Goldwater Lake...

As foretold...Saturday morning while finding me up and about early on a solo hike, I came home quickly showered and got ready to go out again, only this time to Goldwater Lake. I was the guest of Kate and Zora, and Kate's mom.


Part of Kate's plan while she was up here was to go out into the forest or some of our other varied bits of nature up here and introduce Zora into the great outdoors of our youth.







Zora didn't have any problems feeling immediately comfortable out in the woods. She kept walking right off the path to find her own way, and yelling at us that she was going to,

"...hike in the lake!"

We tried to tell her that it was against the rules to do that, but she would just turn away from us and explore on her own. We didn't actually let her go in the lake, as we have been warned all our lives that we're not allowed to do that. None of us could really figure out why we're not allowed to swim in any of the lakes here, but the local legend of this particular lake is that they use it for our drinking water.


Which is odd, because we were sitting remembering that up until a few years ago the city used to let the triathletes swim in it...hmmmm. I'm feeling a bit like a gullible native. I'm thinking at this point that it has less to do with drinking water and more to do with liability...

Anyway, this lake is wonderfully maintained and has the nicest bathrooms (cause there's nothing like teaching a toddler that really clean bathrooms are naturally occurring in nature)








She was fascinated by the bark she found on the ground, and I showed her that it belonged on the pine tree once and had fallen off. What I didn't tell her was that it was probably because of the bark beetle problem we have up here...

I didn't want to scare her. Or myself for that matter. There's nothing worse in the last few years than watching so many beautiful pine trees turn brown and die up here.












It was so fun to watch her gently explore in her pink Converse high tops...when she wasn't shredding off on her own trail...



























She loved the pine needles too, and I showed her where they came from...and she immediately made me lift her up so she could pull them off their branches and throw them on the ground.

That absolutely cracked her up!








She and her mommy spent quite a bit of time picking up bark and sticks for future plans to make fairy houses when they go home...

I can't wait to see them!






























...And, after a while, it was time to pack it up and go home.

How nice it was to be part of Zora's first real hiking adventure in the woods...

Thanks guys!







Ok, is it just me or did anyone else find the first chapter of the new Harry Potter book disturbing? I was having a kind of out of it afternoon on Sunday because I hit naptime pretty hard and could not for the life of me come back from it...So, I thought I would read. I hope the rest of the book isn't going to be like this cause' I had to get up and take a walk to clear my head (ok, there's other stuff going on, but still...) Then I came home and had to make myself a special treat...

Cause I finally found coconut Torani syrup at CostPlus! It's made me gasp and do a little happy dance right there in the store, which amused my niece to no end...so, I ended up making a coconut cream Italian soda...

Sparkling water in about 3/4 of the glass you're using
A generous dash of coconut syrup
and top with soy milk

It was an instant pick-me-up...

ohhh...I should try a Hazelnut one too!

Maybe I'll need it after chapter 2?