FAMATHON 2008

Famathon in Mammoth :) aka.... Mammathon or famma mamma

Famathon is an all family event. Every other year, it's a get together with four friends and their families. The friends grew up together thru elementary school and have managed to stay friends... now that they are 30 something :) (so they have been friends for 20 some odd years...) I'm not one of the original friends.... as I have married into the group. I'm so happy I did because it seems that all the wives get along just as well as the original four....

here's the first picture..... our mascot. Jerry The guys are all dead-heads. They grew up going to dead shows and combined have been to goodness knows how many .. Anyhow - Jerry makes famathon every time..... Our first famathon was on the Oregon Coast in 2006. The Rydmans were sorely missed (2006) but soooooooo glad that they made this famathon with a 11 week baby in tow!
For us it's a 5 hour drive to mammoth... so we made a few pit stops (to make it like an 8 hr drive.... it happens when you have two kids..)
Fossil Falls ... or as Q says...... Vossil Valls......

It's some volcanic action that a river cut thru thousands of years ago.... (I married a geologist - which is AWESOME for road trips.... I get the full story on the lay of the land) Although I am translating to a lay-woman's perspective, as I don't remember all the Mesozoic speak :)

Here we have a 4000 year old living tree. The tree is NOT dead... yes I said living. They are located in the white mountains (eastern sierra's) and are known to be some of the oldest living trees in the world! We completed a ONE mile HIKE with the boys... at 10,000 feet!! So proud of them!

We also tent camped for the first time - with the boys!

Are we there yet? All the little one cared about was playing with tanner and eva :)


SOOOOOO - we took a fire truck ride thru town.... got to hear the siren and try on all the equipment. Met some of the local crew members before they got called off to a local fire.... (yikes - see the last picture)




OK - this is a dinner cruise on Lake Mary. It was beautiful plus it was Jack-a-baby's first boat ride :)

Last night we camped at Lake Mary and ate some smore smore's.....

Day before we left..... there was fire in the mountains not far from town..... it spread the next day .....hope it can get contained before reaching town??? yikes!



We missed the Knicker-Quagliata Family very dearly but we are looking forward to planning the next famathon 2010!! WOW

we are off to Gilroy for another week of family adventures with nana and tio lawlaw before school starts....... post those pics - next week -