SO I'M BACK FROM my trip to Lopez Lake where J and I spent a few days eating and fishing and hanging out with his family. The main event of the trip was the ongoing Cranium competition between the Mugas and the Haneys (J's last name is Muga), but I'll get into that later. The campsite was cute, the weather was perfect, and there were a lot of animals roaming around, not afraid too get super close to our campsite, especially a deer who stole a tortilla off a table, and a bluejay who snuck some fallen chips from the ground. The nieces were excited whenever they spotted any deer nearby. Later after we settled into camp the first night, we went into town and got some burgers, then came home for some hot chai and s'mores.

Madewell sweater, American Apparel denim cropped lawn blouse, Levi's jeans

Next day, we went fishing with the whole family and nobody caught any fish. Not a single one. Kind of disappointing. There's a cute photo of J teaching the girls how to fish, though. I mostly sat and read and ate pumpkin seeds anyway, but I took a second to fish and screwed it up immediately, getting the line all tangled. Down below, you'll see a picture of J untangling the line for me, but by that time I was done and just decided to help the little ones look for unusual rocks and bits of colored glass along the shoreline. Some bottle caps made it in the pile as well. (I would like to try out that floating fishing contraption that the intrepid guy in the photo down below was using. I'm betting he came out with a few catches at the end of the day.)

That night we were supposed to play the championship Muga vs. Haney Cranium game for the trophy-- which I think involves a troll doll or something. The Mugas currently hold the title. We didn't end up getting around to it after a wonderfully huge meal of carne asada, chicken, corn on the cob, beans, quinoa salad, and later some s'mores, and hot chocolate. I think everyone was just too tired, so we sat around and talked and looked through J's cousin's telescope until it got cold.

All in all, the trip was great and it was nice to get away from this Southern California heat for a while, but I feel like nothing will compare to Big Sur for a long time.♢