Sausalito

We had a very laid back Labor Day weekend.  Doug took the girls to the water park on Saturday and Sunday we headed to Sausalito for the day.  Doug has planned most of the day trips this summer and I thought I'd take a turn.  He's done a great job of keeping us away from crowds and I was hoping to do the same.  Somehow though, I managed to get us there right in the middle of a huge art festival.  It was just too crowded to do a lot of the things I had planned but we still managed to do a ton.  I had read so much about the houseboat communities in that area and was anxious to check them out.  We started the day at Waldo Point Harbor on Liberty Dock.

Jacob had grabbed my keys from the truck and was running all over the pier at 90 mph.  Any time we tried to take the keys away, he screamed like an eagle at the top of his lungs and collapsed in a heap.  We finally let him have them but had to follow him like hawks.  I was sure either he or my keys  were definitely going to end up in the water.  It was almost a military operation between the adults in passing the baby off to one another.  D: "You have the baby."  S: "I have the baby. Check."  Here he is with the tube of chapstick we bribed him with to get the keys back.  Then we had to work on getting the chapstick away as he kept trying to bite chunks out of it.

  The houseboats are all so different; some very ecclectic and others quite elegant.  The docks were covered in flowers and knick-knacks. 

 Anna and Lauren were determined to take some of the knick-knacks home and we had to make them empty their pockets of shells, chalk, and flowers. 

We met one pleasant gentleman who gave us a little tour.  He pointed out several homes called "arks", and from what I could gather they are houses that floated into the area but no longer have a barge and are now on pilings.  Several other houseboats have WWII landing crafts as their base.  He mentioned that those homes without some sort of protective base have to be removed periodically to be checked for teredo worm damage.  Apparently teredo worms are like the termites of the sea.  I kept looking at one home in particular and thinking it reminded me of something.

  It finally came to me.

Do you see the resemblance? :)

We headed into the main part of town but didn't get to wander too much because it was nearing lunch time.  We're always well warned by the little ones that noon is approaching.  We did get to do a little window shopping on the way to our restaurant, however.  Anna found a mermaid Christmas tree and has already asked for one in her room come December.

 They also had a tree that snowed on itself, quite ingenious.  There was a little pipe at the top that spewed snow up and out and it trickled down.  Probably not the best idea for our family currently with our one man wrecking crew running around eating everything he finds.

I had two restaurants picked out for lunch but both had lines out the door.  We decided to wing it and came across a nice little spot with seating out back.  We didn't get the clam chowder I was hoping for but the food was still very good.  While waiting for our dishes, there was a little hand-holding going on...

as well as a little lemon tasting.

We walked out to the water and watched the ferry coming in from San Fran while we shared a little ice cream.

This was the view across the water.  You can see Alcatraz and the San Fran skyline in the distance.

Afterwards we drove out to the Marin Headlands where we visited The Marine Mammal Center.  It's a wonderful place that takes injured or sick animals and nurses them back to health.  They have a small learning center where the little ones can go to see pictures of animals that have been rescued as well as feel pelts and see whale and sea lion skulls.  You can head outside to view some of the current patients from an overlook.  Anna and Lauren were bummed out they couldn't get as close as they wanted.  The folks working with the animals though were going to a lot of trouble to make sure they took the greatest care of the animals.  They wore special suits that they scrubbed down in between visiting pens.  There were also entryway mats in front of each pen filled with a bleach and water solution that the doctor/volunteer walked through each time.  When feeding the animals, they also used a large board to separate themselves from the (in this case) sea lion to ensure the animal wouldn't become accustomed to getting food from humans.

Our last stop (or so we thought) was Battery Mendel around the way.  We passed by the Nike Missile Site, a missile firing battery from the Cold War that has been turned into a museum. There were 280 Nike missile firing batteries built and operated in the US between 1953 and 1979.   This site is the only restored Nike Missile battery in the entire country.

 Doug and I talked about making a return trip this way sans kiddos and trying to make a stop at the Nike site as it is open for touring on certain days.  The kids really liked Mendel Battery and had fun exploring. 

It's such a beautiful location.  Here's the view to the West...

 And the East.

There's a smaller shot in the battery collage up top that shows the southern view across the bay with a fun Golden Gate bridge perspective.  We thought we were going to be done after Mendel but instead we took the peanut gallery to the beach "just to look".  I should know better.

 It is physically impossible to be at the beach and not "fall in".

 There were a lot of accidents that afternoon.  By the time we got back to the truck, both girls were soaked.  Jacob wasn't sure what to think at first.

 He contemplated the situation for a few moments, noticed the girls picking up sand and decided that must be the "thing" to do while at the beach.

 He developed a routine.  It went something like this: Grab sand...

Run to the water...

Throw sand into the water...

Wait for the water to get closer...

And run away as fast as possible!

Repeat over and over and over.  We were very impressed with Sausalito and would love to go back on a day when the crowds aren't so thick.  The kids enjoyed themselves too but their favorite was of course the beach (Rodeo Beach) at the end of the day!

This Blue Stool of Mine

When we were growing up, my brother had a little stepstool that had this saying painted on the top step,

"This little stool is mine,

I use it all the time

To reach the things I couldn't,

And lots of things I shouldn't."

Well here I am many years down the road and my little boy has his very own stool.  It doesn't have anything painted on it but it might as well have.  Every time I turn around he's running by with this little blue booster headed for something he shouldn't be.  He's used it to get razors off the bathroom counter, to crawl onto the tub and turn the water on, to try and unlock the front door, as a toilet, and to get into the shelves in his sisters' room.  He's also learned how to work all of the child latches we've installed and so now nothing is off limits.  Doug was out at Home Depot yesterday buying more hardware to try and foil our one man wrecking crew.  Last night, he got into the cabinet under the sink in the kitchen and dumped an entire box of dishwashing detergent.  I walked up and said, "Jakie, No, No!"  He just looked at me with the biggest, most adorable grin you've ever seen, pointed at his mess and said, "Woah, wow!"  How can you stay mad at that??

Tufa you, Tufa me

Still trying to play catch-up with the summer photos... When my dad was in town this summer we also stopped by Mono Lake right before we headed to Bodie.  I thought this was just a beautiful spot and so interesting. 

We had been doing a lot of driving that day and the girls were worn out from their colds and being on the road.  Anna opted to stay in the car with GG but Lauren roused herself enough to accompany Daddy, Elaine, and me down the boardwalk to see the tufa.

When she got there and realized there were bugs, she was immediately engaged.  She loved walking through the alkali flies to make them scatter. 

The flies lay their eggs in the tufa and the birds come to eat the flies and their larvae.

Mono Lake is one of the oldest lakes in North America and dates back at least 760,000 years.   The lake takes its name from the Native Americans who lived in the basin.  The Kutzadika'a people collected the abundant alkali fly pupae found on the tufa as a main food source.  As a result the Kutzadika'a were called Monache, meaning fly-eaters.  Monache was shortened to Mono and was applied to the region and the people living there in the 1800s.

The strange spires and knobs you see are tufa (too-fah), formed when fresh water springs containing calcium bubbled up through carbonate-rich lake water.  The combination formed calcium carbonate, a whitish limestone deposit that formed the basis of the tufa formations. 

These formations continue to grow only while underwater.  We're able to see the majority of the formations we see today due to the fact that in 1941, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power began diverting Mono Lake's tributary streams 350 miles south to meet the growing water demands of Los Angeles.  Deprived of its freshwater sources, the volume of Mono Lake halved, while its salinity doubled. Unable to adapt to these changing conditions within such a short period of time, the ecosystem began to collapse.  We were told that water levels dropped between 40-50 feet before laws were put in place to protect the lake.

Chania

The girls are back in school and I think we're finally getting into the swing of things once again.  I have a lot of pictures to upload from the summer.  I'll try to upload something new several times a week.  It just seems life has become crazier than usual lately and my blog has had to take a back seat to the chaos.  When I checked my e-mail this morning, there was a link to this video of Chania, Crete, from my friend Janan who is currently living there with her husband Ed.  It brought back so many memories as Doug and I lived on the island only about 10 minutes from Chania for a year from Oct of 1999- Oct of 2000.  I would love to go back sometime for a visit and have a chance to introduce the peanut gallery to octopus and squid (two of my favorites)! I also just melt at the thought of pictures to be taken, other delectable food to be eaten, swimming and lounging to be done, labyrinths of streets to wander, and history to be explored. 

Goodbye God, I'm going to Bodie.

I decided that I just couldn't make it to Alabama this summer with all three kids in tow. Traveling with the peanut gallery always takes a year or two off my life but I was sure it would be worse this time around. Jacob is a very busy little guy and he has a ton of items on his "to do" list. One of those items is to scream and writhe like crazy any time he is strapped into a carseat. My baby is a happy baby but not a happy traveler. Fortunately, the parents made the decision to come this way instead. I was more than elated to have my dad, stepmom, and stepgrandmother in town for 6 days. They just left this past Tuesday. We had a great time but I think I was over ambitious and tried to fit in too much. We made a marathon trip to Yosemite, Mono Lake, Bodie (Jakie stayed home with our babysitter on Friday and then with his Daddy on Saturday), and spent a day in old town Sac. We had also planned to go to Napa but everyone was too pooped.

I took a ton of pictures and haven't had a chance to go through all of them yet. The kids and I have come down with a cold. The peanut gallery are all on antibiotics for ear infections and are still running low-grade fevers. We all just want to sleep...a lot.

I thought I'd start with a few shots from Bodie. I've wanted to visit forever but we're usually only in Yosemite in the winter and Tioga Road is always closed. It was really spectacular and I could have spent the entire day there. Bodie has an interesting history. Small town. Gold discovered. Population rose to 10,000. With the rise of the population, along came the rise of lawlessness and saloons (65 in its heyday). Bodie became known as "the most lawless, wildest and toughest mining camp the far west has ever known". Frequent killings in the street. Town abandoned after WWII. Became a national park in 1962 and is considered by many to be California's official ghost town.

Pictures from the rest of the trip soon along with video from a play the girls were in this summer...it's pretty stinkin' cute.

Handsome Henry

I saw a ship a-sailing,

A-sailing on the sea;

And oh, it was all laden

With pretty things for thee!

There were comfits in the cabin,

And apples in the hold;

The sails were made of silk,

And the masts were made of gold.

The four and twenty sailors,

That stood between the decks,

Were four and twenty white mice,

With chains about their necks.

The captain was a duck,

With a packet on his back;

And when the ship began to move,

The captain said, "Quack, Quack!"