4th of July and Catching Up

Hello Everyone!

First, I want to say THANK YOU to my new follower Jess!  I now have 4 followers!  I'm so excited!  Also, I started a "My Reading" tab, so now you can see what I'm reading.  I started from what I've read since June 1st.

Second, Happy 4th of July! (Late)  I hope everybody had a really nice day.  We went on a bike ride into town, hung out for a while, and went to our favorite pizza place.  Then, we went home and had yummy BBQ'd burgers.  Yum!  Later, we went into town again, (by car this time) and watched the fireworks show with some friends.  We were able to see 3 or 4 different fireworks shows from the beach we were at.  Of course, the only one that wasn't minuscule was the one we were up close to.  It was a lot of fun, and the fireworks were HUGE!!!  One really cool thing that we noticed was that the fireworks created a continuous echo in the basin.  It sounded like somebody was playing the drums.  It was really fascinating!  What did you do on the 4th?  Please leave me a comment and let me know.

I know I haven't been on a consistent post schedule, so let me bring you up to date:

At the end of June, I had a big Double Feature dance show.  Double Feature means 2 shows in 1.  We did "Don Quixote" (ballet) and "The Wizard of Oz" (every other style of dance that our studio does).  It was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of work.  The shows were fantastic!

The past 11 days, our friends have been up at their cabin, which is right next door to ours.  We met them 3 years ago when they came up here.  We have been building a fort with them every summer.  It is kind of funny, because every year we are rushing to finish up the fort the day before they leave so we can play in it.  We call it "Fort Pine."  I guess we have more fun building the fort, than actually playing in it.

Last week, a friend took us on a beautiful hike in the Desolation Wilderness.  We started out in the forest, but then it transitioned into gigantic slabs of granite.  We kept going back and forth between hiking in the forest and on granite "plains."  To mark paths, people make "trail ducks,", which are little stacks of rocks.  Our friend was teaching Lindsay and I about finding the trail and had us go in front and lead everyone.  I did pretty well, so I was in front for most of the time.  We found a nice spot to eat our lunch right next to a stream.  The water was fairly warm, and we walked around and explored for a while.  When we finished eating, we went to a swimming hole that was up a little further.  Right above the swimming hole, there was a little pool of water that was warm.  We called it "the bathtub."  It was so beautiful and fun to swim in!  I have never swam in a natural swimming hole, so it was extra special for me personally.  My mom found a caterpillar, and we all found it so interesting and fun to hold.  Except Lindsay.  She was very scared, and didn't want to hold it at first.  She conquered her fears, and held it for quite a while, and discovered it was very fun to hold.  We were so proud of her for overcoming her fears and being okay with it afterwards.  It was such an amazing hike, and we plan on going back soon, because in a couple weeks, it will be blooming with wild flowers, and the water will be even warmer.  The hike was wonderful, and the scenery was absolutely gorgeous.

Also last week, we got to go on a boat ride on our friends' boat.  It was a lot of fun!  I even got to drive the boat a little bit in Emerald Bay, which is where we went.  We also retrieved 2 hats from the water.  One is a very stylish girl's hat that Lindsay was very excited about, because she loves hats.  It was pretty funny that we found 2, much less that we were able to rescue them from the lake!  After we got back, we had lunch on the little patio area on the top of their boathouse.  We then hung out and talked for a while, and I actually got a little bit tan!!!!  This is exciting for me, because it is very hard for me to tan without burning.  We had a lot of fun.

Here are some pictures:

I made 4th of July cupcakes for a BBQ.

Elizabeth in her patriotic colors!

Happy 4th of July!

This is a fun picture of my friends and I in our colorful costumes!

At the beginning of the hike by a little pond.

The granite "plains."

An interesting little lily we noticed.

If you look really closely, you can see a little lizard in the middle of the picture on the rock.

2 beautiful butterflies!

A swimming hole.

These are the roots of a fallen tree.

The big dark strip in the center is all water.

In "the bathtub."

Holding the caterpillar.

These are Hemlock trees.  John Muir named them "gossipers of the forest" because the tips of the trees are tilted towards each other like they are whispering secrets.

A trail duck.

Kooper sleeping in his crate.  He likes to sleep in there a lot, and I thought this was sooooo cute!

There was a bear in our backyard the other morning eating carpenter ants out of a rotten log.  He is so cute!

We have had a really nice summer so far. We have been doing lots of fun stuff, and we plan to do more. Have you done anything fun this summer, or do you have any plans? Please comment and let me know! :)

~Grace

P.S. I don't have any pics of Fort Pine right now, but I will take some soon. :)