Carlsbad- Hammond Family Vacation 2012

This year everyone in the Hammond family (except Joyce and Calder, who were very missed!!) made their way to Carlsbad, California for some camping on the beach.

Todd and I drove half way and camped, or rather found-a-dirt-road-and-slept-there- in Mesquite.  It was 11 p.m. but 100 degrees!  We were worried about tarantulas, spiders, and scorpions crawling all over us but it was too hot to sleep in a tent.  It was SO HOT.  Did I mention how hot it was?  (Let's remember that I am pregnant too lol.) We made a deal that if we were still awake baking in the heat two hours later, we were going to cough up the $38 and stay in an air-conditioned hotel room.  But who wants to pay 38 bucks to stay in a hotel for seven hours??

We must have dozed off, cuz we made it through the night.

Sunrise over Mesquite

We made it to Carlsbad and spent a few hours swimming before meeting up with the family and setting up camp.  Then we swam for the rest of the day with everyone- it was soooo fun.

These are no Hawaiian beaches; the water is pretty frigid and takes a long time to get used to.  The water is also completely irresistible and we couldn't help but swim endlessly while we had the chance.

The next day we swam all day, got pizza, took family photos, swam some more, and had a big delicious dinner of coconut curry.

The following day was sadly our last at the beach.  We swam and played a bit more before splitting up.  Most of the family went to Disney Land, but Todd and I went to our version of Disney Land: Yosemite National Park.  More on Yosemite to come.

I took a ton of pictures, here are some of my favorites from the trip.

Hula Babes :)

I'm trying to give a surfing lesson.

Brynlee loved the beach so much she would stay in the water till her lips were purple.

The customary "let's bury someone in sand!" ritual

Todd killed it with the waves. I was so jealous...

Todd and some of the family enjoying the waves

This has to be the cutest picture from the whole trip. Can you see all the sand? :)

Mark tried his hand at Surfing:

Todd teaching Blake to Surf

The family minus Joyce and Calder

 See her purple lips?

Wilco

We went to a Wilco concert a couple weeks ago with some friends from Todd's work. 

Todd has been a huge fan for a while now, and I like them a lot too.  It was a great concert!

As good as the band was, the best entertainment was the guy in front of us dancing like

no one was watching. :)

Lake Blanche

We went backpacking to Lake Blanche with our friend Dave.  (His wife is island hopping in Greece right now!!!
I wish she could have come with us, but I wish even more that I could have gone with her :)

Dave

We made it up just in time for an incredible sunset against Sundial Peak.  We fished and caught some Brook Trout and battled the mosquitoes before setting up camp and making dinner.

Unfortunately, our pot had holes in it so we couldn't boil water to cook our camp dinners.  So we ate dehydrated beef stroganoff mixed with cold water and we cooked up the fish to pick through.  Dave and Todd accidentally knocked the fish into the dirt but rinsed them in the grimy lake, so they were especially delicious ;)

We got up early the next day and hiked down to make it to a family reunion.  It was so fun!  

I can't wait to go again soon. 

26 Weeks

White Pine

We went hiking (and almost made it :) to White Pine Lake.  Kinda ran out of daylight and energy.  It's nice to have a valid excuse to use for my fatigue!

Anyway, almost every time I hike in this area I see a moose!  I love it- they are so big and fascinating to watch.  They seem gentile but could flatten me in one move if they wanted.

25 Weeks

More Projects!

I've finished some bedside tables so now my bedroom furniture looks like it all goes

together (and didn't come from garage sales, hand-me-downs, and the DI lol :)

I also got a new fabulous wide angle lens :)

We're basically rearranging the entire house to fit this baby in- here's the soon to be

home office I'm putting together:

More pictures to come...