Cabin fever

This weekend the Pierce family headed out to Luray, VA, to reacquaint ourselves with Nature.

First stop: giant jumping pillow. Kids (and adults) would jump on this thing all hours of the day. Crazily popular.

The inside of our cabin. What, you don't think I'm crazy enough to attempt sleeping in a tent with Amalia, do you?

Not sure why Andy felt the need to capture me brushing my teeth. We told Lily we were staying in a log cabin just like Abraham Lincoln was born in.

Lily loved sleeping in the top bunk. In fact, when we got back home today she asked me how many days until our cruise (in February). I thought she was excited about seeing Guster. No, she remembered that the ship rooms have bunk beds.

On Saturday, we visited the world-famous Luray Caverns.

The live tour guides that were there the last time I went with Andy (about 10 years ago) have been replaced with audio devices. Now they just have high schoolers posted at various points around the caverns to make sure we don't do something nefarious.

The girls holding hands; the slopes are quite slippery.

This is me glaring at Andy, wondering why the heck he's taking a picture as Amalia decides she's done halfway through the tour. On a brighter note, her favorite part was The Great Stalacpipe Organ, which really is pretty cool.

Of course the tour dumps you out into a giant gift shop. Amalia spent a long, long time at this rock table, filling, emptying, and refilling her bag with rocks.

Still there. I think this is me telling her, "Two minutes."

Back at the cabin, Lily sat down to do her homework and get in some coloring time.

Have you ever seen a more pulchritudinous sun?

And here's what Amalia was doing during this time.

See Lily there in the background? As one of my mother's co-workers says, they're as different as chalk and cheese.

Preparing for the great s'more-a-thon.

Lily and Amalia had theirs sans Hershey bars.

After leaving the campground today, we stopped by the not-so-world-famous Luray Zoo. They are a rescue zoo and they had A LOT of snakes.

Amalemur.

Wallalily.

Here are a few videos from the weekend:



The campground had a Yogi Bear mascot that made a few appearances throughout the weekend. Amalia desperately wanted to go say hi, but swiftly changed her mind when we got close.



Have you ever seen those videos of cats chasing a laser pointer? Apparently Lily decided to try it out with Amalia. To great success.



And then Amalia wanted a turn.

Picture day

On Tuesday morning, before we headed back to DC, we stopped by Cal Lutheran University to have an updated family portrait. The photographer was a bit late, so we had time to take some of our own pictures. In no particular order:

Lily in the shadow of "The Enormous Luther" (that's really what it's called).

I'm not sure the tree appreciated our presence.

Grumpy McGrumpleby and her sister.

I'm sure Amalia was apologizing for doing something dastardly to Lily. She's an experienced hugger.

After the photo shoot, we went home for lunch and a quick swim before heading to the airport. Our flight back to DC was without incident -- aside from both girls staying awake the entire time. We landed around midnight and were all pretty much useless the next day. A wonderful visit all around. Makes me again wonder why we live so far away...

Magic kingdom

On Monday, Andy, Lily and I had a lovely time at Disneyland. Below are a bunch of pictures of Lily smiling, which pretty much captures the day.

OK, so on this one she's more grimacing than smiling. The teacup wheel is surprisingly hard to turn.

Here we're on the Storybook ride, heading into the mouth of the whale that swallowed Gepetto and Pinocchio.

Andy was enamored with the landscaping -- that's a patchwork of succulents on the side of the hill.

He also stalked a real live bird that was strolling through the storybook villages.

I was grateful numerous times throughout the day that we'd decided to let Amalia have a fun day with Grandma at home. I am told that they, too, had a lovely time.

Alumnae and animals

The California weather must have agreed with Amalia. She woke up Sunday morning quite refreshed, if you can call it that.

Sunday was the alumnae family picnic at La Reina. Pictured above are about a dozen of the 81 girls in our graduating class.Note that none of us chose to wear our plaid skirts.

Dearest Mrs. Potts, affectionately referred to as Beep by Amy and me. High school English teacher and phenomenal mentor. She was like a rock star at our alumnae dinner on Saturday night. She was the only faculty who showed up and everyone flocked to her like moths to a flame. An amazing woman.

Amy and me with Mrs. Adams. She was Ms. Joyce when she was my freshman English teacher and JV volleyball coach.

Mr. Hirsch. He's mostly known as La Reina's assistant principal, but he was also my JV softball and varsity volleyball coach and pre-calc, calculus, and driver's ed teacher. One of my funniest memories of him was watching him folding up his long frame and hopping into his little Datsun 280-Z to show us how to pop the clutch.

After the picnic we headed over to the house Amy grew up in. Lily bravely fed Jason some carrots. Amalia politely demurred.

Their new precious puppy Penelope.

Amalia got a kick out of Silvie and Penelope.

Surf and turf

I know you all have been yearning for some pictures from our trip to SoCal last weekend. There are a lot so I'll break them up by day. First: Saturday.

Amalia decided that the truck flower pot made a nice seat.

While Andy headed off to join friends to watch Stanford trounce the hapless Bruins, my mother and I took the girls to the beach.

Beach blanket bingo.

The girls take their sand seriously.

Chillaxin'.

Grandma and Lily. They didn't make it to China.

At some point, you get tired of saying, "Don't eat that!"

The sensible one.

Watching longboarders.

Back at home enjoying a swim. Well, some of us.

My high school reunion dinner was also Saturday night, but I didn't take any pictures of that. I had my camera -- I think I just got caught up in too much great conversation.