Summer residua

Summer is good for:

4th of July picnics (note the hanging bottle opener that Nimue used to give herself a black eye),

birthday cake (Chad),

 hamburger parties,

art museum visits,

 naps,

 going off the high dive,

 zoo trips,

 foggy CA beach trips,

 finding obscurities like the old Davenport jail,

 mountain biking near Downieville,

 hiking,

and yet more birthday cake.

School starts tomorrow.  (Yay.)

What a difference Five Years Makes

On August 3, Nim and I went to the zoo.  I find this tween stage to be amusing.

Vaguely remembering a similar picture from a previous trip, I looked and found this one, taken on Aug 3, 2009.  That's five years previous, to the day!  Nim wants me to be clear that she had to bend her knees a lot in the recent shot, whereas she was just the right height in the little kid one.

She still likes the zoo.

If you want to see the comparison between that 2009 trip and one when she was even smaller, look here.

Cousin fun in Australia

I realized that while I though I had put up the cousin pictures, I hadn't.  This is the last vacation post....really.

As an aside, I just finally figured out how to disable the annoying autocorrect feature that appeared after our most recent operating system upgrade.  A very devious feature, as it would just decide after I typed something that it wasn't right, and "correct" it for me -- after I had already watched the letters appear on the screen as I wanted them.  Easy to miss until the next day, and it took me a while to realize what it was doing.   If you have noticed random words that were just plain flat wrong in the last few posts, it was the computer out to get me.  Hopefully better now...

Back to Fun with Cousins in Australia

The Towle cousin pack, doing many and varied things:

One morning, Chad and I took the older kids on the climb up the Sydney Harbor Bridge.  Pretty fun, as we got to climb under, over, and through the bridge, all the while clipped in to their safety system.  Aren't you envious of the oh-so-stylish jumpsuits they made everyone wear?

The day we were there, it was crazy-windy -- when I asked the guide if it was normally like that, he mentioned that he had only ever see two or three days that wild.  The members of the party over the age of twelve thought it added to the fun (eleven-year-olds not so sure).  Notice that the flags on the top (where we were) are standing straight out.

The younger boys, Addison especially, enjoyed Chad's willingness to talk about spacecraft, campervans, and other conveyances.

This was much aided by characteristically excellent Chad-doodles.

Kids were good sports about taking walks.  Sometimes the terrain was benign.

Sometimes less so.

We tried not to lose anyone to this,

so sometimes I had to chase.

Kids find the best spots to sit.

Even the little guys eschewed the paved walkway.

Hard not to, when the rocks are so cool.

Chad was jolly.

Eleven-year-olds can be crazy and fun,

and I'm encouraged that the next stage might also be good.

I never knew poinsettias could manifest themselves as giant bushes. 

But it was winter, even though the harbor resorts to faking displays to show it.

Off to the zoo.

Nim tried her hand at taking pictures of things she thought were cute.

Echidnas are funny animate rolly-polly pincusions.

Is the cassowary looking at the captive Austin, or is it the other way around?

There was much fighting about the statue on the part of the eleven and under set, though the photographs don't show it.

The tasmanian devil runs around and around in circles just like the kids do.

We did find occasional moments of focus.

Spare moments draw eleven-year-olds to computers.

The girls liked the convertible.

Uncles give good hugs

And cousins, piggyback rides.

Random ibis in the park.

Parks are good.

Opera houses

can be used as parks.

At least these were not our kids.

But these were.

Uncle Andrew can be a kid too.

Sunsets are nice.

Kids appreciate the view,

and are still willing to turn around for a picture.

Thanks to all for a great visit!