More Photos of our hike at Sequoia (July 12-15)

Highlights at Sequoia

Mia's feet

• seeing the girls get filthy and love it!
• The Bear- You have to be super careful about food and anything else with a smell to it ( we were instructed to not even have things as small as chap stick, insect repellant, baby wipes...) and put them in the bear box. Our first night a ranger had  a camfire talk about bears. It was really interesting, like did you know bears eat 20,000 calories a day? Towards the end he started to talk about bear safety and then almost as if an cue a bear showed up down the road. Then we saw it to more times that night. It was a big bear and the first that I have ever seen in the wild.
• seeing Leila not giving two thoughts about going to the bathroom in the stinky latrine. Mia even sat on it a few times.
• seeing the little specks of dirt on Lucy's sweet face and to know that she was with us the entire adventure and was content the whole time. She loves to be outside.
• The friendly rangers.
• The good company, the waterfalls and great beauty that surrounded us.
• And everything that you see in this entry!

It was fun Nate and Heidi! Thanks for joining us!

In the Tent

Mia loves Lucy so much!





The girls had fun in the tent tossing their jackets around. I loved hearing the cousins laughing together at such simple fun.

Hike #1

Erica and Mia

That little critter up on top of the rock is called a Marmot (couldn't find anything about it on the National Geographic Website) but they are the funniest looking things and they eat the rubber hoses on people's cars. So, everyone up there left their hoods open (not sure why) or the more experienced wrapped their cars up with tarps and bungee cords.

Sam, Leila, Mia and Lucy in the pack on his back.

There were gorgeous wild flowers on the hike as well as water falls and river and mountain views.

We hiked a nature trail that is about 5 miles round trip. The girls did awesome. Mia needed help up to get there, but hiked most of the 2 1/2 miles down. Leila did the full 5 miles! Way to go! And then she did the hike again the next day- see the following post.

Hike #2

The day after the Burgoynes joined us we decided to do the hike again. This time ending up with a little more adventure. We finally got on the trail after all of the trips to the bathroom, nursing, snack time, looking for a lost slipper, lunchtime- if you have kids or have spent a lot of time with them, you know what I am talking about. So I ended up turning back with Lucy and Ivy (both were too tired and so we went back to have naps). Everyone else was gone for quite a while. And it started to rain and then stop and then start and stop. Then it really started to downpour! I have not seen it rain that much since Taiwan. I kept looking at the trailhead expecting them at any moment. Then I hear Nate outside the tent. I was so happy to know they were back... but not exactly. He said they got to the top of the trail when the downpour started, so they were going to take the windy road down instead of the trail. They were going from tree to tree until they found a latrine to take cover in. Nate ran down (2 1/2 miles!) to get the keys to the van from me to go and pick everyone up. I say hilarious, but you might hear otherwise from them. Oh- let me add that I had all of the rain ponchos in  my pack. When turning back they had asked "Oh no, did Erica have the snacks? Ok, good" and kept going.

Aunt Heidi, Kezia and Leila

Leila and Kezia

A latrine never looked so inviting!

When everyone was back at the site we all worked to stay warm and dry. Nate and Heidi were amazing at building trenches and dams to try to keep the water from flooding us out too bad. It stormed so much that the next day they had to close the road that Nate had jogged down for several hours to clear all of the debris and mud slides. All the little cousins laughed and laughed in the back of the van while we worked out our situation.

Sequoia National Park-The Campsite

The girls liked getting on this rock at our campsite and "do shows" for us with singing and dancing. Leila said that it was the Disney show. Got to love marketing to kids.
Leila and Mia loved climbing to the top of this huge rock, with a spotter near by of course.

Both families were on a pretty tight budget and so we stayed at the the cheapest campsite and it was awesome! You go up a 20 mile windy, skinny road called Mineral King Road to get there. Hard core backpackers use this as their base camp for the overnight, several day big hikes. So, we were high in the mountains and away from everything (including showers and flush toilets etc, etc..) We loved it.

There was a deer trail that went right through our campsite. So there were deer like 15 feet away from us several times during the day. I can't believe I never got a pic of them.

The Gunny Sack

Sam told me about the I am sure unliked Gunny Sack that used to eat the toys that were left out. So, we started to tell the girls about the gunny sack (even though we don't yet have one). 

Then today Leila and I had this conversation:

Mom: Leila, you better clean up those books before the gunny sack comes to eat them.

Leila: The gunny sack doesn't eat books.

Mom: I think if they are left out, he does.

Pause

Leila: Does the gunny sack eat bags too?

Mom: I don't know, honey.

Leila: Mom, go check on the internet, ok?

I haven't done a search yet, but I am pretty sure that this will not exist on the internet. I feel slightly bad that she thinks that the gunny sack is this mysterious creature that comes out when she is not looking instead of a mom walking around filling a pillow case with a mouth drawn on it with left out toys. We'll see what happens.

Colors

When Leila was about Mia's age (2 1/2) if you asked her what her favorite color was, she would respond "Sparkles."

I love how Mia says the color yellow- "el-low". Today when looking at some pieces of felt she held up two and told me that one was pink and one was darkness. Darkness is the color black. 

P.S. Sam just came in and asked what I was typing because he just sat on his chair at dinnertime and then it just tipped over to the side, slamming him into the wall. After seeing that he was pretty much ok I could not help rolling on the floor laughing so hard that tears rolled down my face. 

Is it already the 21st of July????

Wow! Where does the time go? A little update, I will not be offended if you don't read this, it's more for our own family history, but you are definitely welcome to it.

Erica- Has a new calling (responsibility) at church and that is the second counselor in the Primary Presidency. There was a new presidency called about a month ago and I am absolutely loving it! The ladies that I work with are all fun and hardworking. The kids are great and make the last two hours of church fly by! I also have been waking up early to get in a workout video in the morning and my wonderful husband gets up with me. 

Sam- Is out of school, but still has a lot of catch up work to do. This past weekend we spent Saturday finally putting in new flooring from our water heater incident that happened months ago. We are almost done with that. We also have to take down all of the camping equipment after our great adventure with Nate and Heidi and their family (more on that adventure to come, with photos). He is also busy with his calling in the Young Men. And the yard and the garden etc etc...

Leila- Is so good at sounding out words and writing sentences left and right. She is so excited to start Kindergarten in the first part of September. Last week was her last day of preschool. It was sad to end something that has been so wonderful. We started going a little over a year and a half ago to a friends house and we had kind of like a cooperative preschool with other kids. I got to teach for a few months as well. So this past Thursday was a big party for the kids. I hope that I am going to be able to handle life with a child in school every day. I know it will be a life change for me as well as Leila.  Leila's latest funny: We were getting into the car the other day and she told me matter of factly, "Mom, we should learn how to spin straw into gold." I couldn't agree more.

Mia- I love Mia's stage in which she is fluent in language, but still gets some things mixed up- like she calls quesadillas ikeas, and pie ears are pioneers, yellow is ellow, all flies are called Shoo-flies (from the song Shoo fly, don't bother me), and all food eaten not at the table is a tea party. Mia loves playing with Leila and she loves cuddling her sister Lucy. When she wakes up from her naps and in the mornings the first person that she likes to see is Lucy. Mia's take on death- Leila and Mia were telling me about a potato bug that they found and that it was dead. I looked at it and agreed. And then Mia said, "Yep, it's dead. It ran out of batteries".  

Lucy- Is five months and very social. She loves her sisters. She loves to smile and laugh and babble. Fart sounds have been a favorite, as well as sucking on her bottom lip. She is working really hard at learning how to crawl. She can scoot herself around a bit. She unfortunately only likes the taste of mother's milk and gives a huge sour face with everything else, including water.

We have been very blessed with these three sweet, sweet princesses in our home.

Ok, More than Blue Skies

                                

We had a couple of nice days and now it is horrible outside. Right now the temperature is 106 and has been like this for the past week. This does not help the wildfires. I just got back from play McDonalds and it looked like there was lots of fog all around, but it is smoke from the fires. California is burning and it is pretty scary.

Here are the statewide fire statistics: (these numbers are total fires and acres that have occured beginning on June 20, 2008)

• Total Fires at Peak: 1,781
  
• Total Fires Contained: 1,458
• Total Active Fires: 323  
• Total Acres Burned: 675,631  
  

These are the Statewide Resources Committed:

• Personnel Committed: 18,954
• Fire Engines: 1,530
• Hand Crews: 388
• Dozers: 259
• Water Tenders: 398
• Helicopters: 110

These firefighters are amazing. They are working so hard. When my dad came through on his motorcycle he said that he drove through a lot of smoke and stayed at the same motel as some of the fire fighters. He said that they came back at night with soot all over them. They are amazing, just as I was driving around town today I was amazed at the few people I saw out walking or biking around at such high temperatures. I could not imagine fighting fires. 

Counting Body Parts

At breakfast Mia was counting her body parts and after counting twooooo arms she put her fingers in her nose and said twoooo boogers. 

Stawberry Boy?

Mia informed us that she wants to grow her hair long like the strawberry boy.

Leila's Card to Sister Hancock

A new primary presidency was called on Sunday. Leila wanted to make the old primary president a card. Who wouldn't love one of these cards? It says: "For Sis Hancock I miss you from church. I love you". See if you can make out the words. I know it is a little light. I am still learning how to use the scanner.

Grandpa's Visit

Saturday morning my mom called and asked if Dad had called me. I said, "no, why?". She then told me that he was coming down and was wanting to drop in. With my parents living in Hawaii, this was very odd to me. I asked if it was a business trip. My mom could not believe that she hadn't told us that Dad bought a motorcycle in Baltimore and drive it all the way through Canada and then was headed down to San Diego before he shipped it off to Hawaii. Deja-vu? Yes. My mom and dad did come through on a cross country trip last year except with a side car and a bike that was a bit older and did not start so well.

As quickly as he came he also had to get back on the road. We loved seeing you, thanks for dropping in Dad.

The Drive In

We saw Wal-ee (sp?) at the Drive-In movie theater. Sadly, they plan to take it down and build a stripmall in August. Drive-Ins are the greatest. Everyone brings lawn chairs and pizzas, snacks etc. Leila is content with a red vine in one hand and a gummy worm in the other.

PreSchool

They made princess Tiaras

Add the lipstick.
Kiss the toad and see who gets the closest. It just happened to be Leila! They also made the clip on ear rings that Leila is wearing.

Dress-ups

With the horrible air quality we did a lot of indoor play this past week and dress-ups seemed to be the theme. The girls were creative, but we sure are glad to see blue skies again.