I'm Back...with a trip cross the canyon and into the woods

HELLO WORLD!!!

you may not have even noticed since i've squeezed in a post and a comment here and there, but i've been semi absent from the blog world due to my sad old computer on the fritz. i have not been able to peruse my photos or upload anything without a great amount of difficulty. so guess what? i took matters into my own hands and got myself a new laptop! 

the best thing about it and the only thing i've really done since i got it wednesday is i finally get to look through all the photos i've taken in the last couple months. it reminded me that i have like ten things i want to post about.

so i apologize in advance for the upcoming onslaught of pictures from our recent adventures, but i just can't not. 

and so here we have about a hundred photos from our birthday trip. a couple weeks ago we took off across the canyon with our wee babe to visit ade and artie and some old gold mining ghosttowns.

first things first, (cause we are a pregnant lady and a nursing mama) pizza at a cute little family place right near addie's house in nevada city.

lucy loves to be carried around and discover new things. she is a very curious baby and nothing escapes her attention. (love that little profile)

welcome to addie and art's house! concert posters line their front hall.

and they have a great big open family room with a woodstove and massive cassette collection. perfect for dance parties!

this little gal loves to waltz with her daddy.

my very pregnant sis. i still trip out on our timing and our luck. we get to become mamas together.

i just love that little guy in there already.

while we were there lucy indulged in some of her passions:

1. drinks. she is obsessed with our coffee cups, glasses of water or wine, beer bottles, my water jar. she wants to hold them and if she had her way, she'd have a sip, haha!

2. musical instruments with daddy.....

3. her own feet. since then she can grab them and hold them and pull them toward her mouth.

4. being held upside down. she LOVES this.

5. being outside. she just chilled out here for a while the next morning, taking in the view of the ravine and the creek.

and of course, hanging out with her aunt and uncle. she absolutely lights up when she sees them.

we spent the rest of the day on a little mini road trip heading north into the forest and into old mining territory.

we brought our delicious salad and indian food from the co-op to eat at the picnic grounds of malakoff diggins.

she's always so interested in what we're eating. 

this beautiful place is the site of the largest hydraulic mine in california's history. while the massive canyon criss crossed with the ancient scars of this type of mining is an admittedly awesome sight, your heart breaks at the abominable destruction of the earth that went on here. 

i am more interested in the remains of the town itself. it feels like a haunted place.

we were the only ones there and everything felt abandoned and timeless. leaves blowing around and sky turning dark, wild turkeys scuttling away in a pack. ghosts peeping through the windowpanes.

an interesting note: addie had her "bachelorette party" here a couple weeks before she got married six years ago. a group of us stayed overnight in one of the old miner's cabins with no electricity or running water. we ran around the little town in the middle of the night dressed in old fashioned clothes and pretended to be spirits. we spooked ourselves out about bears and ghosts and drank whiskey and had a blast.

we crossed an old bridge in the forest to find the old cemetery and churchyard, and to take in that formidable view of the canyon. 

the effects of hydraulic mining: the cliffs were carved by blasts of water 150 years ago, forever altering this place.

it was getting dark as we walked back through the forest. and it gets really dark out there. i got this crazy fear that a mountain lion or bear might attack us, or that some crazy rednecks in a mud splattered truck that spun by might try to bother us. i was hurrying but trying to act normal for fear i'd jinx myself if i showed my fear. haha what a weirdo! sometimes i crack myself up. i do not consider myself an anxious person but then i let my imagination get the best of me.

especially now that i have this little cutie to protect!

thanks for coming along on our little trip! 

i hope you don't mind a few more stories of some of november's highlights and on into the madness and joy of the holidays...