More camping and some crafts to

My sister Anna has been here all week, her final stop before a year in China. We've been celebrating this by camping! This time we drove west to the southern tip of Oregon and stayed at Harris Beach. It was beautiful and dramatic and lovely, but it was also cold and damp, and since we are not plan-aheaders, we could only camp for one night and then we would have had to move to another site. Driving west, we passed through a tad of northern California and we were excited about the redwood forests, so instead of a second night on the ocean we opted to move inland to the redwoods. It was a good move! We got a beautiful campsite surrounded by huge trees and a 3 minute walk brought us to the most beautiful wonderful small river. It was clear as glass, rather shallow and refreshingly cold. Just beyond that was classic redwood forest full of giant trees with millions of nooks and crannies to be explored. We found the hole to china, the hole to canada, the hobbit house and the bridge to tarabinthea, to name a few. Julia loved both camp sites, running with abandon into the waves of the ocean, rolling in the sand, learning the word "blackberry" in reference to the fruit, not the technology, rolling in the dirt, and insisting that her marshmallows be served on a stick. Her language capacity has suddenly taken a step forward. She is much more interested in learning and repeating words. bak-bweh, (blackberry) Neh-neh, (Anna) beh-plene, (airplane) dah-brey (library) and tee-tee (pee) are a few of the latest. My family has always camped for vacation and during travel, because we are not monetarily rich, and because we are fond of nature. I became aware of the term "glam-ping" to refer to those who camp with the most luxurious things they can find, and there are some funny things that we do that fits in that category completely, such as bringing down comforters to cozy around the sleeping bags, bringing fancy root beer and boxes of wine to sip with our dinner, making wonderful food like slow roasted chicken in bbq sauce and homemade sourdough bread and smores with almond chocolate bars. We have never camped with a camper, or with a mosquito tent over the picnic table, or with a jet-ski or any number of what you might consider traditional luxury camping items, but I love the way we camp with our old plastic dishes and the wash tub that has "barbie clothes" scrawled across it in my handwriting. (Though there are certain memories of certain trips best forgotten, like the foot-of-water-in-the-tent-night) Oddly enough, Dave and I have not camped together yet. It will be interesting to see how our styles mesh when we finally do get around to taking a camping trip together.

Auntie Anna taught Julia that if she drags her toes, she will get swung up high!

lovely ocean

but cold! only Olaf was brave enough to get more than his toes wet.

happily filthy

more lovely ocean

She's pleased to have gotten her hands on Olaf's hat. 

she was not so pleased to get washed of sand in the cold shower. 

she would be much more pleased about car trips if only she could drive

dad the gnome, at home in the redwoods

that be Olaf, dwarfed by the tree

a hobbit house

mom has stories about dad falling out of trees in their pre-courtship

I can nurse on a rocky beach, no problem!

and she can nap on a rocky beach, no problem!

not so pleased to be awake though. 

we tried out pigtails. super cute but she looks much older!

I made this! (by made I mean that I found the driftwood and got Dad to drill me a hole for the candle. pretty nifty, eh?)

I made these too! in a much more legitimate sense of the word. 

little leather-soled, fleece lined booties for the winter!