The End of an Era

Oh my gosh...the secret is out.

Quentin finally asked if I was Santa. I told him the truth.

It's kind of sad and kind of a relief all at the same time.

He's so proud of himself for figuring it out.

He does have one lingering question..."Wait! Who is that calls us every Christmas Eve pretending to be Santa?"

Ha! I'm going to keep that secret for a while...It's killing him not to know. :0)

Man vs. Wild (Quentin)

Quentin has become addicted to the show Man vs. Wild. It is aired on Discovery Channel. Quentin has been having a field day with all of the snow and rain, because he is getting to dig snow caves and build shelters to keep him and Lily out of the rain. Luckily, he hasn't started eating beetles and spiders...at least not that I know of. I told Justin to keep an eye on his lighter so we could make sure Q isn't trying to start a fire to keep warm in his shelter.

Here he is in his snow cave:

Friday the 13th

Most people don't care for this date on the calendar, but Quentin is loving it! Why? Well, first his school called for a one hour delay due to weather. Then at about 8:00 a.m. it started snowing and at about 9:00 a.m. the school announced that it was cancelled for the day. Quentin has been wishing and praying for a snow day all winter. Night before last it snowed a little bit and the school delayed only an hour...Quentin was highly irritated at the situation. When I woke him up this morning and told him it was a one hour delay again he was extremely irritated! Then it snowed and the boy literally did the happy dance!

He went outside and made me a Valentine. Isn't he sweet?!

Another sweet thing he did was loan his cousin Lily a pair of his old boots so that she could go outside and play in the snow with him. Here is a picture of her first sled ride (she wouldn't ride without Quentin):

And here is our old oak tree out back. I think it looks cool.

Hope you all have a lovely Valentine's Day tomorrow!

Sledding

Goodness we had a great time! Quentin has been very anxious to go play in the snow all winter and today we finally pulled it off. It rained/snowed yesterday and today it was sunny and the roads were clear. I decided we'd drive up Hwy. 108 until we found a good place to pull over. When we got to Sierra Village and there still wasn't any snow I was beginning to get a little nervous. How far would we have to go to find snow...after a snow storm? Well, we ended up having to go as far as Little Sweden. It was perfect! There weren't many people so there were still LEGAL parking spaces. I only saw one group of teenagers get a parking ticket. They were probably from Modesto. The goobers parked right in front of the NO PARKING sign!

Anyway, Quentin is extremely happy that he got to play in the snow. He would have been happier had I thought to bring snacks, but he survived.

Here he is being way to cool and standing up on the sled:

He looks a little scared in this one:

And here is the aftermath of the previous shot:

I went down the hill couple of times...there's nothing flattering about a picture of a big butt on a sled:

And, finally, here is Q catching some air:

Yosemite

For several years I've been living in fear of driving to Yosemite. This is due to the fact that the brakes went out on my truck on the way home the last time I went to Yosemite. I had my family in the truck and I seriously thought we were all going to die. Well, I FINALLY got over it last week! It was a goal of mine this year...it's actually been a goal for a few years. I'm so glad I actually accomplished it this year! I did not get wonderful photos on this trip, but I bought a year pass so I can go back and get lots of fab photos throughout the different seasons.

Here's one of Upper Yosemite Falls:

This is Glacier Point (I think):

The world famous Half Dome:

And Quentin...famous in his own right:

You'll notice that he's sliding on ice. We planned on doing a lot of walking and hiking in Yosemite, but all of the pathways were covered in ice so we just did a lot of sliding.

We took a picnic and ate it in the back of the truck. We did a lot of chatting. Quentin brought up the fairytales conversation again. He asked me point blank if I was the Easter Bunny. I fessed up. He said, "I knew it! I knew it! I knew that a bunny couldn't be alive!" So, now he's busted the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. So far, he has steered clear of calling out Santa. I wonder if this is the year though. My little man is growing up. :-(

San Francisco

A week or two ago I went to San Francisco again to take pictures of the Golden Gate. It was the night that the moon was closest to the Earth and so it was supposed to appear to much larger than usual. I had a vision in my mind of the photogragh I wanted to capture. Well, that photograph never came to fruition, but I did some that were okay anyway.

Here's the Golden Gate from Bakers Beach:

Here's the moon over the city:

Happy New Year

I was counting on 2009 being a better year than 2008. So far, it's not working out so well. I've got strep throat and was running a fever of over 101 degrees. What the hell kind of deal is that? Thank goodness for antibiotics from Mexico. At least I didn't have to go to the doctor. I guess that's a plus.

Quentin has cabin fever. The boy needs to get out of the house! He is way to active to be cooped up this long. I was thinking of taking him to play in the snow tomorrow, but I just read mymotherlode.com and the weather service has issued a winter storm warning for tomorrow, so probably not such a good idea to go up the hill.

Hmmm...I didn't really mean for this to be such a depressing post, but sometimes that's how it works out. It can't be fun and games ALL the time people. :-)

Happy New Year!