Wild: Day 3 (not so wild)

We woke up on the morning of day to the sound of pouring rain. Quite a pleasant sound until you recall all the paper products sitting out on the picnic tables and the towels and shoes left out to dry the night before.

We slowly got up and packed the cars to head to our next site, Big Sur. We stopped in Santa Cruz at the world's most expensive laundromat and I was so thrilled at the prospect of clean clothes I even authorized the use of chemical soap and fabric softener. After laundry we hit the market for the next round's worth of fresh food, visited the Patagonia outlet for some sweet $9 deals and dealt with a very hungry, very upset baby (we skipped breakfast due to the rain and didn't have much more to eat than fruit snacks) in the traffic of Santa Cruz trying to find something to eat. Further down Highway 1 we stopped in Monterey at the Portola Plaza hotel for their ridiculously inexpensive fleece lined windbreakers (don't ask).

Finally we arrived in Big Sur in late afternoon with no more time than to setup camp and have dinner before bed.

But what a beautiful sight. Never did I think I would think that upon viewing a scene like this, but I did.

Home Sweet Home:
 

Wild: Day 2

Even more exciting than the horsies were the "rat cats" (Racoons. It goes like this: "Momma cat!" "that's a raccoon baby" "rat cat! momma rat cat!") that visited camp every evening. And every day Angus would hunt for them with his flashlight calling "Rat Cat! Where are you?!" at the top of his lungs
 
 

Day 2 we all went to the swimming hole and leapt from rocks into the freezing cold deep water. Even Angus did a tandem jump with Poppa at his own request... he regretted it upon surfacing.
 

Wild: Day 1

We left the house at 4:00 a.m. thinking that guaranteed us at least a 3 hour drive with a sleeping baby... maybe even more thanks to the lull of the highway, but instead we put a wide awake baby into the car at 4:00 a.m. who responded enthusiastically with "I ready!" when his butt hit the cold carseat.

He fell back asleep eventually and we arrived at San Mateo Memorial Park campground around 11:00 a.m. Most of the day was spent setting up camp and getting acquainted to our private creek. Angus and I laid down for the best nap ever (3 hours in the fresh mountain air... yum and the rest of the family went for a dip in the local swimming hole.

After dinner Angus discovered "horsies" at the campsite.
 

McMac's in the wild

This year marked the first annual mcmac camping trip. It's not 100% final yet but it looks like next year's campsite will be a carribean cruise. ;)

Nah! It was actually great! To start, Angus was very into it and was very helpful.

 

Natural Athleticism

The one thing I can be absolutely sure he didn't get from me. If only I could be so confident about his champion whining.

Check out that stance. Totally impromptu:
 
 
 

What form! Looks a bit like Tiger's golf swing though...

The beach is lame...

none of the 3 McMacs are particularly fond of it... there isn't enough to like about it to warrant having so much sand in one's crack. Until... this summer! We took Angus on a whim and he loved it, and as a result, Rod and I did too!

 
 
 

After this cautious entrance we lost the water wings and he spent much of the time way out in the deep with Poppa & Momma bobbing around in the innertube and having a grand old time. Too much fun to take pictures!

it's a shame really...

percentage of american family blogs devoted to self-professed bad blogging: 18.5%

percentage of american mothers who improve their blogging frequency with any regularity: .01%

percentage of american population who like statistics and believe in their instant credibility: 95%

=P

I discovered today while uploading the pictures from the camera that I didn't take a single picture of my son for more than entire month... the birthday party just took that much out of me.

In that time, however, I did take these two photos.
1. A goldfish who met his untimely death while napping on the stove


2. A backyard nectarine being devoured by Japanese beetles (I had found another with just one in it... and the beetle was so motionless I thought it was dead. Imagine my surprise when upon tossing it into the planter to become one with the earth beetle and nectarine parted in a loud buzz and beetle took off in majestic flight. Heebie Jeebies defined!


on second thought... i probably took a few shots of Angus with the iPhone. whew. I'm not in the red yet!