Sutters Mill & Placerville with uncle Bryan - Vacation Day 9

We started the day saying Goodbye to this little guy.  We love baby Jack.  He is so sweet.
Oh yeah, we also said goodbye to his parents, but they're chop liver compared to this guy.

 

Then we drove over to Uncle Bryan's house just 30 minutes away.

 

Uncle Bryan took us up to Sutter's Mill in the town of Colma.  We had driven by it a week earlier while on our way to river rafting.  We enjoyed exploring the area.  I love history and old buildings, so I loved this town. We really enjoyed the Blacksmith shop, and talked with the man working there for awhile.  We also enjoyed the American River.  We reminisced about how we had been the ones rafting down just a week earlier.

 

After we toured the little town we drove to another town called Placerville to look around, and eat dinner. There was a hardware shop there that is really old, like 140 years old.  We spent a ton of time in there.  There was everything under the sun in that store.  We really enjoyed it!  After that we walked around the town a bit, then went to dinner at a yummy place called Buttercup Pantry. That is where I had the best peach pie I've ever had in my life, so good!

 

 

We had a great day hanging with Uncle Bryan!

 

 

 

Cabin in the woods - Vacation Day 5-8

Ok it's not really a cabin at all.  It a house. A really nice house.  We've all just been calling it a cabin.

Patrick's sister & her husband rented this house right outside Nevada City for us to stay in together.  It was the perfect size for our family.  It had 7 bedrooms.  Each bedroom had a name, and was decorated to match it's name.

Patrick & I stayed in the bird room.

 

Savannah and her cousin Maggie stayed in the Forest room.

 

 

Our boys stayed in the incense room.

 

 

I didn't take any pictures of the other rooms, but they were all lovely.

 

We spent time hanging out, playing games, eating, and hiking. There was also a pool table, dart board, volleyball court, and Frisbee golf to keep everyone busy.

 

 

On our very first hike down to the waterfalls.  I lost my footing, and slipped into a nice deep pond.  Lost my camera.  Well, we found it, but it was broken.  So, I don't have a ton of pictures of our time here.

 

 

 

 

 

Seeing this table filled to capacity every night was cool.  It was fun to sit down and eat dinner together as a family.

 

One day we all tie-dyed shirts.  Before we left we did family pictures in our shirts in front of the house.

 

 

All the cute cousins!

 

One of the first days the boys accidently shot an arrow into the tree and it stuck.  They decided to throw a football into the tree to get it, it also got stuck!

 

It took several days and many attempts trying to get it out of the tree.  We assigned the task to Trevor and Robert. The oldest cousins.  The smartest.  They could do this.  No problem.

 

One day they were out there trying to get it out.  The rest of us were inside looking out thru a huge picture window.  It was hilarious the things they were trying.  At one point Trevor came in and changed his shorts (he had been wearing basketball shorts). He put on a brand new pair of cargo shorts.  They hooked a rope to Trevor's shorts, and I think he was going to get pulled up into the tree by Robert.  Well, Trevor started getting a really bad wedgie.  All of this is happening with us watching from the window.  He's hanging in the tree, in pain, and we can't stop laughing.  I guess it was getting unbearable because he unhooked himself, and as he dropped to the ground his shorts tore all up.  The only part of the shorts left was the crotch section.  I wished we would have recorded it.  Hilarious!

 

He has kept the shorts as a memory, so he can show people.

 

I'll add a pic soon.

 

 

We had a great time chillin with the family at the "Cabin"

 

 

White water rafting - Vacation Day 4

We woke up early and drove to meet the rest of the family at Mariah river rafting expeditions. 

We were really excited, but Patrick & I were a bit concerned about how Griffin would do.  We got loaded up with all of our gear, then drove to the river.  Boat #1 had Uncle George, Aunt Dorothy, Uncle Russell, Maggie, Jonathon, and Savannah.  Boat #2 had Patrick, Robert, Trevor, myself, Griffin, and Grandpa Pat.

The above pictures are boat #1 Savannah is the one in the yellow helmet.  We had waterproof cameras too, but I still need to get them developed.  Savannah was loving it.

These above pictures were our boat #2 it was awesome!!  We had such a great time.  Our guide was great, we loved her.  Between some of the rapids she broke out waterproof bottles with different candies in them.  We shared with boat #1 as well.  The river was really cold, but at times some of us got out and swam along side when the water was nice and calm.  It was such a cool thing to experience with our family.  When we were done Griffin said " Can we go again?"  I said "Yes, someday."  He said "No, I mean while on this trip."  We were surprised how much he love it. 

After the river we went & purchased our pictures, then ate a late lunch/ early dinner.  Such a fun day!  Thanks to Grandpa Pat for taking us!!