Bootcorn

We had another movie night last weekend. It was very successful and Darcy got a little slap-happy at the end. She loves to wear my rain boots, which look just great on her. After wearing them for a while, she took them off and tried to stack them in a tower. When one of them almost fell into the remnants in the popcorn bowl, she then made it her mission to stack them in just the right place so the top one would land in the bowl. She succeeded after a few tries and christened the resulting product "bootcorn" while giggling uncontrollably.

She didn't do much giggling when we went to meet Santa yesterday afternoon. She was perfectly willing to get on his lap, but completely unwilling to look in his direction. I had talked to her about meeting Santa Claus a week or so ago and said that he'd ask her what she wanted for Christmas. She told me she'd ask for candy. Sure enough, Santa asked her and she said, "I'd like candy." He pointed out that he was going to give her a candy cane right then and there, and wasn't there a toy she'd like? Nope. Candy. If we were willing to indulge such a wish, this would be the easiest Christmas ever.

Just How Big Are These Trees?

Darcy loves the redwoods. She also loves and misses the Joshua trees, so frequently tells me that Crescent City has redwood trees, but Cima house had Joshua trees. And it's all true -- both places have some very special trees. She likes to pretend to be a redwood by standing on her tip toes and reaching her hands really high over her head. She doesn't quite reach their heights. All the pictures in this post were taken on the same day in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (hope I got that right; all this jurisdictional stuff has me confused). As soon as we got out of the car, Darcy ran over to hug this redwood.

We had lunch on this bench. I know that it looks like a small bench. It isn't. We all three sat on it with our lunches spread out, too. It's a goodly-sized bench.

Even as you get further away, a big redwood is still really, really big. Notice that it's instant darkness behind it as you get into more redwoods. On a sunny day, in the middle of the day, if we're driving through old-growth redwoods, our car will automatically turn on the full headlights. Because it's confused and thinks it is suddenly night. Not much light gets through the canopy.

It's hard to get a whole tree into the picture, but this is the rest of the tree from the other pictures. I did my best. Unless I had crossed into the (STAY OUT!!) elk meadow, I couldn't get any further back.

Even when they're lying down, redwoods are still big. This one's a little taller than Michael, which wouldn't be that impressive at the base of the trunk, but this cut is probably twenty or thirty feet from the roots. We were admiring mushrooms. I needed the flash. On that bright, sunny afternoon you see in the previous pictures.

In other news, the rain has returned to Crescent City after two weeks of sunshine. The clear skies brought very cold temperatures and we learned that our pellet stove doesn't really do much when it's in the thirties unless we keep it on all day long. And our central heat doesn't like to come downstairs, apparently. So we can have the stove on and be warm in the living room and almost-warm in the kitchen. Or we can have the central heat on and be warm upstairs. Not both.

And in book news, I am still on my quest, but I got stuck on Swallows and Amazons (or is it Amazons and Swallows?). I thought this was one I was going to really enjoy. I first heard about it in a NY Times poll asking people for the Harry Potter of their childhood. People raved about this series of books and I couldn't find it in my library at the time. I found a used copy on our drive here from Cima, but I haven't gotten past the second chapter yet. I don't really know why. I think I've read a couple more since I last updated my quest, but I'll have to look at my master list to see what they were. I've got Bleak House on deck because someone gave me the BBC production to watch on DVD and I don't want to see it before I read it.

Ah! Christmas And Nostalgia!

So Darcy has been all about Christmas recently. Not because of all the Christmas decorations popping up, but because we borrowed Olivia Helps With Christmas from the library again and this time, she recognized that Christmas is coming (she saw the fat goose). I had to create a countdown on our calendar so she could visualize how many days until Christmas and I could stop explaining that Santa was not coming tonight.

Whenever we see Christmas decorations or Christmas stuff in stores now, she says, "I see Olivia things!" At the Family Resource Center last week, one of the employees was doing some decorating and had an extra string of lights lying on the floor. Darcy picked them up, wrapped them around herself, and said, "Look! I'm helping with Christmas! Mooommmmmyyyy!" Because that's what Olivia does. You know.

I've recently been trying to record the classic Christmas specials along with the Christmas versions of her favorite shows (I missed a Sesame Street Christmas today -- too bad). So tonight, we recreated one of my childhood memories. We watched two Christmas specials while eating popcorn, hot cocoa, peanut butter toast, and sliced apples. The fire (well, pellet stove) was roaring, we laid down a quilt, and we all had fun.

In my childhood version, my sister and I were watching The Wonderful World of Disney and we were required to be in PJs before the watching and eating started. In Darcy's version, she was naked from the time she got up from her nap until the time she got ready for bed. Why? I have no idea, but she was very, very insistent. It turns out that Darcy is also the world's biggest popcorn fan and on the second pot I popped, Michael and I were done with it and she sat on the quilt on the couch, naked, with a big mixing bowl of popcorn resting on her lap. That child had a distended belly by the end of Rudolph.

But she had a great time and so did we, so it's all good.

Cake Baking

We're heading over to our neighbors for another pizza night tonight and they again waved off our offers to bring something. We couldn't quite do that again, so Darcy and I made a very light dessert, an unfrosted pecan/cranberry cake that I had made for Thanksgiving. Darcy helped by adding the flour in batches while I added the milk and stirred.

She was very proud.

Klamath River Overlook

A couple weekends ago, we had a gorgeous sunny day and we headed south out of Crescent City for a variety of activities. The first was a hike down to the Klamath River overlook. This picture was taken from the overlook looking back up to the parking lot, at the very tippy-top of this hill. It was a steep trail, but not too long and surrounded by lupine. Not in bloom, but with the promise of quite the show when it is.

Here's Michael and Darcy hiking down to the overlook. The ocean was pretty calm and our drive out of Crescent City featured many, many whale spouts.

Darcy and I check out the rocks and surf to the north of the overlook.

The main event: the Klamath River meet the ocean.

Darcy danced around the overlook for a while before we headed back up to our car. Our wildlife spottings here included several woolly bear caterpillars and a snake. Yes, a snake. I never encountered a snake on any hike in the Mojave. Which, as you may know, is full of snakes of all different kinds. But two of our hikes have included snakes. This one was a decent size snake. On our first hike down to a beach to look for tide pools, we encountered two very small snakes. Not just two different snakes, but two different kinds of snakes. Prior to meeting these small beasts, I had been thinking that this is very un-snake-like habitat, being all wet and cold and all. How wrong I was!

The Belated Birthday Post

Oh life...it gets in the way of blogging sometimes. In this case, I've been neglecting putting up some birthday and weekend photos in favor of creating an index for a dendrochronology textbook a friend of mine wrote. But that deadline has recently become flexible due to some potential page changes, so I'm on hold. Before I recount the splendors of Darcy's birthday, I will warn you that I forgot to take pictures of her tea party and cake. Sorry!

The great day started with Darcy coming downstairs to find this lovely pink tricycle waiting for her in the living room. It was a very rainy day, so good think trikes will roll nicely on laminate floors, huh? She still has a little trouble reaching the pedals, but she likes riding it around the neighborhood. Her steering is getting better, too! Thanks, Granny Mimi and Pop-pop!

The (amazing, wonderful, almost unbelievable) Family Resource Center happened to have a special event on Darcy's birthday: a visit by Buddy, the T-rex from PBS's Dinosaur Train. Buddy requires a human helper measuring no more than 5' 2", and it took a little while to find such a person, so the anxious kids listened to a story about dinosaurs and, here, pretended to be triceratops(es?). Sitting behind Darcy is one of her favored play mates at the play sessions here. She and M sit on top of a tunnel outside and take the train to the Motorcycle Zoo and the Crocodile Zoo, among many other zoos.

After Buddy finally came out to visit, Darcy would not get anywhere close by herself. You can see the doors to the kitchen behind the crowd in the photo below and she kept running in there, then out to the hall, and back into the conference room. Michael left work for an hour to join us and he tried to get her to touch Buddy, but had no luck. Buddy and ALL of the kids, however, sang Happy Birthday to Darcy. We had brought a birthday card for Buddy to give to her, so the staff knew it was her birthday. She was tickled.

Just as we were leaving, Buddy came back out for another visit and Darcy finally got up the courage to touch the very tip of his tail before we went back out into the rain.

The next day was Saturday and we had a small tea party for Darcy. Those of you who were at our wedding will perhaps remember the multiple cake trays and stands. We had tea sandwiches on one of the triple-decker ones, so it felt very proper. We had several neighbors/NPS coworkers join us. The cake was three layers of almond cake filled and frosted with a chocolate/cream cheese frosting. We were worried that the lack of kids would disappoint Darcy, but she proclaimed that "this is a good birthday".

The fun continues, of course, as she rides her trike and plays with her new doll house (thanks, Grandma and Granddad!) and enjoys all her gifts from near and far. We set up our two-foot-tall Christmas tree yesterday and she insisted that it go right next to her doll house so her newly-arrived dolls can enjoy and even climb it. (And hey! Two Feet Tall is also the name of Dan Bern's new KIDS' album!! It will start shipping in about a week, but you can pre-order it on his web site now, as we did a few days ago. This is an unpaid and unsolicited promotion.)

Thanks to all to who helped make Darcy's birthday special through calls, cards, videos, gifts, and just generally being part of her life.

Surf's Up!

Darcy's birthday celebrations are over (other than gifts that are still coming) and she had a good time. I'll post some pictures and more information over the next couple days, but right now, here are some pictures from last weekend. It was a busy one, with lots of errands, short hikes, and a trip to the interior of our neighboring Oregon.

The surf was high all last weekend and we had a lot of company taking pictures of it at one of the overlooks. This is taken from one that is just a few hundred yards down the road from where Darcy and I watched whales the week before.

On Sunday, we went further north up the coast (by about a mile and a half). There are beautiful paths along the bluffs. This rock is almost a natural arch, so the waves were coming through the center of the rock as well as smashing against the sides.

The cliff sides were covered in small plants, and I tried to get a close enough look to figure out what they were, but wasn't having luck at first. Then I got over to the edge and realized it was a cute little succulent, which I didn't expect at all. All of the light green/gray in this picture is colony after colony of these:

The plants are different and there's not quite as much variety, but the ecosystem on top of these bluffs remind me a little of the tundra. When you look from a distance, it all looks the same, but when you get right up close, there are dozens of different tiny plants.

We also drove through an old-growth redwood grove to a point with access to the Smith River. Darcy and Michael skipped rocks for quite a while, and then we walked along the river and watched the mists rise and saw perfect raccoon tracks in a mud puddle. It was a very pleasant afternoon.