Today

"The Reverent Sisters" ... "Sisters Of Reverence" ... "The Sisterhood Of Shhhh!"

(Really, they could decide on any one of these band names some day and be completely legit.)

Jared having to constantly remove the sand from OCD Girl's hands. Man, we didn't see that coming! (major eye roll)

Visiting this lake was bittersweet for the girls.  We told them they weren't allowed to go in the water ... at all ... period.

Why?  Because of this sign ...

... which I knew would raise questions ... "Why can't we swim?" ... "What's Swimmers Itch?" ... "What's a parasite?" ... "Why are we only allowed to play in the sand?"

That's why I grabbed this brochure at the information center ... so I was armed with a visual aid ... so I could say, "See girls?  This is what a parasite looks like ... and that lake is chalk full of em' ... so don't go in the water ... those suckers will mess.you.up."   

Mission Accomplished.  I scared our girls to death!  Ashy's convinced she see's a parasite every 5 minutes ... even on dry land.  The image on the brochure was that disturbing to them.  They may never swim again!

Or they may bounce back?  Who knows?

Avery's keeping an eye out for parasites.

We lasted a whole 30 minutes at this park before Anistyn finally spotted what we so hoped she wouldn't ...

The Carousel.

Game Over.

The Raintree

May 19th 2012 ... otherwise known as the day we hiked 6 miles ... up to 10,000 feet (where you can barely breathe) ... just to see a very, very old tree.  Remember that day girls?  They're smiling because Jared's doing cartwheels behind me.

Here's my problem.  It's this guy.  He gets these ideas in his head ... and he doesn't let them go until we see them through.  I love it ... but I also hate it.  Anyway, he really wanted us to see the oldest living thing in Southern Nevada ... which is the Raintree ... up on Mt. Charleston ... a bristlecone pine that's said to be over 3,000 years old.

So we did ... (of course we did.)

And, as usual, it was touch n' go the whole way.  Our girls were eventually so tired, we could have sold them on any tree and just called it good.

But we did make it ... and there she is ... the crazy old tree herself.

Who knows whether or not our girls will remember this day?

Whether or not they'll remember that tree ...

... or how important it was to them that we fed the tree not one, but TWO bottles of water before we left.

  Hopefully they'll remember ... but most likely not.

When you're a young grasshopper ... I'm pretty sure a tree is just a tree.

Let's Get Em' Dirty!

That was our main objective for today ... get the kids dirty.  Jared and I grew up in Washington.  We spent our days exploring the woods, climbing trees, building forts, and coming home all scraped up and filthy.  It was awesome!  Our girls don't get dirty nearly enough.  We'd like to see this change.

A lot of dirt up on Mt. Charleston today ... it was a pretty great day!

This Is What Happens When People With OCD Breed

(It's feast or famine with blogging these days ... I do apologize.)

Pictures from this afternoon ... swimming with The Beast

The party stops immediately when she realizes she's come in contact with a tiny piece of foilage ....

Hold up!

Stop EVERYTHING!

Do you see the problem?  Left hand, middle finger ... the teeny tiny piece of a decayed leaf?

She'll bring it over to me so I can remove it.  She can't remove it herself, are you kidding? That's absurd!  She'll have me remove it.  I am, afterall, a trained professional.

All better.

Oh man!  Are you kidding me?  Not again!

And so it goes.