cabin

We went up to the Taylor cabin on Saturday with Grandma and Grandpa and our friend Gabe. It was great to get up into the mountains. There are few places as lovely as the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I love the sound of the wind way up in the tops of the trees and I love the smell of the warm sunshine, the cool shade and the pine trees. I realize that sunshine itself doesn't really have a smell, but it does when it warms what it is shining on. I'm not sure how to describe it, but there is a smell of sunshine in the mountains. If you've been there, you know what I mean. Or maybe I'm just strange.

We were supposed to go up Friday night, but I pulled my typical trying-to-do-too-much-in-one-day act and didn't get up to Brian's parents' house until after eight, forgetting to pick up Gabe on the way. So Brian bathed the girls while I went back down to Placerville to pick up Gabe and then we ate ice cream, played with Benjamin's Wii and spent the night on the extremely comfortable tempurpedic mattress in the downstairs bedroom instead of driving up to the cabin. It ended up for the best as the boys got to the cabin first in the morning and could dispose of anything they might have or might not have found lurking in the cabin after the long winter before Grandma and I got there with the girls.

Cumorah had a blast playing in the dirt, climbing rocks, swimming in Gerle Creek resevoir and going on the paddle boat with Daddy. She is very intelligent. She remembers her snow angel making skills from her experiences with an Iowa winter and applied it to a Sierra Nevada Summer: she made dirt angels. I watched her as she literally rolled in the dirt and rubbed her eyes blinking at the specks she got in them. She looked like she was in camoflage (if her shirt wasn't bright pink) with her face all smudged up like that laying on her stomach in the dirt. She put her hands in her mouth after sifting pebbles out of the dirt. Then she looked at me while she gingerly bit her teeth together over and over. I could just feel the grit in my own teeth watching her like that.







































We went to Gerle Creek to wash off. The water was COLD, but it was still really fun to swim in. I like swimming. Brian likes to float on top of the water in various contraptions. He just doesn't want to admit that I'm a better swimmer and could beat him in a race. The swim teacher in me came out and Cumorah had to practice kicking. By the time she was finished with all her swimming and boat riding, her lips were turning purple and she was stripped down and held against her daddy's chest wrapped in a towel until she warmed up. Fishy crackers and a couple containers of mandarin oranges helped as well. Rivers didn't do any swimming. She only did nursing and sleeping in her netting covered car seat carrier. Gabe got on his intertube and floated away. Brian had to go get him with the paddle boat when it was time to go.

We had dinner at the cabin, courtesy of Grandma. Cumorah fussed about eating and then suddenly ate an entire chicken breast. She doesn't usually eat meat. After dinner, Cumorah was put in her third set of clothes for the day (minus the pants, must have forgotten them) and her super cute poncho hand-me-down from my friend Sarah Jones' girls (they've got cute clothes). Both girls were finally loaded in the car to sleep on the way home. Cumorah and Rivers were definitely dirty, Cumorah being the one responsible for dirtying both. Fortunately we decided to visit our old ward on Sunday instead of either one of our parents' so we had time to give them a bath in the morning before going to church. All in all, it was a beautiful fun day. Your typical Taylor Family vacation, complete with a couple broken down cars.:)