Girl's trip!!!  I went up to McCloud's third annual Apple Festival yesterday with Leona and Meredith.  We went to the festival (which needs to be renamed - we found ONE table that had apples on it, and they were for display.  They did have one booth selling caramel apples and one booth selling dutch oven apple crumble - which was delicious! - but that was the only evidence of apples we found for sale.  They did have an apple pie baking contest too, but I didn't see a lot of apple pies for sale.)  

We ran into a few other people from the bank there - evidence of Leona selling the trip to everyone she talked to!

And we went out to Leona's family ranch - the Lazy E.  Margene and I spent a weekend there last spring, but Meredith hadn't been there before.  Here is the view of Shasta from the road in.

And we went to visit Leona's aunt and uncle - they own Friday's Retreat RV and Fly Fishing Resort (at least I think that's the name - it could be "RC" instead of "RV" - they have an airstrip for radio controlled aircraft there too.....)  This is the pond that her uncle put in fairly recently for fishing - and it's the view from the kitchen window - awesome if you're the one washing dishes.

This is another pond - out by the Pond House - which is a rental on the property.  I'm tempted to rent it for a weekend - it is just beautiful there!  A cute little one-bedroom house with a deck looking over this:

We also took Meredith to the McCloud River Lower Falls - we were seriously running out of daylight by this time.  The leaves are just beginning to turn in the canyon.  It would be nice to hike up (walk up, really) to Middle Falls - maybe next weekend? - but we didn't have time this trip.

I also got to babysit Nicholas Friday night.  It went much better this time, especially after I figured out that "may dash", properly interpreted, is "my juice".  That took a while......

This is the last weekend for Malorie's play "Two on the aisle, three in a van", and she had a surprise audience guest.  Her husband had texted me to ask if I could watch Nicholas because "Malorie's Mom" was bringing a special guest to the show, and he would like to go with them.  No problem, but he didn't tell me it was a secret from Malorie!  Luckily, I hadn't gotten around to confirming with Mal what time she needed me....And she was completely surprised by her brother being in the audience!  She said she did have a panic attach when she saw her husband there too.  Evidently, she had asked if he could come to one of the final performances, and he told her he tried, but I was busy.  She admitted that she spied on me at the first opportunity with the baby cam - who had Nicholas if it wasn't me????

Nicholas has learned "Selfie!" and wanted one at any opportunity.  (If only the rest of his words were as easy for me to understand!  Two-year-olds have a language that only parents can understand...)

He also got a new truck - a fire truck complete with flashing lights and a siren (sorry Mal!)