Solstice Camping 2013 Nature Version

So the last post was the Orion portion of the camping trip. Here's the nature part:

I am sure by now, you know that I love that color of green. However, I also love the fuzziness of this mossy stuff. The way it swayed through the water was so graceful.

There definitely needs to be more camping in this world.

Solstice Camping 2013

A year ago on the summer solstice, Orion, Zac and I went camping at Clinton Lake.

When we walked down to the lake from our campsite, there were millions of butterflies. They were so beautiful and it was magical to walk through them all.

"Take a picture of me up here, Mama!"

He called these boots his goat climbing boots. Like he can climb like a goat when he wears them. : ) 

O for Orion. Every man's gotta have a walkin' stick.

Orion spotted this cool butterfly on the way back to the campsite.

We wore him out! I love how peaceful he looks. So precious.

I also made these butterflies and flower last year. I think I'm going to make a garland out of small crochet objects like this. Someday...

Battleship.

She does't just sit down and color often, but she was this day. So sweet!

{ green }

{ peace }

Going to California

^ One of my favorite songs ever, by the way.

Back in September, the Hamlin families united in California for the official union of two wonderful people. Jason and Lindsey had a beautiful vineyard wedding. This post, however, is about the other adventures we had.

On this evening, we made our way to the beach just before sunset. 

Portrait of Z-Babe and I:

I love the cloud reflection on the small pond of water . The clouds look so much more dramatic in the reflection.

BIG TREES!

I see faces. Faces in the trees.

Faces on the trees.

Beautiful Maebelle, leading the way and reading us the stories:

So tall you can't see the tops. So cool!

WOW! So magical!

Now that the first sun picture is out, I'll just let you know that I forgot my camera when we went to California. I know, I know. How silly. I regretted it so much that I cried when I realized it. 

Anyway, I think this was the place I missed it the most - the trees. And my phone would simply not take pictures in the way that my camera does. Ya know, no depth of field. Since I could not get the shots I wanted, I tended to take lots of sun pictures since that's the one thing my phone does pretty well.

My favorite man:

The crack in this stump is bigger than Maebelle. So sad that we can see the crack. So cool that it (the tree) happened in the first place, thousands of years ago.

The scale of the huge trees (that I only got a small portion of) compared to Zac down at the bottom is insane. He looks like a miniature human. :)

The sun on the next one is perfect. LOVE!

And that was the end of our trip. Well, almost. But it's the end of what you'll see. There was about eight hours of driving through some amazing mountains after this. However we didn't stop to get pictures since we were trying to get through the never-ending range before dark. Or before too dark. We almost made it.

We had a wonderful time. And I will definitely be going back to the trees. Definitely.