"Brick by brick my citizens, brick by brick."

And so it goes. A new place, new rules multiplied by the dozen:

Don't drag your feet on the trails or you kick up dirt in the face of the hiker behind you!

Wear shoes in the yard! (Groan- this is going to be a nightmare to enforce.)

Don't throw rocks at the deer! (Really, why would a kid do that? "Target practice, Mom. I thought we could eat it for dinner if I hit it!"

Don't push on the window screens or you'll fall to your death! (A beautiful but not child-friendly home design, but hey, at least the windows open here.)

Poor kids! Transitions are so hard on them. Favorite shoes torn to pieces on the rocky terrain (o, that made-in-the-usa challenge I voluntarily took on! do you know how many hiking shoes are made in the usa? zero, zilch, nada- not a single option), favorite stuffed animals lost, fingers repeatedly smashed in self-closing doors (a clever idea, right?), stressed and sore parents snapping and barking much more than usual.

But we did take our first hike today... of course we had to cross a police line to do so (pesky wildfire precations) and Ed and I were embarrassingly nervous about mountain lions (I did notice tracks).

And still- no pictures. I'm working on my new computer and when I finally download my sd card it will flood my hard drive with thousands of photographs. I'm getting up the courage- tomorrow's the day!


"Brick by brick my citizens, brick by brick."
-the Emperor Hadrian