Rattlesnakes

Two weekends in a row now we've gone for a hike at Rattlesnake Point. The girls love it. What do they love most? The trees? Fresh air? The squirrels? No. Acorns. Cameron especially grabs as many as she can, and won't even let Christine hold her hands (full of acorns). So when you're walking beside a massive cliff, it's a bit annoying.

Ella had a meltdown yesterday when we had to leave. It's tricky with little kids, because what is really not a really long walk, might exhaust them. And the only way to really tell is that they start to freak out.

Ella basically wanted to stay, but when I walked over to grab her, she pulled a Matrix move and ran right up a huge tree. Ok, the truth is I almost threw her up a massive tree.

She's a good sister though. If anything almost happens to Cameron, Ella loses it. She loves her so much (and vice versa). They also fight like crazy these days. Cameron, being a small tank-like thing, takes no crap from Ella and, most times when we catch them really about to go at it, she's about to crack Ella one. But because Ella can do Matrix moves, she just runs up a wall and does a back flip out of the way.

Ella found a dead mouse in the back yard yesterday. Our neighbor has a cat called Smudge that is a pain in the a$$. In the last few weeks we've seen our 80 year old neighbor Ben chasing him across the street with a broom. At least that's what we think he's doing. Maybe he's just really into sweeping these days.

Anyway, I think this was Ella's first encounter with death. She's been talking a bit about it in the last month, but she doesn't understand it. I let her help me bury the mouse, then she put a pine cone on top and said "Ohhh, I hope my friend is OK".