Dam Tour and More

Oh boy did I get behind a little. Ah, finally! We are having fun finding people to hang out with these days. Last Sunday it was D and family. The adults played volleyball while the kids played bocci ball, soccer and ran around the playground (the watchful eye of grandparents is always a huge bonus!!).

I guess I am going to have to get K into soccer, she is a total natural, using her body to block out her opponent.

Always the dress up dog, Sam is so patient!

This is our first "Reformation Day" (as I will hold out against that other day as long as I can) and Em
dressed up as a doctor.  Currently she is going to be a dr when she grows up.  I think she thinks then she won't have to be on the other side of it but who knows.

It's hard to believe but K went as a queen.

Yes, the ponies were dressed up as well.  I even had to make several things to make these outfits work.  Crazy kids!

This was a cute fall festival just like the good old days when we used to have them at our church.

D and little brother

They even had the old fishing game...

...and a bean bag toss.  That is Em's face of concentration.  She rarely uses it so I don't get it on film ever, but thought I would share.  Unlike K's tongue, she purses her lips and stares very intently.

They spent a long time at the craft table.

K even won a raffle prize!  I never win those so I had prepped her a little that way and she was pretty excited when she won!

God gave me girls so that I could call all of our lonely nights 'girls night'.  On this girls' night, we put out the table cloth right in front of the tv and watched Kratt Brothers. They couldn't be happier.  The cloth caught all the taco spillage so I was happy too.  And, I learned that there is a shark who lays its eggs inside of itself to protect them.

Well, when we have these guys over, it may as well be girls' night...they have four girls.  These were just the ones willing to play on the gravel pile.  The gravel pile is the latest great toy. It doubles as a slide and pile of moldable sand.  Never thought my girls would ever reach the point where they like being dirty...every day now.  Yipee!!

We have decided it is time to have the girls carry a backpack when we hike so we can work them up to hiking into the backcountry where we can camp.  SO, lunch in tow, we headed out on another couple of hikes this weekend.

K likes to take pictures now and is always asking to take them.  She is actually pretty good.  This was one of hers.

Okay, this was one of K's too, but I liked the angle.

I caught K's giant maple leaf right as it entered a sunny spot and lit it up.  Look at the size of that!  She was taking it back to share at show and tell at school the next day.  We didn't think about it wilting in the car before the next day.  :-(

We decided to eat at the waterfall down another hike a little ways in.

The girls were playing with Sammy and I thought it was so cute I snapped a few.  Love this one because the tongue is out.

But this is my fav.

Lastly, we went on the dam tour!  I just can't say that without giggling.  I know, so mature.  We moved here in 2001 and three weeks after we arrived, 9-11 happened and the dam was shut down due to possible terrorist attack.  After we moved south, it reopened, though you still cannot drive across it without a permit.  So, after all that time, this is our first trip into the dam.

First you get in an elevator and descend over 400 feet to near the bottom...it takes a minute to get down that far.

Oh, another budding photographer photo.

Down here they tell you all about how the dam generates electricity and how they built it.  It was very interesting, at least for us, it got a little long for the girls but they were good.

These are the giant turbines.  There are five of them and if they are all working at the same time, they can power all of SF or Sacramento.

These are the pipes down which the water flows to turn the turbines...they are huge...they look tiny from above.

Okay, the best part was the super duper long hallway that ran inside the dam.  The dam hallway was so long you had to wait for the echo to echo.  The girls took off running.

It looks like a time warp of some sort.

This is the dam view.  You can see Mt. Shasta in the background.  Our recent rains covered her in snow.  The brown is how low the lake is (water should be up at the green).  It doesn't look bad but it it super low.  Only one other time has it been this low and that was a severe drought.  90% of the water comes from rain and only 10% from snowmelt so we are praying for rain.

I love that mountain!

Well, we are remembering to explore and have fun!  This weekend we only did what had to be done and spent the rest of the time hanging out.  It was nice, but for these introverts, more exhausting than doing the chores around the ranch! :-)  Hope your day is splendid!!  God Bless!