Hiking Saturday

 

 

 

 

Nate and I honored our Saturday hiking commitment and did a partial loop on the challenging King's Canyon trail between sporadic rain drops. We saw lots of great animals: frogs, horses, vultures, millipedes, quails, and lizards. No snakes, though, much to Nate's disappointment, and no mountain lions, much to Nate's relief. 

Portrait Pixel Experiment #2

 

Nate being silly, but I like the effect...

Portrait Experiment #1

 

Made from 3000 miniature pictures of Julie from age 0 - 6 yrs old.

Rainy Day Fun

 

Rain continues off and on through the end of May. Some last bit of wet fun...

Visit from Edmonds

 

Julie's Class @ Oakland Zoo

The veggie garden

 

 

 

It's taken a couple of weekends, but it's now complete. Ten types of heirloom tomatoes, four types of peppers, two varieties of carrots, fava beans, potatoes, strawberries, edamame, snap peas, two types of basil, and who knows what else. All organically fertilized and hooked up to new watering tubes. Even Nate and Julie each have their own steel trough filled with their choice of seeds.

First Swim of the Year

 

No surprise that it was Julie who jumped in. She's the only one so far, just reading the "61 degrees" on the thermometer makes me shiver.

Pliny the Elder

 

I'm currently brewing the most hop-crazy beer I've ever seen: Pliny the Elder. The fermentation on this was so busy the first night, it woke Gina up from across the hall. It's now in the secondary fermenter, which required another three hop additions. Only six more weeks to sample time.

Last day of spring break

 

Nate built spaceships and Julie did self-portraits.

More Disney photos, day 3

 

 

 

 

Disneyland: Day 3

 

 

 

 

Day three was our big blow-out, not to be hindered (much) by food poisoning or tiredness. We stayed out late, Julie opting to see "It's a Small World" a second time, and Nate did the Railroad rollercoaster & Matterhorn again & again. We went back to the hotel in time to see the fireworks from balcony and a well deserved nights rest.

Disney - Day Two

 

 

 

 

All Ready for Disneyland - Day One

 

 

 

Santa Barbara - Day Two

 

 

 

 

The last day before we came down with food poisoning! This was our first time visiting the Santa Barbara Zoo. Nate and Julie's highlights were playing in the kid zone and feeding the koi in the pond. After lunch we visited the huge playground, perfect for climbing (Nate) and being a monkey on the monkeybars (Julie's favorite).

Santa Barbara Zoo - Playground

Santa Barbara - Day 1

 

 

 

 

A relaxing day at Santa Barbara: playing in the sand, riding rental bikes along the coast to Montecito, and grabbing ice cream downtown on State Street.