Kermit's Near Demise

Maddie & I had quite the traumatic experience today. You see, we had an incredible thunderstorm last night, which produced much cooler temperatures today. So, I decided that we should sit outside (when it's not 112 degrees) & enjoy the weather. While sitting there, I saw that our grill cover had collected a large amount of water (we were actually grilling when the torrential downpour began...go figure). But, when I picked it up & emptied the water, two little frogs hopped out. I thought this would be a great teaching experience for Maddie. So, I set her on the ground, pointed out the frogs, made the appropriate "ribbit" sound, etc. She must have thought they were cute, as she immediately crawled for them. I let her do so, assuming the frogs would have some sense of danger & would hop away. But, oh no...one frog just sat there and let my 9 month old pick it up!

Two thoughts immediately went through my head. The first was that she was going to squish it to death & the second was that she might try to eat it (as everything goes into her mouth right now). So, I panicked. I promptly started yelling at her to drop it, while shaking her hand vigorously (must have been a wild ride for that poor frog), to which Maddie appropriately started crying. I finally pried open her fingers & let the frog fall to the ground. It sat there stunned for a moment before it hopped away. I think Maddie & I were also both quite stunned at what had just happened. I soothed her, apologized for yelling, and went back inside leaving the poor, stupid frogs to fend for themselves in this untamed land, full of dangerous babies.

Bath time!

Communication Woes

One of the worst things about living in a small town, is terrible reception...when contact with the outside world is what you need the most. In the month that we have had service, I don't think a day has gone by when our internet has consistently worked. Our home phone has had static so bad, that I've had to hang up w/people & call them back on my cell phone. Then, unfortunately, unless I was sitting outside in 100 dg heat, my calls would frequently be dropped.

All this to say, I think we are finally in a much better place for communication w/everyone!!! Verizon came out once again yesterday, and hopefully everything is fixed (except the cell). No more static & the internet works!!! I did learn that there is only ONE Verizon tower in Ridgecrest & it is all the way on the complete opposite end of town. They are planning to put another one in closer to this end of town...but don't know the time frame on that. In the meantime, I'll just continue to make calls when I head into town (closer to the tower) :)

Mt. Whitney

We had an awesome July 4th weekend, despite living in the middle of nowhere! We had our first family picnic at a local park, and Maddie enjoyed her first swing ride. There were flittering smiles, as she just wasn't really sure if it was supposed to be fun. That night, Bill & I were able to enjoy the local fireworks display from our driveway. Living in the land of forest fires, you can imagine fireworks are limited out here....but for Ridgecrest, we were impressed. I sure do miss TN fireworks, though!

On Saturday, we decided to take on Mt. Whitney. Bill got a fancy, new backpack for Father's Day to carry Maddie in & wanted to try it out. We decided to do a "leisurely" hike, and tackle just the first 3 miles of the mountain...which ended at a lovely little "lake". The three miles was at an incline of 1500 feet, and we were feeling it by the time we made it to our destination. The summit to the mountaintop was another 8 miles! Our puny 6 miles roundtrip was more than enough for us. It was a very rewarding day! We were told when we arrived that there have been bear sightings almost every day, so we had to empty our car of everything that smelled (gum, baby wipes, lotion, food, etc) or they would tow our car!! While it would have been cool to see, we fortunately didn't encounter any bears. We'll definitely do this trip again!!

Trial Run

We're deciding rather late to give this whole blog thing a go. This is a trial post to even see if we know what the heck we're doing!