American River Rafting Trip (Short Version)

On Friday June 21st I flew to Sacramento, CA for a river rafting trip with my dad and his friend Mark.

When we arrived Mark drove us to Lake Tahoe. We did a little site seeing there and then headed back to Auburn for the night. We woke up on Satureday and went white water rafting down the American River. I fell in 5 times, one of which I thought I might die. I am a little sore today but can't wait to do it again.

The start of Tunnel Falls Rapid.

I am the one in the front right of the boat or bottom left of the picture.

 Do we look scared?

Where did I go?

There I am.

Watkins Glen State Park

This past Saturday we decided to go for a little day trip down to Watkins Glen State Park. They have a gorge with a river and waterfalls along a 1.5 mile hike. It was overcast and rained a little but it was not too hot. The water and vegetation is beautiful. After our hike we found a picnic table to have lunch and then it started to pour. Fortunately we were under a tree and didn't get too wet. We hurriedly ate and ran to the car. It was a lot of fun. We definitely will go back some time for more pictures and enjoyment.

Butterfly garden

While, Caleb's parents were visiting we went to the Strong Museum of Play and visited the butterfly garden. It was amazing to see all the different butterflies flitting around. Some of them were so pretty but they would not hold still long enough to get a picture. Oh Well.

A Busy Weekend

This weekend Caleb graduated. Yeah! His parents and my mom came out to enjoy the festivities and we had a lot of fun with them. We went to the lilac festival, graduation (of course), the temple, Strong Museum and its butterfly garden. We had fun.

Crazy Lady Bird

For some reason a bird has chosen to build a nest on the light by our front door. There is a huge oak tree in the front yard but she chose the light. The new hip thing in the bird world must be nests in crazy places.

The funny thing is that she has been working on it for about a week now but it is not finished. There are a few reasons for this. First she must not know what she is doing because most of the nest material ends up on my mail box or the ground. The second reason is that I took the hose to the nest last night. Don't worry the destruction of her nest has not deterred her in the least. When I left the house this morning there was more nest material on the ground, the mailbox and the light.

The sad attempt at a nest.

The huge pile of nest material that falls.

Where the rest of the nest pieces end up.

Side Note:

You may be thinking, why has he cast the birds gender as female? Is he saying women can't build things? No that is not what I am saying. You see Google taught me that female birds make the nest.

Beautiful Spring Days

The past few days the weather here has been amazing. A couple days over 80 (almost too hot) and today a perfect day in the 60's. My ideal weather would be 60s and 70s year round. We enjoyed the nice weather by spending time outside. Up in Brockport we found an old tower. It was apparently built as a memorial but now it has seen better days and is falling apart.

Today we went walking through Highland Park with the dogs. They loved roaming around, checking everything out. The magnolia trees are blossoming and are beautiful. The yellow tree was just opening up and there were different shades of pink and white magnolias.

Down by some of some of the cherry trees that were in full bloom, we saw some people spelling out "love" for a picture.

March Madness

For those of you who don't know, over the past few years my parents and thus the family get into March Madness more and more each year. We have a family bracket competition and the winner's name is engraved on a trophy each year. They go to games in the first round and make March Madness t-shirts for everyone. This year there was also a competition to decorate a room in honor of the "season." We decide to decorate the bathroom since it is currently the nicest room in the house, having just been redone. Here are a couple shots. Notice all the orange decor in the room.

Sadie and Sylvester also wanted to get in on the action. So here they are in their March Madness orange.