Karin and Zach

July 11, 2009
Karin and Zach were married...It was a beautiful wedding in a beautiful setting...Zach is the ... well, I can't come up with the appropriate adjective...let's just say he is 'model material'... he's always been, in my opinion, SUCH a great looking guy!... and, as I was going to say, he is the son of my dear friend Pamela! Congratulations to you both!

Thalia and Liz

Here's Thalia with her newest reptile-friend, Liz...
Thalia's papa named Liz 'Liz' .... you know, because she's a lizard...
Thalia says Liz is 'SOOOO pretty'...
She made a little house for Liz out of a box, some grass, some other cardboard for Liz to hide behind...
But unfortunately, her papa wouldn't let Liz live in the box...
Liz has been hanging out on our back patio for oh...about a year, maybe...and Papa has gotten pretty attached to Liz. (I have to keep saying 'Liz' instead of 'him' or 'her' because I don't know how to tell if Liz is really a Liz or a... Lance, or some other masculine name.)
Papa told Thalia she had to let Liz go so Liz could live in her/his natural habitat...Papa was afraid Liz might not continue to live in the box...
Thalia wasn't happy about that decision, but she let Liz go...
Every day, Thalia goes out and checks on Liz to see if she's still there...she is. Even this morning in the 60 degree drizzle outside, she went out to check on Liz.

Then she came back in and ate her Reese's Cocoa Puffs... I still can't believe I bought those. But, I figure, how many times do you get to have your lizard loving granddaughter stay at your house? If she wants Cocoa Puffs, she can have Cocoa Puffs.

Yesterday, Thalia had been out in the back hanging out with Liz, and she came into the kitchen where I was. She was just talking about...whatever, can't remember...and I noticed this cute little head sticking out of her pocket... it was Liz.
Isn't she cute?

The Tradition of Slug-Searching

Thalia and I took our annual trip to the Redwoods... we were following our 'tradition' of looking for banana slugs...

we weren't successful...

but not for lack of trying...
We had a little picnic on a park bench within the Lady Bird Johnson Grove...
I love having a picnic with Thalia! We were now ready to search out the elusive slugs...A redwood forest is full of beauty... from these flowers, which I can't remember the name of...

to beautiful berries...
Thalia was a trooper for her photographing Mimi...

She even found a lot of spots that she thought would make a good picture.
Thalia decided there were too many mosquitos (there were a FEW) and so she wore her hood and sunglasses...

Other people there thought she might be someone famous...she told me this after she heard a family whispering about her. I bet she will be famous someday, probably as a singer/guitar player.
She's already famous to me and her Papa!
We found a lot of downed logs to climb on...


and then, of course, if you know Thalia, you know she has a love of all things 'animal'...
such as this snail.
Well, you can't really SEE the love in this picture, but trust me, it was there. She thought the snail peed on her here...

She fed it some leaves... and then we returned it to its habitat and ventured on...




I love that she loves nature so much... look at this forests... it's simply beautiful.
There are huge ferns... as tall as Thalia, some even taller!


I have pictures from years past of Joshua and Donnie trying to scale these two trees - one foot on each. Neither of them ever made it very high, thank goodness.
This huge log had some natural steps so even a Mimi in flip-flops could climb on it.

See that log across from the one Thalia is sitting on?
Here she goes...crawling along... about ready to stand up and walk along it...
She didn't make it too far...deciding it might be dangerous.
At the end of the hike through the redwoods, we were a bit disappointed because we had not seen a banana slug... but we enjoyed the journey!