Yosemite 2016

Oh Yosemite! I love you so! I was so excited to take my wet plate camera this year and make some tintypes. I got three good plates and was so thankful for everyone's patience and help while I took them.

Our first day we stayed at a beautiful secret spot in the valley. The park was the most crowded I'd ever seen it but we didn't see one person on the river that day, we had it all to ourselves!

the next day we stayed up in Wawona, near our cabin, and found a great spot to hang out for the day.

So much beauty at every turn.

Fun times in the cabin!

Let's not forget the plants and flowers!
Manzanita

St. Johnswort? If you know, feel free to let me know.

Yarrow

Crimson Columbine

Primrose Monkey Flower

Cow parsnip

Alpine Shooting Star

?

Mullein




...and a group shot :)

Until next time Yosemite!
I hope you enjoyed the photo dump Mary ;)

♥ anne

24 Hours In Joshua Tree

Last week Ruben and I got away for the night to celebrate my birthday. We crammed one hell of a good time into 24 hours! Of course, that's kinda what you have to do when you have 5 kids and are never alone. We soaked in the sun, lounged in cool water, drank many beers, watched the sunset, stargazed (more on that in a minute), listened to the coyotes howling, watched the sun rise, went out to eat for breakfast! and thoroughly enjoyed each others company!

We were lucky to be there on a new moon and it was the night after the big meteor shower so the night sky was incredible! We saw a bunch of meteors and sat under the stars for a long time. All in all it was a terrific trip and a much needed break from home. A big thanks to my mom for watching all the kids and the generous birthday gifts (aka money) from my family which made our trip possible :)

We stayed here and ate at the yummy Crossroads Cafe.

♥ anne

Drink Me

I've been juicing, smoothie-ing and drinking lots of infused water lately. Here are a few of my concoctions from over the past couple weeks.

My favorite combo for water is lemons, cucumber and mint. Pretty simple. The picture has limes because I ran out of lemons and I found it really hard to drink this water. Yuck city!

I'm juicing again. It's a total pain in the ass, makes a huge mess and takes more time than it should but it's worth it. This carrot, golden beet, ginger, cucumber juice was so refreshing!

Not all juices need to be sweet to be delicious. This one had cucumber, kale, ginger, lemon, and some other stuff I can't remember. 

This tasty smoothie had frozen bananas and homemade "raw chocolate almond milk" made with almonds, water, a date and raw cacao nibs and was topped with hemp seeds.

Oh yeah, I had a few Coors as well ;)

What are your favorite summer beverages? Please share!

♥ anne

Sundown

The best way to end the day is with a sunset and lately they have not been disappointing! Here are three from the last few weeks that I am grateful I got to witness.


This first one is from last night and it was incredible! We were at our local concerts in the park and the sunset totally stole the show.


This one is from last week when Maggie and I went on an evening walk. She was such a trooper and walked the whole way checking out flowers as she went along.

The multiple colors on this last one were awesome.
I hope you enjoyed these from your neck of the woods and if you need something to do this evening might I suggest watching the sunset :)

♥ anne