We Paid Good Money for This Adventure

Continuing on the Yellow Hat vacation...

We got up Tuesday morning and enjoyed the hotel's continental breakfast. Big Girl asked her daddy why he was eating toy eggs. The hard boiled eggs did have a remarkable resemblance to the plastic ones in her play food box! So with bellies full, we loaded up and headed east to South Lake Tahoe.

Here is the view of the lake at the point the Boy puked.
We lost a pillow that day.
What a treat for any bears smart enough
to get into those bear-proof trash cans.

At a vista point shortly after the last scene.
We stopped to clean up a bit more and
give The Boy some breathing room.
This is Emerald Bay.
I'll show more pictures of this in the next post
because we hiked all the way down there.


We had a picnic lunch at Sugar Pine Point State Park.
We took a trail that led down to the lake.
(If you desire, these can be enlarged.)


We had this little section of beach all to ourselves
(with the exception of a family of ducks).

Perhaps some day
(like when I pay the big bucks for a photographer this fall),
we won't have to take family pictures in shifts.

Enough cheese-ing!
Time to get in!

The water was so clear and not so cold
that one couldn't stay in for a while.
Fun fact: Lake Tahoe is so deep that the water continually moves;
therefore, it never freezes.

Here is the cabin we rented for a few days.

Just kidding. It's Pine Lodge, and it's now a museum. Thankfully, the maid's cottage is now a public restroom. Can you imagine staying in this place and looking out on the beautiful views?!


I just realized that I don't have a photo of the cabin we rented. We got it through MWR which is a military organization that gets us discounts for recreation. We found out the day we left that the Coast Guard actually has cabins on the lake for $30 a night. We weren't on the lake and we paid more than that per night. But, the place had a washer and dryer, was fairly clean, and we could cook our own meals. And, more importantly, the kids had their own room. It's a bit difficult to do anything (and not just that) when you're sharing a room with three kids that are over-stimulated and sleep-deprived and you want them to go to sleep ASAP.

Playing games after supper.

Turning the discussion a bit here... what images do these names bring up for you?

Angelina Ballerina, Mickey, Minnie, Ralph S.?

Cute, right?

Well, the mice (notice that is PLURAL) that ran willy-nilly all over the living room after the kids went to bed were anything but.

Here is Mr. YH trying to get the one that ran in the kids' room.
I deftly wielded the camera and mop to try to document
the event and steer the thing should it run out.
We never found that one.

I thought I'd try to lure it out with some peanut butter on a cracker.
And all I caught were jeers from Mr. YH.

One big fat one scurried under the hole in the front door where the weather stripping had come loose. We sat up late trying to do something because it is a bit unnerving when mice are running around period, let alone running into the bedroom where the kids were sleeping. We found some of those glue strips and strategically placed them around the room.

Finally, we called it a night and went into the master bedroom to make up the bed.
Guess the mice liked that bedroom, too.

We slept in the third bedroom with our shoes put up high. As we lay in bed, we discussed our options:

1. Ask for our money back and find a new place.
2. Ask for a relocation.
3. Stay put and deal with it.

As we prayed that night, I was reminded of Padmani, our Compassion child. And I wondered where she sleeps. I'd venture a guess that the majority of the world deals with "critters" as their norm. It's amazing how quickly one's paradigm can shift. So in that moment, I think it was decided we'd stick it out because we were in the woods ( we did request new pillows and more traps!).

The next morning we discovered that those glue strips work. (I'll spare you the picture Mr. YH wanted me to take.) I will tell you, though, that the vermin dies a slow death, so Mr. YH took a rock to it outside to pot the thing out of its misery.

Like I said-
we paid good money for this adventure!

The Yellow Hats' Northern CA Adventure

After church last Sunday, we came home and ate lunch, finished packing, and cleaned the house up a bit. I have a thing about coming home from vacation to a dirty house, so Mr. YH made sure we had time to do a cursory cleaning. Then we loaded up and were off! Look how happy the children are! (We haven't even pulled out of the driveway yet...)

Our first stop was just a few hours north at Travis AFB.
To my military peeps- fantastic lodging!!
For the rest of you, that just means we paid very little for a very nice "hotel."

Behind the camera, a very relieved mama. Whew! Tragedy avoided.

I wish I could have put this on my kitchen tour. We are toying with the idea of packing out in December, driving up to Travis to try to take a hop to Hawaii for Christmas, and then drive back across the country. Of course, it'll all depend on where the AF powers that be want to send us.

Ok, enough about our TLF! We met up with friends from our last base
at the duck pond on base and had a picnic so the kids could play.
Turns out the geese were a little on the hissy side, so Baby Girl had to stay confined in the stroller.

It was so good to see our friends- it's nice when you can just pick up where you left off without having to give 3 hours of history before you share a story. Heather, I thought of you and hope you're being refreshed!!

The H four and our girls-
the Boy wanted no part of this and little L has no clue he should care yet.

Monday morning, we loaded up and drove down the road for a sweet tour!

And we only bought one bag of belly flops!

Next- Old Town Sacramento.
What can I say?
It was an old town.
Oh, and hot.
The Monterey Peninsula is not hot, so wearing shorts and sweating glistening was new.

Mr. YH thought the Boy would love this.

I believe this was his favorite part.
And we have these at home.
For free.

Someone missed a lot of naps this week. She's the caboose, so I've learned to roll with it and not get too stressed out about it. Why were we so spoiled with #1? We'd lean her stroller back and tell her it was nap time and she'd go to sleep while we continued to sight see. We were ruined before we had any sense to know.

Daddy bought us smoothies.

This would have been much cooler had the little schoolhouse museum been open.
They enjoyed the "playground" anyway, and we did get to peek in the windows.

We drove on a ways, swam in the pool, and had a picnic in the room after baths.
We only ate out twice the whole week.
I've also had my fill of PB and J!!

Master Bedroom Tour

We've been on vacation and I didn't have time to work this up ahead of time. Better late than never, huh?! Again, just not going to photograph the rental's master bedroom. I will spare you the gross matted mobile-home brown carpet that dominates the room. Here is the master from our old house that we thought we sold, but have not. The wall behind the bed has a color on it called "fig" from Lowe's, I think. My goal this next year is to find a new comforter set because we're about to hit 10 years and it's time for something new.

Photograph from a window in the Doge's Palace in Venice.
I love Venice...

Photograph I took on a missions trip to Italy in college. When Mr. YH and I were there in 2003, we attempted to go to a Gregorian Chant concert in that cathedral you see (only a music major geek like me would be excited about that and equally disappointed that she missed it due to NO public restrooms on the island; it was an emergency.)

You can't see my dresser in the large room photo,
but this tea cup and saucer sit on it.
I got them on my first missions trip to Kyiv, Ukraine in 1999.

A hand-painted plate a church I ministered in gave to me- Obuhov, Ukraine.

Mr. YH's best man was from Japan and gave us this as a wedding gift-
it says "faith, hope, love."

Thanks for stopping in! Head to Kelly's for more rooms!

Bad News

Well, we just got a message from our realtor that the buyers have withdrawn their offer after they realized that since we refused to pay their $5200+ in closing costs, they could not afford it at this time either. But you know what? I have had that sense from the Lord that this deal was not quite right, so I'm ok. Please keep praying the right person comes along SOON to buy the place!

We had company tonight for dinner, but tomorrow I'm putting up pictures; I've downloaded them from the camera, so they're ready to share!

We're Baaa-aaaack!

We're back! And exhausted!

Just a few quick things:

1. If you prayed for the White House to sell, THANK YOU! It went on the market 2 weeks ago. On Monday, we got an e-mail saying we should expect an offer. As Mr. YH and the kids fished on the banks of the Truckee River on Wednesday, we received a ridiculous offer- it'd be like handing over $11,000. Uh, N.O. So we countered back to our very fair asking price, and they accepted. We just signed the contract and sent it back to our realtor. Hopefully, closing will happen sooner rather than later.
2. Our vacation almost started off on a sour note. Last Saturday, Big Girl informed us at breakfast that she would not be taking Bunny along. I seriously had to get up from the table to keep my composure. In fact, I walked out of the room to wipe my eyes and I am not being dramatic in the least. My family and close friends will understand why this unnerved me so much- if The Velveteen Rabbit were true, Bunny would be Real. Thankfully, Bunny came along for the Northern CA vacation. And at one point in the trip, Baby Girl's bottle leaked a little milk on Bunny and Big Girl was in tears. I will admit that, while on the outside expressing the appropriate amount of concern and sympathy, on the inside I was gleeful! So- hi, my name is Mrs. Yellow Hat and I am NOT ready for my 6 year old to grow up. You may just see Bunny in future pictures with me.

Pictures and tales of our trip to come!

Monday's Memories: Packing

Well, by the time you read this, the Yellow Hats will be "on the road again" (imagine Willie Nelson singing in the background- aren't you glad that I don't know how to upload music to my blog!?). Mr. Yellow Hat has 2 weeks off and for the first week, we're going to explore a little slice of northern California. We're hitting important sights like the Jelly Belly Factory, old town Sacramento, spending a few days at Lake Tahoe, and hitting a hot spring, a redwood park, a cave, and perhaps an old rail town.

I spent much of last week planning and packing. Therefore, I thought it only fitting to remember how we packed for our European adventures. We were by no means experts when we started...

Here we are in Egypt (January 2004).

We stayed with a scholar in Cairo who remains one of our good friends to this day. Bless his then-bachelor heart, the Yellow Hats showed up with not just one large suitcase, but two. And a stroller. And a baby backpack (Mr. YH thought we'd climb Mt. Sinai and the Egyptians absolutely nixed that idea for us, so this was totally dead weight).

Nutshell: we had a great time. Eventually, we made it back to Kyiv in one piece- with all of our baggage.

But we knew something had to change.

Introducing, Rick Steves. We love him. We like his gear. We like his accessories. We like his guide books. We like his travel tips. So, Mr. YH carried this on his back, I rolled this, and I also wore a smaller backpack with one small packing cube for Big Girl (then, the only girl) along with pink blanket, yellow pillow, and Bunny; a sippy cup, bowl, bib, and disposable spoons; a few small toys; and the stroller. That's it. That's how we'd go for 2 weeks at a time:

Tallin, Estonia (June 2005)

You can enlarge all of these, but I'll crop in a bit so you can see it better:

We made sure everything coordinated so we only had to have one pair of shoes (I usually snuck in a pair of sandals, too), packed lighter, and got over washing our clothes in the sink if need be. We were able to use any form of public transportation. We'd pull into a city sometimes, put our bags in a train station locker, empty out Big Girl's backpack and use it as our day pack. It made us so much more mobile, and we had a blast!

To this day, however, I feel like I am over packing and it stresses me out. We have 2 more kids and a van. I'm having to shift my paradigm back to traveling in America, and I wonder why it's taking me so long to adjust!?!?

We'll be back next weekend with a whole new set of memories,
and I'll be anxious to catch up with you all!

Last thing- I have a lot of memories, but I thought I'd open it up to you- is there anything in particular you'd like to know about regarding our time in Kyiv, any of the countries we visited, etc.? Leave me a comment and I'll see what I can come up with!

1st Grade Down, 11 to Go!

When Mr. YH first brought up home schooling our kids, it was before I had agreed it was time to even have any. I had just finished teaching middle school and although they are my favorite age to teach, they are in a category of their own for very good reasons. It was quite intimidating and overwhelming to think about teaching our children- I mean, before, they were other people's kids and even though I tried my best with them, we were now talking about my kids!

It's turning out to be pretty fun- a lot of work- but I wouldn't trade it for the world!

May 29- finishing up her last math assignment
We hummed Pomp and Circumstance but she was not overly impressed.

School ended for Big Girl two weeks ago, but Friday was the first day we were able to go off and celebrate her accomplishments in the first grade. I got to take her because, well, it was my idea and I am the teacher. I needed a celebration, too!


It is Yellow Hat tradition to have shaped pancakes for whatever holiday we're celebrating (we make up a lot of our own). I was informed that Big Girl had requested special pancakes for her big day. And, of course, they were served on our blue plate and the occasion duly recorded on the blue plate history sheet. (You can click on all of these photos to enlarge them if you want.)


I put this outfit on knowing that when she saw me she'd put her dress on. She had asked me to wear it on Sunday, but it was way too cold! She told me she wished we had more matching outfits. So there-it's in print and documented for future reference! (FYI- I not only don't tan, I can't)

As we drove to our first stop, I asked Big Girl about her first grade favorites:

Books/stories:

• Mr. Popper's Penguins - "I like the part when he talks on the phone to the man who doesn't understand him. It's SO funny! And the penguin tries to disconnect the phone."
• Mrs. Piggle Wiggle - "I like the first chapter that tells about her upside-down house."
• George Mueller - "I liked it that he always prayed whenever he needed something."

Re: Math: "Playing math games."

Re: History/Geography: She liked the story about a Persian king who had an unusual reaction to a weather problem when he went off to conquer parts of Greece.

First stop- the beauty salon to have a trim.
Every girls day out needs to include a little bit of pampering.

I was a little miffed that the lady didn't dry her hair all the way.
It's not like they were busy or that I wasn't paying $20
for a stinking haircut for my 6 year old!

Next stop, Cannery Row!

It was a gorgeous day!
The temperature was just right and the view was great!

We wandered through Candyland.

Perhaps this pencil would last through the next 11 years!

Mr. YH and I gave Big Girl $10 to spend wherever she wanted.

We went to the IMAX to see the Sharks movie. Big Girl was excited but equally vocal about being scared. She held tightly to my hand with both of her [cold and clammy] hands the entire 45 minutes! With the exception of a few evolutionary references that I promptly corrected, the movie was great! Did you know that the giant Pacific manta ray can have a wing span of 22 feet and weigh nearly 3,000 lbs? Or that the great white shark is the only shark that can take a look above the water? Or that the whale shark is the largest of all sharks and has 300 teeth but doesn't use them for biting or chewing? I found that last fact fascinating- God has such a sense of humor in making this gigantic creature and it's essentially harmless.

Big Girl wanted pizza for lunch and Louie was able to oblige.

We had a little trouble getting the background in, too-
just pretend the picture after this one is behind us because it really was.

Hello Kitty joined us for lunch.
We had a great view of the bay- a fairly clear view Friday!

Amazingly (and oh so sad for me!), Big Girl was not very hungry. I had planned on taking her downstairs to the Ghiardelli shop for ice cream. We'll have to do that another day! They gave out free samples, so we had a yummy and FREE piece of chocolate for dessert. We stopped by the Goodwill in downtown Monterey because I was looking for a little shelf I can use in one of the bathrooms. We found this picnic basket for $5. It's in great shape and I think I may try to line it.

And with that great find, we called it a day!
Now I'm heading over to Shutterfly to put these right into the photo album!