boot! So the kids have cleaned out our yard a couples times and then last night they brought in a very large harvest and exictedly told me, "Tim let us pull all the dandilions out of his yard! He doesn't WANT them!!!" He He our neighbors most likely are now completly convinsed that we are loony! But this morning we enjoyed them in our dandilion & kale hash! We have also enjoyed a few green smoothies with them too! Now if only we had those lovely wild ramps we could find in our yard in CT. Yummmm!

Anything good foraged in your yard this spring?