Tuesday, May 29, 2007

More Cali pics

Just a little selection of pictures from our neck of the woods. Went to see some friends kayak on the Upper section of the Kaweah in Sequoia National Park. Kevin in yellow and Amicaya in Blue....some scary looking drops.....not my idea of fun...but fun to watch nonetheless! Supposedly the bigger drop (with Kevin in Yellow boat) becomes a flume like water slide that people scoot down on their bottom! As you can see Sage is already getting some practice in for the BIG ONE! In case you're wondering the shot of Kevin out of his boat is when he became the human target for the kid's archery practice....that guy lives an adrenaline filled life!





Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Unloading In Three Rivers!

We found us a home! It is situated right on the main fork of the Kaweah river. The House is fairly retro in style (which means it's a little dated inside) but the views are awesome and it has great decking outside with lots of great seating in order to absorb the atmosphere!



























We've already done our IKEA trip (3.5 hours to L.A.) and stocked up on furniture to fit in with our 50's/60's house! David got the fridge and washing machine today and we even have DSL again and I can use the desktop online again (with National Public Radio playing in the background) after 9 months. It's all good!!
This snake was not seen by our house but we are told to watch out for the Copperheads! The kids already found a scorpion on Maya's bed this morning!! Things to think about while listening to the rush of the river!

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Three Rivers





Well we packed up once again and amazingly it all fit in our 5x8 trailer perfectly. (David is a master of packing at this point). We drove for three days....the kids got through Return of the King, Revenge of the Sith and Princess Monoke more than once on D's Laptop....I did plenty of knitting...Dolphin snoozed most of the way and realized early he'd just have to deal with it.....and D did lots of driving and we all arrived without any hitches in Three Rivers. It truly feels like we are in California....the dry heat and the rushing sound of the river (which was the first thing we headed for). There is a rapid out the back of the motel which we took a look at (photos show it in the background)....actually I should say David salivated over it. We splashed around at the water's edge (ok...again I should say that D took the plunge and swam across the river-couldn't resist the cheesy picture of D in front of the rapid)....and it felt really good! That was the first evening! Then we saw 4 different rental properties on Saturday morning-one with absolutley amazing views from the hillside overlooking the valley, however the inside wasn't so charming...two not so nicely located ones....and then one right on the main river! We think this last one will do us for now and have put in an application (should hear tomorrow). The inside is kind of dated and not our style but it has huge windows looking out onto the river and great outdoor spaces and decking and even a sunken hot tub in the deck (which needs serious cleaning), so we'll just spend most of our time out there. Needless to say David headed straight for the river and felt satisfied he could play in his boat there (it's a bit too swift for swimming right now but could be good when the water is lower). We met up with a contact David had made from Cal State Fresno ( a student who lives out here and knows some of the same rafting folks we know here). She kindly took us around and filled us in on various locals and swimming spots. Then we dropped by the house some rafting friends of ours have bought here (which is very close to the rental we're interested in) and surprised one of them (Amicaya) and caught up a little (the others are arriving next week) before he headed off for a rafting trip. Ate pizza and drank a beer on the rocks by the river for dinner (bit sick of pizza now but the beer was good). It's Sunday morning and we have interent connection in our room for the first time in two days (wireless hasn't been working)....the forcast for the forseeable future is sunny sunny sunny .....and so far we're having a lazy Sunday! We'll let you all know when we have an actual home again...hopefully soon!