A hot, lazy summer

Bird & Janis got me this awesome shirt for my birthday. It's for the band Post Stardom Depression. I don't even care what the band sounds like, because I think they have the cleverest name in the universe. It's my favorite shirt EVER.

It's 110 degrees here today. It's our seventh straight 100+ degree day. Prompting us to wonder why the hell we moved here in the first place. It's basically like winter all over again, because we're stuck indoors all the time - used to be to escape the rain, but now it's to escape the heat. Yuck.

Yesterday Hosie and I got to go on a date. :) We went to see An Inconvenient Truth at the Tower Theater. We were suitably freaked out. Especially since we saw it in the middle of such a crazy heat wave. Afterwards we spent a lot of time brainstorming about short and long term plans to cut our waste. Most of the things we could do seem big and unaffordable, like getting new windows, getting solar power, or replacing our old station wagon with a more earth friendly car. We're starting to think that in the very long run we should just get some land and build a self-sustaining house that is off the grid. So that when the world runs out of oil, we won't be totally screwed.

On a lighter note, Hosie got me a propane barbecue for my birthday. We had a few friends over to test drive it. The initial run of fake dogs & veggie burgers was so-so, but then Thad took over and showed me how to do the veggie kebobs, so they turned out really well. By the end of the day I was grilling pineapple for Hosie's special dessert like a pro.

The funny thing is that, contrary to all of our smashing-gender-stereotype personalities, all the boys hung out in the back yard building the barbecue, and all the girls hung out in the kitchen:





Anyway, none of you are here to hear about the adults, you are hear to witness cute pictures of our daughter... so check it out, here she is lazily falling asleep in the hammock while Nana watches. Rough life, huh?

It's 2:30 in the morning, and now this

We got Aria to bed tonight at about 9:30 or so. Then when we came to bed at about 11:15, we somehow woke her up. Bad. Awake until 2:15 a.m. Any proof we needed that we have completely lost all sense of things is here. First we just laid in bed trying to ignore it. Then we fought about it. That lasted a good hour. Then we resolved the fight, calmed her down, and figured she was finally ready to sleep at 1:15 or so. She fell asleep nursing, and meanwhile I fell asleep too. When Hosie moved to put Aria back in the crib it startled me and I jolted awake, which fucking woke Aria up again. Brilliant. Put her down in the crib and now we're back to trying to ignore it. I eventually picked her up and rocked her to sleep. It took almost a half an hour. The irony is that I'm so wound up and full of anxiety over whether she's really going to stay asleep this time that (ready for the punchline?) I CAN'T FUCKING SLEEP NOW.

Camping adventure in King's Canyon

We got adventurous and went for a camping trip in King's Canyon National Park, which is about two hours east of Fresno. It's a beautiful Yosemite-like place, full of deep canyons, sheer granite walls, and the raging south fork of the King's River.

There were too many pictures from the trip to put up here, so I made an album at Snapfish. (Note, this link was broken, but should be fixed now.)

We stayed at Aunt Lynn's house on the way there and back to split up the driving. It's a total of about six hours from our house to the park, and we thought that would be too long for Aria to ride in the car. (We were right. Three hours at a time was definitely the limit of her tolerance.)

We had a very interesting trip, marked with several ups and downs. On the up side, we saw lots of beautiful country, relaxed, enjoyed the typical camp stuff like roasting dogs and S'Mores on the campfire - and we even got a hike in, thanks to the kid carrier backpack we got. Aria really enjoyed being outside for the most part - especially in the backpack. We had a lot of good times on the trip, and the pictures speak for themselves on that side of the coin.

On the down side, it was tough to keep her entertained since there was nowhere we could let her crawl around except for in the tent. And, both Hosanna and I definitely felt the most trapped since we had her. We both wanted to go on big hikes and really explore the area, but we were obviously very limited in what we could attempt. On more than one occasion we were ready to go out on a hike just when Aria decided it was nap time, or eating time, or time to hate being in the backpack, etc. On the one hand, it was awesome to be out of the house and hang out somewhere so beautiful. But on the other hand it was depressing being out there without being able to trek off into the mountains, get a really good workout and score the beautiful views. (Kathy and Adamen and our friend Heather were with us too, and they took off nearly every day for some crazy hike or another - and man did we wish we could go with them...)

We were well-prepared with the usual things we need when we take Aria travelling, but weren't as well-prepared with our camping gear as we used to be. Out of practice, I guess.

Next time, we will try a place a little closer to home so we don't have as much travel time.

Also, we learned to always put on sunblock and insect repellant no matter whether we think we'll need them or not before going on a hike. Our one good hike day was almost spoiled because we were mobbed by mosquitoes the first time we hit the trail. Our poor little girl got several bites on her head. :( And the trail that we thought was entirely in the shade turned out to be in the blistering heat for about fifteen minutes.

Oh yes - and make sure you get enough gas before you go into the park, lest you get gouged for $4.30 a gallon at the King's Canyon lodge, by the grumpy guy who is not at all proud to show you the oldest gasoline pumps in the United States.