Summer Vacation-Fresno... Part II

Here's some more pics of the highlights of our trip. It was really hard to narrow them down, we got so many great ones. :-)

Since The Sheriff and Auntie G were off work, it was a good time to work with Vinny, and get him used to the pool, and being around water. So, a portion of time was spent with that everyday... easing him in Cesar Millan style. :-) I'm always so amazed at what one can accomplish with a well-trained dog. I've gone from intensely disliking dogs as a general rule to having one, and being so amazed by them, their obedience, and their unquestioning love for their master. What a gift they can be. This well-trained dog, though hating every minute of it, did do what his masters asked of him, and endured the water torture with increased willingness every day. One day he finally figured out that he was cooler after he was in the pool, and that was a good day. He may never love it, but I'm pretty confident that he'll continue to improve. Ha! He wouldn't even be bribed with treats though, he was not a happy camper.

Auntie G's beautiful Asiatic Lilies. Mine are almost blooming in my yard, I can't wait. They are so lovely.

Learning how to properly pick one's nose with PegLeg. :-) Things like this really make me excited to be a Grandma someday. I spend most of my time telling my kids not to pick their noses, how great will it be to be able to put them up to stuff like this?!

We agreed that since we weren't doing something super exotic for a vacation, we would at least eat really well. And, we did. :-)

Auntie G ordered drapery from me a few months before we left... so I brought the finished pieces down with me, and we hung them while we were there. They turned out really well... which is always nice!

Raw silk drapery and sheers in the living room. This was very hard to take a picture of. I love puddled drapery. Did you know... ? Back in the day when wealthy people's homes had drapery (as opposed to poor people's shutters) it was a sign of how wealthy you were to have a big puddle of drapery on the floor... it meant that you could afford expensive fabric that just did nothing useful but puddled dramatically on the floor, and the goal was to have as big of a puddle as possible. I wonder how many more times I could type puddle in this paragraph? Ok, I'm done now.

Maybe not. Puddled. Puddle. Puddley. (It's a funny word... try saying it 15 times.) Puddle.

I made cafe curtains for the kitchen too, in the green stuff. Guess I forgot to get pics of that... oh well! :-) The house was noticeably cooler after we hung them, so that's a wonderful bonus. We made them as thick as possible to help block out that crazy Fresno summer heat.


By Thursday we were finally feeling vegged out enough to get out and do something. So, we headed up the foothills of the Sierra Nevada's and went to Shaver lake.

It was cooler up there, and just gorgeous.

One thing that I noticed immediately is how happy my children are the minute they get out in "the nature". As the love of nature is something we've tried to cultivate as a family, I am so thankful for this... they immediately become more content and happy, and are able to entertain themselves so well.

Kiki picked up all the garbage surrounding our little area before she started to play, which was so precious and did my heart good. If everyone did that, maybe we wouldn't see garbage left willy-nilly when we head into the woods.

Nothing like riding a horse around a lake on a beautiful day... :-)

The girls found the perfect rock to try out their rock climbing skills.

And, wading. It never gets old. :-) Amazingly enough, none of us got sunburned the whole week. That could be because we went through two bottles of sunblock in a weeks time though. :-)

Friday Enrique and PegLeg lent us their boat, and we headed to a different lake for some water fun. Kiki and Debris got their first chance on an intertube. Kiki, with Daddy.

Debris was not so sure about the intertubing...

I tunnelled through my unreasonable fear of swimming in places where I can't see the bottom. I HATE swimming in lakes. You never know when you're going to run into the Loch Ness Monster. Seriously freaks me out. Anyway, Auntie G and I got a long ride... we swear they tried to throw us, although they insist that they didn't. We hung on though, and there was no flying, although we did have a little submarine action towards the end.

And, Auntie G, with Kiki and Debris... We forced Debris to do it, and she ended up having a really great time, although she's pretty sure it's not very safe, haha!

Finally we had to head back to Portland... tearful goodbyes were spoken, but a great relaxing time was had by all. Thanks for a great time guys!

Wow, this is a really long post. Stay tuned for the next installment, which will be pics from our week spent in Portland!