Back in Grass Valley, CA

At Grandpa Lee and Grandma Joanne's house.

Enthusiastic about homemade yogurt:

Garden sunflower:

Excited about the dog:

Shoulder ride:

Olympic Peninsula exploration

We drove around the Olympic Peninsula for a few days before heading back to CA, hiking and camping on the beaches and in the forest:

Moclips beach:

Ruby Beach:

Big trees!  Here the largest Sitka spruce in the world and a very large Western cedar:

...and a happy baby in the car:

Backpacking from Rialto Beach north about 2 miles, along the beach, to one of the most amazingly beautiful campsites we've ever experienced:

Practicing standing:

Tidepools at low tide:

Sampling seaweed, hermit crab:

Ho River hiking and car camping (we realized when we went car camping here that Ava has been backpacking multiple times and canoe camping before she's been car camping):

We checked out the dam removal progress on the Elwha River.  The first of two dams was removed the month Ava was born.  Interesting to see the silt beds and old tree stumps from the 1910s from when the dam was built.  The river has a tremendous amount of silt to remove.  

Fountain awesomeness in Seattle

Becca's post

Becca wrote an awesome blog post on her awesome blog about our backpacking trip with Ava:  http://thefriendlymoth.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/thank-god-for-camelsuckers/.  Highly recommended reading.

Great Uncle Mark and Great Aunt Val

We visited Daddy's uncle Mark and his wife Val on the far western edge of the Olympic Peninsula before taking a few days to explore the forests and beaches on the Peninsula.

Playing with the awesome toys at the house:

Breakfast game:

Helping Val let the chickens out in the morning:

Playing in the clover:

Daddy introduces Ava to banana slugs.  Perhaps this was unwise, as she got one in her mouth the next day at our Ho River campsite.  The slug slime, we learned, is difficult to remove from baby's fingers and face.  It essentially acted like rubber cement, gluing the forest floor soil and debris to her face and hands.  Perhaps, however, finding the slugs was inevitable.  That seems more probable.

Daddy helps Uncle Mark thresh homegrown wheat in Mark's modified chipper:

Ava explores the mechanics of the lazy Susan:

Whipped cream is enthusiastically accepted:

Thunder Creek

Mommy, Ava, Becca and Becca's dog Squinchy went on backpacking Friday-Monday up Thunder Creek near Ross Lake on the lower western slopes of the Cascades in north Washington. We thought "Creek" was a bit of a misnomer, but "Thunder" wasn't; Thunder Creek was a wide, roaring, impressive waterway at peak snowmelt.  This hike was a gentle introduction to multi-night baby backpacking.  There was only moderate elevation gain and only a few gentle hills over low miles.  The first campsite, where we also stayed on the third night, was only 2.5 miles from the parking lot, and the second campsite was 5 miles upstream beyond that.  Lovely old-growth Pacific Northwest coniferous rainforest.  Beautiful big cedars and Douglas fir, interesting flowers, shrubs and abundant moss and ferns, all of which Ava found interesting.  The diaper rinse-and-dry strategy didn't work so well here because of the persistent damp.  Becca had the brilliant idea to light a fire to dry some of the them, which worked well but resulted in some diaper attrition.  We had mostly clear weather with some spitting rain for the first two days.  On the third day we had to hike, set up camp and cook in the rain after we had our fire, but the rain stopped while there was still a little light in the sky after 9pm and was still clear for our walk out on the fourth day.  Ava had a wonderful time, sampling the forest floor, crawling, playing with moss, lichen and sticks.  Ava was also most glad that the dog was with us.  

One last time reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar before we start:

Cool boulder with a crack in it:

Supervising camp setup:

Baby on moss carpet:

Forest floor nap:

 It had been a long time since Mommy carried a 50-lb pack, and the experience was humbling but inspirational to continue getting stronger:

Most pleased with this log:

The fire:

Exploring baby:

Washing diapers in Thunder Creek:

Becca and Squinchy making dinner:

Small baby; big tree:

 Camp 2:

 In the tent during the rain:

Dinner in the rain:

Dirty baby napping:

Checking the backpack and exploring during a hiking break:

Ava shows Becca how to harvest moss: