On Saturday we left the house early to get to the hot air balloon festival before the sun came up. Smokey the Bear was the first to get inflated and lift off. This is the same event I attended with Pippin seven years ago, and most of the balloons were the same, too.

In the middle of the day we took naps, and tended the garden. That is, Pippin gardened and I took pictures.

Late afternoon we took the camp stove and makings for Frito Pie up on the volcanic peak of Mount Shasta, to the Old Ski Bowl, 7800 ft. elevation (The top is almost twice that high). We ate our picnic dinner and stayed for the sunset.

The children took me up a ways to a place among the rocks that they call the Sunset Cafe, and we pretend feasted on plates of salad, strawberry bread and chocolatey desserts, artfully arranged from whatever vegetable and mineral materials could be found lying nearby:

We gazed off toward the west…

And when it was starting to get dark, both Ivy and Jamie fell within about ten minutes of each other, and cried for a while in pain from the shock of sharp rocks slamming into knees and ribs. Jamie had tripped over the giant rock loaf of “strawberry bread.” But they were soon done with that and we set off down the mountain again.

Today was full. This is the first year Ivy didn’t have a themed cake, and the first year she helped make her birthday pie.

Everything has been delicious.