Redwoods

Over Labor Day Weekend, we took a trip up the North Coast to see the Redwood Trees.  On the way up, we stopped at  Glass Beach - so named because it used to be the city dump, now all the glass (because it is heavy and didn't get washed out to sea) has been buffed/polished into little pebbles.  Christopher says that the thing embedded in the rock in this picture is the rear differential of a  pick-up truck.  I have lots of thoughts about this beach -

The rest of the pictures:
2. Redwood Grove - the trees were AMAZING.

3.  Blurry picture next to the base of a fallen tree - Paige was done with: walking, smiling, using her nice voice, being happy.  She had been sick and was a little out of sorts.
4.  Christopher trying to re-create a picture he remembers of older brother Michael jumping from a Redwood into his dad's arms.  We did this shot with both older girls, twice with Ashlee.  I have a hard time pulling the trigger at the right time.  These were the instructions he gave - "Mom's going to take a picture of you jumping to me."  If you tell Ashlee to jump, if you tell her that you will catch her, if she trusts you - she will really jump.  I guess her jump was a little bit too authentic - he meant for her to sort of lean and fall - not jump.  The five minutes after this shot were filled with jumping around, rubbing a kicked leg, saying "I didn't mean really  jump" and lots of laughing.
5.Maggie being silly, I like that you can see the tree's dimensions in this picture.  I don't think this was the biggest one we saw, but read the numbers, they are impressive.
6.They are singing.
7.  Beautiful coast line on the bluffs above glass beach.

We had a great time on this trip - this area of California is so beautiful.  I just scrolled back through the pictures - I think the theme is blurry....

Back to School

The Girls are back in school - week 4.  How old does Paige look in jeans?  She begged to have them, I bought them, she put them on once, for 10 minutes to have this picture taken and hasn't looked at them since.  Does that sentence sound familiar?  It does to me. . . every year at back to school time, I buy them clothes they won't put back on, clothes they insist they love.  Paige proudly continues the tradition.   We took a whole bunch of pictures for their "back to school" fashion show.  I was going to send them to their dad in the desert, but I just downloaded them 5 minutes ago.  Anyway, it is fine with me that she doesn't want to put those jeans back on - she's looking a little bit too grown-up for me in that picture.

The transition has been the roughest on Ashlee - as you can see in the picture above.  She is not hanging her head just to avoid the camera, she didn't know I had it out.  That is how I left her, waiting in line on the first day.  She came home much happier (see her smiling above , after school!), but she still has a few days of crying in the morning, not wanting to go.  The whole first week, I reminded her to just take things one day at a time, that things would be better, easier as time went on.  She is settling in.  I am proud of her for struggling through.  It helped that Chris came home the Friday of their second week, he makes everything a little easier for all of us.  Maggie is in 7th grade - she has been really excited most days about the new school and new opportunities.   Middle school!!!!  I can't believe it.