Yosemite!

How on earth is it February? Because time is on fast-forwardx3, that's how. Time is going crazy fast right now. I realized I never updated about our Yosemite trip, so even though it's 3 months late haha...

In late October, we took our annual camping trip and returned to... Yosemite! Mr. River and I haven't been there since 2008, when Mr. River proposed to me up in Tuolomne Meadows. The girls had never been. We were a bit nervous about how it would be camping in late October... we had fears of crazy snowstorms and freezing rains. Back in 2008, we camped in Tuolomne in September and froze our tushes off haha. It caused a major overhaul of our sleeping gear. We learned our lesson :)

This time around, Tuolomne wasn't an option because it closes at the end of September. Plus, with the girls, we wanted to be closer to the amenities of the Village. So we camped at Upper Pines, spot 202. We had heard stories about how packed the campgrounds are in the Valley, and I'm sure that is true in the summer. But middle of the week in late October - the campgrounds were pretty quiet and sparse :) And our site was amazing. It was much larger space than the ones around it, the back of the space was a wide foresty area, and it was an easy walk to two different bathrooms. It was perfect!!

Because I spend a ridiculous amount of time looking up campsites to try and pick the best ones - here's for anybody hoping to see what site 202 looks like :)

There were two obvious tent locations, we chose one that put our tent further away from the road and other campsites. Looking at our tent on the walk back from the bathroom (wide open space behind the campsites here, so nobody's trekking through your site to get to/from the bathroom)

And Baby Bear and Blue LOVED playing behind the tent:

We stayed for 5 nights, and it was not enough time. We were all so sad to leave. I really wish we'd stayed for at least two more nights :( But we had an amazing time while there. We did the Mist Trail - all the way to the top. Yep, Blue hiked the full 3 miles and climbed a ridiculous amount of steps. And she loved every minute of it and later told us the stairs were her favorite part of all Yosemite. 

We also just walked around the Valley. Did I mention it was fall and gorgeous?? It was in the low 60s during the day, just beautiful :) And all of the trails were pretty much empty. I told Mr. River that I think we should do all future visits in late October - it was just so breathtaking.  

One thing that has been really fun about our annual camping trips is seeing how much the experience changes each year. Baby Bear was really into exploring the trails and seeing just the simple sites of trails. It is such a fun age - even a simple leaf is magical. 

Blue was really into the junior ranger and discovery talks, so we spent more time at the museums and with the rangers than we normally have - and it was really neat! 

One thing we learned from this camping trip that made life much easier - I precooked all of our dinners and froze them (laying flat) in gallon ziplock bags, and then I stacked those in the cooler.  Dinner was a complete breeze each night - start the stove, open up a ziplock bag, and warm it up. Beef stew, chicken tacos, vegetable soup, meatballs - Yum! We also cooked noodles ahead of time so we just had to add sauce for a spaghetti night. It has made camping with the kids so much easier. Dinner is done fast, cleanup is easy, and very little propane is used on the stove. Easy peasy! 

Also, on our camping trips, I always let the girls pick out a book from the campsite store as their souvenir. Baby Bear picked out their Yosemite souvenir for this trip - Bear Snores On. It is a really adorable book :) You should all get it immediately :)

Leaves!

So a second post because this one will be a big pic bomb :)

Yesterday, we spent an hour outside playing with the girls. It started with Blue riding her Strider (balance bike) and showing us how good she's getting at it. She's preferred her tricycle for most things, but the last few times we've taken her to ride something she's requested the Strider. And now that she's getting better at it, she's really preferring it! Baby Bear sat with me and played with textured balls while we watched Blue.

But as the sun started going down, we spotted the leaf pile on one of the lawns. San Diego doesn't really get a colorful fall, but our complex was awesome in planning the feel of the community and planted many trees that would still give us a feeling of fall. We get a few weeks (or maybe even over a month) of leaves falling. And if it's been awhile since the lawnmowers went over the grass, we can actually scoop them up into piles. We watched neighbor kids do this the other day, using a frisbee as their "rake," and their leaf pile was still there.

So how could we resist letting our San Diego girls have some true fall fun of rolling in leaves?

Tricycling the bay, Gator Golf at the mall, and Gymbo!

The past few weeks have been pretty chaotic in the non-kid areas of life.  The whole house was very sick, I presented at a conference, had standard work write-ups, and I also put in a few hats to sell at the local consignment store. Busy busy!

This week, though, is very nice and relaxed :) So time to catch up on what's been going on!

First, we've been trying to do weekly playdates with another family from Blue's school. The first week, we met up at Mission Bay. The girls played on the play structures and then rode on the bikepath for awhile with their tricycle and scooter. Mission Bay is such a great place to spend the afternoon with the kids - numerous open grass areas, playgrounds, and of course the actual bay. It's also great for kite-flying. But, the bay is windy and cool. With the time change and falling temperatures, it was just too chilly and dark to resume the playdates there in the late afternoon. So our weekly play-dates moved to the friend's house, where the girls played while the moms crocheted. :)

We've also been doing more walking to the mall. It's only a city block away from us, and there is a nice walkway that avoids all the main streets.  The weather has been cooler at night (low to mid 60s in the evening) which makes the walk so much more pleasant than the heat we had been experiencing. Jackets, cool air, and getting to watch the leaves fall - it's nice! We even stopped at Starbucks the one evening and picked up a cakepop for Blue - who has only had them a few times. She took one bite and declared she was done lol

The mall has also been renovated this year and has a new playground as well as putting greens! So it's nice to walk down there just to windowshop and enjoy some of those amenities. We even brought our Gator Golf clubs the last time we went :) 

Finally, we enrolled Baby Bear in Gymboree! Blue started Gymboree when she was about 10 months old and just loved it. Aside from all the developmental benefits and small things like taking turns, transitioning activities, and sharing - it is just a great one-on-one thing to do with them. Our Gymboree offers "Open Gym" (free play) six days a week, which really maximize the value you get for the cost.

Baby Bear LOVES Gymboree! And we are so very glad we enrolled her. It's nice to have something to do with just us and her while Blue is at school. We do gymnastics with Blue and now Gymboree with Baby Bear. I think it's nice to have that dedicated time with each, though of course we could do it in other ways as well.

Scarf turns blanket

Tunisian crochet is slow. It is slower than crochet, certainly. But, I almost feel like it may also be slower than knitting. To be fair, I'm new at it, so of course it's slow.  Once upon a time - like even two years ago, crochet seemed to take me forever too.

But, upon working on the Tunisian scarf for several ours and having less than a foot done, I stared at it and realized... It's way too wide to be a scarf. Mr. River tried to comfort me and say it could be folded in half.

Thanks, dear.

I promptly cast off, finished off, and decided it would become a doll blanket for Blue's dolls. I'll add a pillow to it, perhaps. One Christmas gift down!

But I still need to finish that scarf. And since the knitting attempt I started was going too slow for my taste, I am back to the drawing board on the pattern I will use. I may just wing it.

Crochet/knitting/yarn aside, life has been hectic. I'm reading a good book called How to Write a Lot. The name sound silly, but really it's a useful book about building practical, productive, efficient writing habits. I need such habits. To emphasize this point, I am mostly reading it on the Kindle (on the iPad) while I nurse Baby Bear at night or for naps. That's how scattered my work habits feel. I do get a few hours of dedicated work time each morning, so I need to make them work better.

And to add to this, my touchpad on my laptop is on the fritz. Ok, not just on the fritz, it's been labeled Legally Fritzy and is on the verge of being committed. The cat splashed a few droplets of water on it. A few droplets. But apparently that was enough. After several days of hoping it'd straighten up, I have disabled everything it's supposed to do (and would disable it entirely if I take the time to figure that out), and am now using a normal mouse. Which means working on a laptop isn't feeling very mobile right now. And because the touchpad isn't completely deactivated, but is still all Legally Fritzy, whenever I try to work at all the touchpad decides to drag windows, close things, randomly tap and highlight and delete. You get the idea.

Yes, minor stuff. Just annoying.

Whining aside!  We have had a few great evenings. I took the girls for a nice hour at the park the other day, and they had a blast :) Baby Bear just loves and loves that she can crawl around the playstructures now. And the park we go to has a really nice "toddler" play structure that is perfect for her.

We also made some delicious chickpea soup, found on pinterest :) I added a few chicken breasts, did not add any chili, and then shredded the chicken when it was done. It turned out great! Even Blue liked it :) The first night, I gave Baby Bear just some mashed chickpeas and pieces of shredded chicken. I couldn't figure out how to give her the spinach, though soft, without it being a problem. 

So, the next day, into the food chopper the soup went! And she loved it! chickpeas, chicken, spinach, cauliflower, onions, tomatoes, oh my. It made a ton of food! We had leftovers for two days of it. I put the rest in the blender, froze it in our minimuffin tray, and popped the individual servings out into a freezer bag. Now we have 24 servings of chicken and chickpea soup for the girls!