Lugmere & Divora

Every year, around the middle of summer, we depart for the quiet campground of Butano, and then the noisy beach house in Santa Cruz to end up at the world-famous Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk! Our camping trip usually consists of hiking, biking, and playing! But the boardwalk is the HIT of it all! This first picture is of me, my sister, my cousin, and my uncle on the Double Shot, an 125 feet tall free fall! Wheeeee! Next, my papa always lets us get a souvenir, which this time mine was Sushi Socks from a wharf shop!  On the last day, we went to some small but mighty tide pools. We found two sea stars, one immense, one so wee, it was barely the size of your palm! So much to do, so little time to spend with cousins!    

Our yearly trip to Lake Utica, an attractive yet amazingly large lake near Arnold, always excites us as much as our trip to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Our favorite attraction, an impressive rock jutting out from the surface of the clear lake, is at the most 12 feet tall. I always feel confident to do it, but when I finish "hiking" to the top, my legs instantly turn to rubber. But I always manage to hurl myself off before I run back down.        The other half of our group is a large family that lives nearby. We always paddle our kayaks and canoes to one of the many small uninhabited islands in the lake. For the rest of the day, we talk and eat and play in the sand, and kayak to other islands to jump off certain rocks or to swim. The island is quite round, and so we often swim or kayak around it, but this time, my papa brought his stand up paddle-board, and everyone was swarming around it.                When the ...

          On a sultry Wednesday in June, we planned to go to White Pines Lake. For those of you who do not know where or what that is, it is a GORGEOUS lake in the middle of Calaveras County. My best friend's family came plus another family who was camping nearby. After everything was said and done, we whipped out the kayaks and goggles and sunscreen and started to make the most of our day at the lake. Me and my bestie rowed around the lake pretending we were lovely maidens proving our braveness in return for the hand in marriage of a young man whom we loved. We sang songs and recited poetry to each other, but the thing we noticed most was people asking us where we got our kayaks. We got them at Walmart, of course! One adorable detail to our lake day was a mother duck, with a train of ducklings swirling along behind her. One of the things that always stands out at White Pines Lake is the ROPE SWING! When we all got to the lake, one of the first things we did ...

  When we arrived at the popular Fraser Flat, one of our near and dear campgrounds, it was cold. But I didn't expect what was coming in the future. On our trip, most of the adult's time was spent sitting by the fire. But some of us kids did too. But I have to admit, we did spend three fourths of our time biking, climbing trees, sitting in the hammock, walking, talking, and most of all having gobs of fun. But sometimes, all we wanted to do was sit by the campfire and listen to the grownups talk. There was only one sunny day, where shorts and T-shirts were necessary, and it had rained so hard on the other day that the fishing areas were filled with river water! In fact the river itself was high and terribly fast and frigid. So me and my brother dunked in the fishing areas and it was numbing! That night, surprisingly, was the coldest night. That same night, we decided to sleep in our cousin's trailer, for it was so cold we could not stand it in our little tent. So we gather...

I have wanted to open a shave ice stand at a local park or someplace, but I have never got the chance. Now that our cousins and other family have come from the east coast, I had the perfect chance to unleash my dream. It came true one evening, when we worked nonstop making shave ices in little foam cups, ( we made about 40 or so ) and packed up all our supplies and drove to the park. As you can see in this picture, it all started with a large white piece of paper, being swarmed upon by 5 cousins (us) decorating with paint pens, normal pens, pencils, and Sharpies. I decorated it with some 3d shave ices, and we tied it up on a tree as soon as we got there, having forgotten tape. We had brought a set up table, and a large package of defrosted Otter Pops, and we lined all the otter pops up in rainbow order, ( we made up the flavors ) being: Fruit Punch, Grape Ape, Sweet Strawberry, OH MY GOSH Orange, Sublime Lime, and last but ...

  We went to Diggin's Day in Columbia, 2017, and I thought it was the most fun I ever had. We "traveled through time" until the 1849's, and then we were presented with a name tag, and 3 eagles, (gold coins). We had a group leader, me and my mom and brother and sister, my best friend's family, and our landlord and her kids. First of all, we were led with our group leader to various places, including a blacksmith, bakery, school house, and gold mine. After the bell rang for the end of the school house tour, we were allowed to stroll around the "tent town". There was about five different people sitting/standing in front of their stores, shouting to any random person walking by, " STEP RIGHT OVER HERE FOLKS, COME AND GET YOUR ICE COLD SARSAPARILLA!" Since we were in the 1849's; there was more of an accent around, so it sounded more like this: "STEP RIGHT OVER HERE FOLKS, COME A GET YO IZE COL' SAZPARILA!" I did not get a sarsa...