Insta-Friday. Bass Lake Edition. Take two.

Jason, the littles and I ventured back to Bass Lake, our happy place for a little vacay.

The trip was up in the air this year because of that whole having a baby thing, but said baby is super chill and we trusted he would be a grand traveling companion.  We were right.  Phew.  Because six hours in a car with an angry baby is brutal.  I'm talking to you newborn Halley and newborn Lucy.  

 I am so glad that the iPhone weather app is ALWAYS wrong.  Because when you are going on a Saturday - Wednesday trip and your phone says thunderstorms on those exact days it gets a little dicey.
There were some storms and gloom, but cool storms.  Super quick dramatic ones, that were just long enough to entertain/ scare the sand off of the kids as they swam storms.  Not the ruin your whole vacay type of storms.

Shane and I just chilled on the beach while the girls collected fools gold, swam and built sand castles.  It's a rough life we lead.

A day trip was in order to Yosemite.  We visited the ever so charming Wawona hotel and I imagined what it would be like to live in an old house with a porch.  Sigh, California with your stucco tract houses, my porch dreams will most likely never come to fruition.

We celebrated our thirteenth anniversary with a swim at sunset.  I look at my sweet family and realize that we had no idea what life would hold as we stood at the altar saying our vows, but what a lovely life has been lived in the past thirteen years.  Thirteen.  Just like that.  Crazy.
On the way home I crazily thought that I would be able to run in to the Fresno Target and grab myself one of the ever so popular Missoni blankets.  Being away from the madness and in the forest left me totally clueless of what an impossiblity that would be.  I ended up with a bag of candy corn pumpkins as a consolation prize.  (One of the few things I like about fall...)
We have a portable dvd player that only comes out for trips to Bass Lake.  It's pretty old school, but the girls love their one movie that they get to watch each way.  As they watched, Jason and I shared an iPod.  Can you say dorky?  Or LA traffic survival?

We came home to real life, school, soccer and lots and lots of makeup homework.  But our five days at the lake mean so much to us as a family.  I dream of living there all the time, but for now we hold on to the memories made and the time invested when we are all there together.

Link up your simple and sweet memories at Life Rearranged.

Insta-Friday. Bass Lake Edition.

So I am a rebely rebel.
Doctor's orders?
Ignored.
Road trip on.
Shady?  Maybe.
Memory making?
Absolutely.

Paddleboarding with their uncle.
Cousin adventures.
Lots of Grandma and grandpa time.
Nature hikes.
Bug catching.
Scraped knees.
Searching for squirrels.
Digging, castle building, swimming.
More swimming.
Fool's gold.
Freak rainstorm.
Learning to play war.
Huge trees.
Giant dandelions.
God's beautiful creation.
Evenings topped off with s'mores.
That is what Bass Lake is made of.

Plus, I didn't have a baby on the side of the road.
My daughter didn't have to perform an emergency c-section.
I didn't end up on my own TLC show.
Did I drive home for six hours having contractions?
Maybe...
But nothing a nap and a huge glass of water didn't cure.

Don't tell my OB.

I also can neither confirm nor deny if while the three littles slept, that I pulled off the freeway in LA traffic to use this.  A girl's got to do what a girl's got to do...


Link up your week with Insta-Friday.

Bass Lake collage style.

Our Bass Lake vacay in pictures.

Panning for gold.

Looking for squirrels.

Olde Timey train ride

Swimming. Lots of swimming.

Until we meet soon.

Love you forever and ever Bass Lake.

{P.S.  All of the pics were taken with my point and shoot and are straight out of  the camera.  The collages were made in Picnik.  Proof that you don't need a fancy cammy, endless hours to edit and Photshop to capture your family's memories.  Be encouraged by that.  Don't put off taking beautiful pictures until you think you have the right equipment or skills.  Start with what you have.  I promise that you are even more amazing than you think that you are.}

a lake full of memories.

Bass Lake is a little lake in the middle of California.
It is home to nearly all of my favorite childhood memories, and I hope that it will be home to my girls' fondest memories as well.

My dad started coming to Bass Lake when he was little.

My grandpa loved the outdoors.
Hiking, camping, fishing.
He instilled that love into each of his five children.

My grandma was a good sport and came along.
She was more of a city girl, but knew how much it meant to her family.
When my twin uncles were babies she would tie their cloth diapers to a rope and row them out into the lake to wash them.
For reals.
No Pampers in those days, friends.
Then she would boil them in a huge pot over the campfire.

She recently passed away and we celebrated her long and colorful life at Bass Lake this year.
All of my aunts, uncles and cousins were there to share stories.  Out of all of them, the diaper one will always be my favorite.

Bass Lake doesn't exist without dogs.
Lots and lots of dogs.
Labradors to be exact.
They are a constant source of entertainment and a bit of splashing or trampling if you aren't careful.

Here is my dad and I when I was about 18 months old.
We spent all day at the beach, and all night by the campfire.  Cousins.  Aunts and Uncles.  Friends.
Playing.  Exploring.  Learning.  Talking.  Being together.
Simple.  The best, best, best kind of vacation.
I feel like camping is in your blood, or it isn't.
You either are raised a camper, or marry a camper and go camping just to be nice.
I am thankful to be both raised a camper, as well as married to a camper.
We even camped for part of our honeymoon.  On purpose.
Our hopes are to raise three little campers, and although it is so much harder in many ways, the stripped down simplicity, free of distractions, is honestly the best way to connect and make memories.

Some kids grow up pretending to be princesses, superheroes or pirates.
My brother and I grew up pretending to be at Bass Lake.  All year long we would go camping in our back yard.  Asking over and over again...
When are we leaving for Bass Lake?

In two more months we are going back.
I can't wait.
I want my kids to have pictures like this.
Memories like this.
Bonds like this.
Once campfire scented load of laundry at a time.

Hi.

My paranoid self just did a little tricky posting while we were away.  Again.

J, the girls and I headed up to Bass Lake for our annual anniversary trip.  I love the simplicity of our days there.  Wake up, breakfast, play at the lake, lunch, naps, dinner, play in the pool, sleep.  Repeat.  Happy kids, happy parents, happy days.

Throw in a stop to Sonic (there are none near our house, tragic, I know...) on the way there and back and you get the recipe for a perfect week. 

It is so hard to get back to real life.

Sometimes I want to ditch it all and move up there.  

Just us in a little cabin on the lake.

Sounds so tempting. 

Too bad they cost a million dollars.

Think we will stick to visiting a few times a year.

Bass Lake

My family has been going to Bass Lake (outside of Yosemite, CA) since the 1930's.  My dad spent summers there, my best childhood memories are from there, Jason has been going there since we got married and now our kids are enjoying it every year.  This year my parents got a big cabin for us all to share.  Jason couldn't go (boo hoo) because he was speaking at the Saddleback Worship Conference and launching his book (yay!)  So the girls and I headed on the road and I hoped for 8 hours of driving peace and happiness.  (Do multiple time outs on the side of the 99 count?  Because if you have ever driven thorough Cali on the 99 you know that it is not really paradise.  Just saying.  The naughty chair travels with us too.  And it gets lots of use.  Mama can only take so much.)

This is the temp on the way.  Hottest day in the universe!  What would I do without air conditioning?

Because I didn't plan better I had to get gas at this station.  Oops.

Took a hike and found some gorgeous giant Sequoias.  No camera in the world could accurately capture how big they are.

Lulu really wanted to keep this ginormous pine cone.  My science teacher/enviromentalist brother made us leave it.  She was really sad until we saw a baby garter snake and the pine cone was forgotten.
This is where they sat all day.  The water is really shallow so I didn't have to worry about them drowning.  They played together every day and I actually found myself relaxing.  How cute are these suits from Target?  Love them.  I brought my sewing machine and a bunch of projects that needed finishing, but never took it out of the case.  I caught up on my magazines, read two big books and just enjoyed doing nothing.  I rarely let myself do that, so it was a welcome treat.

Speaking of treats, Amy is the winner of the Starbucks pound.  She also had the horror of going to get coffee only to find out the machine was broken.  She said it is like "an ice cream truck being out of ice cream."  Or like the time I went to Del Taco for a burrito and they were out of beans.  Really?  Out of beans?