A Day At Big Bear!

So Dave being at the fires, I thought I would take the kids up to Big Bear to see Sue and Jim. Caiden LOVES going up there and I thought it would be the perfect time to go up and hang out with Papa Jim and Grammie Sue.

I called and made the necessary arrangements and we had been looking forward to it the whole week. On Saturday I got a call from Dave saying that they were being sent home from the fire (it was out) and that he would be coming home, but he would be staying at the station Saturday night as he had to work on Sunday. I asked him multiple times if he was coming home, but he kept saying no as they would get home too late and he would basically have to turn around and go back to work.

That settled, I tucked the kids in bed and retired myself to get some shut eye. Sometime later, what felt like the middle of the night to me, I wake up. I sense something is amiss, but I don't hear anything and both dogs are still with me on the bed, quiet but stirring. Still, something didn't feel quite right to me. I turn towards the nightstand to get my glasses (frankly because I cannot see a darn thing without them) when I see it. A shadow lurking over me. I scream bloody murder with thoughts crazily flashing through my mind (Someone is staring at me...what am I going to do? How am I going to get to the kids? Why aren't the dogs barking? Why didn't the alarm go off? What the hell am I going to do?). Then the dark shadow starts laughing.

Yeah, Dave came home. This normally would be nice, if he had done so in the proper "Honey, I'm home from the fire kind of way?" Not the creepy-I'm-staring-at-you-and-I-am-a-serial-killer kind of way. Glad he had a laugh, but I am the half blind mother of two that was just woken up by the presence of a strange being in her home. Crazy man! Who thinks THAT's funny?

Anyway, Dave not only surprised me by coming home, but the next morning when he was still in bed sleeping and I frantically wake him up because I think he is late for work, he calmly tells me that he organized getting the day off (not an easy task at the last minute). He decided he was going to join me on my trek to Big Bear. Dave had bought us all shirts from the Yosemite Fire AKA the Telegraph fire, so we all wore them up to BB. Dave and I had green shirts, and Caiden and Kiya had blue ones (they did not have pink in her size Heather :P...we wish they had because everyone thought Kiya was a boy in her blue shirt).

Here we are in our matching shirts. We also have grey ones

And Grammie and Papa with Kiya and Caiden

There was so much to do there. I wish we could have stayed longer. First, we went out to breakfast with Grammie Sue and Papa Jim. That took an awfully long time as they were pretty busy. It was cool to see how appreciative people are to firefighters. Some of the tables thanked Dave for his hard work at Yosemite, and one table kept trying to get Jim to give them a firefighter calendar from his department.

Grammie and Caiden
Papa and Kiya
Kiya

Next we went home to give the "kids" a little rest. This meant that Kiya and Caiden laid down and didn't sleep while Dave snoozed on the couch. Finally Grammie Sue snuck into Caiden's room and coaxed him outside and we sat outside eating ice cream and watching birds.

Here is A bird...there were many
Intently bird watchin

Caiden couldn't resist helping Papa Jim in the garage. He was such a good helper handing him stuff to put away. He even had his work gloves on. While the boys worked. Kiya tried on some hats that Grammie Sue had made.

Caiden helping papa in the garage

Grammie and Kiya pre-hat
Grammie and Kiya post-hat
I thought Kiya had a funny expression here

We then woke up Dave just in the nick of time, so that we could take a ride up the ski lift to get a view of Big Bear Lake. It was very pretty, but a little hazy (it was humid and looked like a thunderstorm was approaching).

Of course, Caiden wanted to ride with Grammie and Papa, so Dave, Kiya and I rode on our own ski lift. Some of the pictures are a bit blurry, but it was hard to keep my hand still on that ski chair (plus I didn't realize there was an arm bar you were supposed to pull down, so I kept thinking I was going to fall out).

Grammie, Papa and Caiden boarding
Feet up - if you don't the chair lift man gets mad...

Caiden's having fun
If you look closely you can see Caiden, Jim and Sue
Kiya was entralled
With Dave that is :P
Ok, so this was my 3rd shot and I finally managed to get myself in there
Caiden puts his arms up like a roller coaster
The view
was beautiful


What better way to beat the heat and end the day than with an ice cream cone from the North Pole? That's what we thought too, so off we went. :) It was SOOO good. I had lemon and raspberry sorbet in a chocolate tipped waffle cone (Heather - PLEASE do me a favor and do not calculate the caloric content of my indiscretion).

Everything I wanted, but didn't get
Ice Cream family
I look so tall because I took this myself
Kiya LOVED Jim's ice cream - she lunged for it

My little ice cream man

We then came back to Grammie Sue and Papa Jim's house where we visited and played games. We then had a delicious dinner and were on the road back home again. It was a wonderful visit, albeit too brief. Thank you for letting us come up to see you :)

Game playing
Kiya starts experimenting with tools early (that's a wrench)
Yummy dinner