Birthday Celebration and Christmas with Attitude

Whew! We made it! We had a great time in Albuquerque and great Christmas with Nana D, Mr. Walker, Uncle Adam and Erin.

We got up a o'dark thirty on Tuesday to head to Albuquerque which meant that dad got to spend yet another birthday in the car to visit the in-laws. He is such trooper! We got in about 11:30 and mom and dad promptly started eating. Dad then went out for a birthday mountain bike ride. It would be his last in any sort of decent weather so I think he enjoyed it.

We then spent the rest of the day relaxing. Dad took over the rocking chair next to the heating vent because he's 40 now and needs to rest and keep warm. That night, Uncle Adam and Erin came over for dinner and red velvet birthday cake. That cake was about the best thing I've ever had and I wanted a piece everyday after that.

On Wednesday, we woke up to about 6 inches of snow and really, really cold weather. That didn't stop us from heading out to shovel the walk and make snow men and snow angels. Our snowman kind of looked like Jaba the Hut but in our defense, dad and I both grew up in Tucson and never had enough snow to make a snow man. The snow was also very powdery which is great for skiing but not so good for making things with.

Even Nana got into the spirit of things and came out to make snow angels with me. She made a really nice one and we all appreciated it that much more when she torked her knee again getting up. Thank you Nana!

That night, we ventured down to the Botanical Gardens for the River of Light show. It was wonderful! We went with Uncle Adam, Erin and 3 of her young cousins and all of us kids did so great. We all listened (of course 2 of the kids were 8 months old, so they really didn't have a choice!) and no one got lost. There were all kinds of cool lights- a T-Rex, an airplane, a flying horse and the best part was that the miniature trains were up and running. They were carrying luminarias and looked so very pretty.

We all came back home and warmed up with some of Mr. Walker's vaquero stew. Sooo delicious Mr. Walker! ( I got red velvet cake for desert!)
On Christmas Eve morning, it was very cold again but I braved it for awhile to help Mr. Walker set up the luminarias for that night. Being a warm weather girl, I only lasted a few minutes before I couldn't take it any more and headed in for the day. We spent the rest of the day making cookies (well Nana did) and just hanging around. We did make to church that night which was a little rough because I didn't take a nap.
I headed to bed early that night but not before I got the cookies and milk ready for Santa.

On Christmas morning I was awakened by the jingling of bells and clicking of hooves (courtesy of dad's iphone) and I really thought Santa had come. Dad made me stay in bed a bit longer because it was still dark out and Santa needed to finish up his work.

Well, I'll tell you, he had a lot of work to do! I got so many great things!

I got more cars than I could ever imagine! I got a "car bag" that looks like a big tire to put all my cars in. Just so no one thinks I don't have any girlyness in me, I also got blue nail polish and 2 lip glosses and I love them both!
Since it didn't get above 25 degrees, we spent the rest of the day inside. Erin was so fun- she crammed herself into my teeny-tiny tent with me (when no one else would) and we played the Ladybug Game about 10 gajillion times. As you can see, grown ups don't fit all the way in my tent but at least Erin tried! Thanks Erin- I sure appreciated that and so did mom and dad.

We came home yesterday (Saturday) and as much as we loved Albuquerque, we were happy to be back where it was warm. It was 11 degrees when we drove away and the poor x-terra barely started. We spent today re-adjusting to life after the holidays. I'm not adjusting so well and am making mom and dad a bit crazy but this too shall pass!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and we will see you Wednesday!

Happy #$%@^ Birthday Dad!

Today in dad's birthday and we wish him a fabulous day! I don't know exactly how old he is. I know there is a "0" and a "4" in his age but I'm not sure what order they go in.
He got to spend his day celebrating by driving to Albuquerque to visit the in-laws. Who wouldn't love a birthday like that?? He is getting a delicious home cooked meal of his choosing and red velvet cake for desert.

Happy Birthday Dad! We love you!

Christmas out the wazoo!

So very sorry for not posting on Wednesday! We were trying to upload a very cute video but none of the three browsers we tried would let us. If anyone has any advice, we would appreciate it! It wasn't very exciting anyway.

I did get to complete another day of my Christmas activity list. I made this pretty cool Christmas tree. My list has been pretty hit or miss this week. I think mom is feeling a bit frazzled by all the Christmas fuss going on. It's all good though, huh?

On Friday, we all went out to dinner and I did absolutely great! I asked our waitress for my water without any one telling me too and then I ordered my own dinner. Everyone was so impressed but everyone was even more impressed that we had a nice dinner without me acting like a crazy woman. Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel?!

On Saturday, it was more cookie baking. I was a huge help with decorating and I really mean that. Mom put me in charge in putting the sprinkles while she made the rest of the cookies. It definitely saved some time.

We spent the rest of the day lounging around which was a good thing.

On Sunday, mom and I went to church and then to the park for a bit. After that, mom had to go into work for a bit so dad and I played ball (in the house!) and pulled out the jumping castle. When mom got home, we had MORE cookies to decorate, laundry to do and suitcases to pack.

We are heading to Albuquerque on Tuesday, just in time for a huge winter storm that is supposed to be coming through Tuesday afternoon. We can't wait!

Better!

Finally! I am back to good health! That was a long 3 days for me and mom! It is tough when you are too sick to go to school but not so sick that you aren't bouncing off the walls at home. Mom was able to get some things done and got her Christmas cards done and some baking.

She also took a cue from her uber-mom friend, Heidi, and made a "Holiday Activity List". Heidi has 4 kids and manages to put a whole book of activities together for each of them. Mom was proud that she was able to manage a list- and it seems like kind of a fun list. My first project was to make a Christmas countdown chain. I had a great time coloring, glittering and glueing it and now I really like tearing a chain off every night.
We also made popsicles from orange juice and blueberries. Frozen blueberries are deeelicious and quite messy but make for a fun sick day activity.

I finally made it back to school on Friday and everyone was very happy about that one.

On Saturday, mom and I made a visit to the park and then spent the rest of the afternoon baking cookies. That night we went to a Christmas party at our friend's Mike and Jen. We all had a great time. There were about a bazillion kids and the great thing was the adults only had to intervene once the whole night. That's how good we all were. I had an especially good time. I started out in the girl's room with "My Little Ponies" but then I saw Ms. Jenny walk by with a huge box of HotWheels. I left the ponies and headed straight for the box of cars and played with those the rest of the night. HEAVEN!

On Sunday, I got to work on my next holiday project and made a pine cone bird feeder. We spread soynut butter all over some big pine cones and rolled them in sunflower seeds. We hung them in the tree outside my window. We'll see if the birds like soynut butter!

So on another note, Lance Armstrong is in town training with his new Radio Shack team. Mom and I actually saw them ride by today. They were going very fast so it was really just a blur but still kind of cool.

Dad was out riding with his team today and they were all wearing their black "kits" (fancy bike name for a uniform) except one guy riding in the middle. He happened to be wearing his white kit. As they were riding along, a car slowed down and yelled at "Lance" and how much they appreciate what he is doing for kids and cancer research. Dad's team just put their heads down, waved and kept riding. I guess they made someone's day!

Back for one more week of school and then off for the holidays!

The Holiday Crud

It has been a whole week since I last posted for my faithful readers- so sorry about the delay. Mom and dad were out of town for the weekend and I've been sick for 3 days.

So, where were we? Nana D came in to visit last Thursday so mom and dad could head out of town to celebrate dad's 40th birthday early. (I know! I can't believe he's almost 40 either!) They were originally going to hike the Grand Canyon but chickened out when they saw the weather report. They made a last minute decision to go to Phoenix instead. Smart move guys! They single handedly spent us out of this recession and had a great time doing it. They got to have two adult dinners with real adult conversation. They had a great time and send all kind of thanks to Nana.

Meanwhile, back at the Ranch, Nana and I were tearing it up. On Friday, we went shopping of course and just kind of hung out. I actually took a 2 and 1/2 hour nap in the afternoon. I haven't taken a nap in months and it sure felt good!

On Saturday, we went to the park in the morning and in the afternoon, Nana got brave and took me to church. I did great (mainly because I fell asleep) and mom was more than a little jealous. She has had to walk out many a time because I couldn't behave.

On Sunday, we made granola in the morning. It was supposed to be oatmeal bars but didn't quite turn out that way. Either way, it was tasty. Mom and dad got home around 11 and we just kind of lounged around the rest of the day.

On Monday, dad headed off to work. Mom, Nana and I went to see Santa. I did great and told him I wanted a yellow car like I got my friend Madeline for her birthday. We'll see. After that, we went to the germ pit, play area at the mall for awhile. We stayed just long enough for me to spread my nasty cold germs around and then leave. Mind you, we didn't really know at the time that I had nasty cold germs but by the time we got home, I had a nice little fever. It has been downhill ever since. I got to stay home on Tuesday with mom with a 102 fever and cough and today mom and dad tag teamed me. Dad stayed home in the morning and mom pulled the afternoon shift. It looks like at least one more day as it 4:30 in the PM and I still have a 101 temp. Mom and I are getting pretty stir crazy and don't know how much longer we can take this!

Words of Wisdom

Well, we are still full from our Thanksgiving dinners and can't seem to get back on the ol' healthy eating bandwagon. Oh well- 'tis the holidays and why fight it? It only comes once a year!

I had a very good day today which made mom and dad very, very happy. I have been a bit of a pill lately with a meltdown every 2 minutes and absolutely refusing to do anything that is asked of me. It has been a very trying few days around here. BUT, I'm better today and that is a good thing because Nana D is coming to visit tomorrow.

I will leave you with some word of wisdom that I imparted to mom the other day:

"Mom, it is good to fart in the bathroom. It is not good to fart in people's faces."

Remember that and all should be right with your world!

Complete, Total Exhaustion

Holy criminy- I'm absolutely exhausted. I fell asleep on the couch at 6:15 tonight and didn't even wake up when mom put me in my jammies and put me to bed. It's kind of amazing what 4 days with cousins and 10 days without a nap will do to a girl. Mom and dad were in great moods until tonight until they realized it was time to get back to reality.

We left for Dallas on Monday morning and got there about 4 in the PM. Uncle Tim and Brooke picked us up at the airport. Brooke and I were borderline obnoxious on the way home and lucky mom got to sit right between the 2 of us. Fun times, huh mom?

We started off with a bang celebrating Faith's birthday. She was 3 on the Friday after Thanksgiving. We went to a pizza/arcade place. It was every thing a girl could want. A movie on the big screen in the dining room, pizza, race car games and air hockey. We had a great time.

On Tuesday, Aunt Dana stayed home to work and the rest of us headed out to the Children's Museum for a fun morning of dinosaur digging, water playing and "farming". We went out to lunch and then headed home to bug Aunt Dana. That night, Grandma Sue was brave enough to babysit the three of us girls and Uncle Tim, Aunt Dana, mom and dad went out to dinner and had a fabulous time enjoying adult conversation and really good food.
On Wednesday, we had our official Thanksgiving dinner because we were leaving on Thursday. We left the cooking up to Uncle Tim and Grandma Sue (because they truly are good cooks) and the rest of us headed out to the park to burn off some energy. Dad spent the entire time playing a "sharp tooth" ( that's a t-rex for those that don't know) and chasing us "baby sarahs" (triceratops) around the playground. We had a great time but dad isn't as young as he used to be and was a little sore after all that running around.

We got back in time to help with the finishing touches and then sit down to a wonderful dinner of turkey, really yummy stuffing, mashed taters, sweet potatoes, corn bread, green bean casserole, bread pudding, apple pie and pumpkin pie. It was a huge feast and Uncle Tim and Grandma did a great job and made it look so easy.
Thanksgiving day was pretty quiet. We spent the morning riding our bikes and feeding the ducks in the lake behind the house.

We left about 3 PM and got home around 6. I crashed into bed and slept really, really hard.

On Friday, dad got to work putting up all our Christmas lights outside. I was a huge help and only stepped on a few this year. On Saturday, I helped mom with the inside decorations. That didn't go quite as smoothly. I broke 2 ornaments, broke the wing off the nativity angel, took all the animals out of the manager and used my stocking as a mop. Mom was having a really good time practicing patience. She didn't do so good though.

On Sunday, we created our own Thanksgiving dinner. It wasn't nearly as good as Dallas but mom did a pretty good job. The pie was the best part. Did you know you can cook a 7 pound turkey for 4 hours and still turns out OK. I think the trick is to have an oven that doesn't heat up to the temperature you want so you end up cooking it at 250 even though the temperature says 350. Other than making dinner an hour and half late, things turned out good.

So, you know how the rest of the evening turned out. Mom and dad are glad I'm going back to school know so I will actually take a nap!.

We had a fabulous week with Uncle Tim, Aunt Dana, Brooke and Faith and we can't wait to see them again!

No Where to Go But Up!

Woo-hoo! We are on vacation in our house! We don't go back to school/work until November 30th. How awesome is that?!

This weekend was the annual El Tour de Tucson. It is a huge race with over 8000 riders entered this year. It goes around the perimeter of Tucson for 109 miles. Dad has ridden in it for 3 of the past 4 years and has done better and better every year. Well this year....let me tell ya! With minimal training this year and a pre-race, day before diet of chicken nuggets and ice cream, dad finished in 89th place out of 4000 riders entered in the 109 mile category! He finished in 4 hours and 31 minutes, just 14 minutes behind the leaders who were pro riders from Mexico. The best part was he wasn't exhausted after and was actually able to make dinner for mom that night because she WAS exhausted. Way to go dad! We are so proud of you!

I also had a big weekend in that I made my race debut at the Tour this year in the 1/4 miles kids ride. I spent the whole week trash talking about how I was going to beat everyone and ride really fast. Weeelll, the actual race part was a bit more intimidating than I thought it would be. Mom and I got there around 8:30 for my 9:00 AM start, so I had lots of time to warm up and get my game on. Unfortunately, we were a little bit late lining up at the start, so I wasn't one of first in line. You wouldn't think it would matter with only 15 kids riding, but every second counts. Also, I was busy eating my goldfish crackers when the race started, so I had to put those away before I could start pedaling. Then, I guess I wasn't really clear on the concept that was an actual race, so I just kind of lollygagged until I crashed. I didn't run into anything. In fact I was just in the middle of the street and kind of fell over. Mom picked me up, dusted me off and set me on my way. I spent the whole rest of the race looking over my shoulder, making sure mom was there. Mom knew we were in bad shape when the stroller past us. I was actually going to cross the finish line in second to last place but I stopped peddaling just before the end and another girl clipped me at the line. Soooo- I ended up in last place. Oh well. It will make a good back story when I make my Olympic debut.

Sunday was spent recovering and packing for our Thanksgiving trip to Dallas to visit Uncle Tim, Aunt Dana, Brooke and Faith. We are very excited about that and can't wait to see the havoc us cousins can wreck!

I'm not actually this far behind. This was me just warming up before the big race.

Another Shot, Please!

The big news this week so far is that my pediatrician FINALLY got more doses of H1N1 flu vaccine so I FINALLY got my shot yesterday. I really love getting my shots mainly because mom lets me have a lollipop from the lollipop stash at the doctor's office. They are really cool ring pops. I woke up this morning, the day after my shot and asked if I could go back and get another shot because I wanted a green ring pop this time. Good thing for me, I have to go back for round 2 in December and I will happily oblige!

Sports Kind of Weekend

Hidee-ho everyone! Here is our weekend summary. It was lots of fun!

Friday was mom and dad's 5th year wedding anniversary. (Can you believe it's been 5 years already?!) Even though they had decided "no presents", dad surprised mom with one. She has been wanting plain, white dinnerware FOREVER- at least as long as they've known each other. Well, dad took matters into his own hands and surprised mom with..... white dinnerware! Mom just loves it and is now planning their next dinner party. That night, Ms. Casey, one of my teachers at school, came over to babysit and mom and dad headed out for the evening. Initially, they had plans for a big fancy dinner out but decided at the last minute to go to one of their favorite hamburger places. They finished dinner about 6:15 and realized they absolutely, positively could not go home yet but didn't know what to do with themselves. They ended up at another restaurant for a glass of wine and desert but were still home by 8. I'm a little disappointed in them. They had a really nice time though.

I had everyone up at 5:30 AM on Saturday. Mom and I went to the park in the morning while dad got a ride in.

In the afternoon, Grandpa Vern and Grandma Sue picked dad and I up and we all went bowling. I had such a great time!

Notice the fantastic form I've already got down. I wasn't very good at taking turns but Grandpa Vern was very patient with me and let me go as often as I wanted. He says I'm a natural!

While we were there, a very nice little girl gave me a tiara. Everyone needs a tiara to bowl. It makes all the difference!

On Sunday, we had our annual Fun Brunch fundraiser for the Tucson Children's Museum. This is what mom has spent the last 3 Sundays planning for. It turned out really, really well! It was a sports theme this year and we had the University of Arizona swim team, soccer team, cheerleaders, the pep band and Wilbur and Wilma Wildcat.
I absolutely loved everything there but my favorite was the jumping castle. It was huge and packed with kids. Mom was afraid for my life but I held my own (with a teeny bit of help from some bigger kids) and made it through the jumping castle maze about 15 times. It was TONS of fun!
Once I decided I needed a break from that, I headed over to the putting green and made a few hole-in-ones. I also bowled a little, played some soccer, watched the pep band and gave Wilbur and Wilma about a bazillion hugs each. I was finally dragged out about 1:30. It was a great day!
We came home and I think mom and dad were hoping I would crash out for a few hours but when that didn't work, they just put in a movie for me, so they could rest instead!

I hit the hay about 6:30 and was glad to! See you Wednesday!

A New, Fleeting Interest

We have just been up to the usual quietness of our work week. We are always very busy but never busy doing anything exciting.

Mom abandoned me and dad tonight so she could go out to dinner with some co-workers at a local brewery that just opened by our house. Hmmm- I guess a little beer could make work fun, no?

Anyhoo......We got to meet our new neighbor yesterday. Our favorite neighbors Patrick and Nicole moved to Dallas and are renting their house out. We were all a little worried as we saw various unsavory people looking to rent it. In the end, the renter has turned out to be very nice. Mom and I went over to say "hi" yesterday and I took to her immediately. I wanted to go over again today but mom thought it would be better if we didn't overwhelm the poor woman already.

I have rediscovered my CD player that Nana D got me a long time ago. Mom showed me how to put my CDs in and how to press "play", "skip" and "stop". Mom thought it would be a good way to keep me occupied for awhile and it really is. I have about 5 CDs and I put them in one at a time, press play and listen to the first 4 bars of the first song. I repeat that process over and over with each of my CDs. That went on for awhile until I discovered "Here we go 'round the mulberry bush". Now, I just play that song over and over and over. It's AWESOME! It's even better because mom and dad now know the song by heart and can sing it without the song even being on!

Here are some more camping pictures. We had a beautiful sunrise when we woke up.

And a beautiful sunset the night before. Just perfect!

A New Addiction

Another weekend come and gone. Deep sigh. Things move so fast these days! At least we had another good couple of days.

On Friday, we hurried home from school/work, loaded up Tippy the Trailer and headed out to Molino Basin for the night. It was great! Mom really, really loves Tippy and we now have about 2000 photos in our album to prove it.

It was warm enough and we had enough daylight when we got there that we were able to get a game of softball (not as easy as it sounds with only 3 of us!) and a game of Old Maid.

Mom and dad were able to enjoy their cocktail hour as well sitting at our picnic table.
Dad got the grill going for us, so I had my own little cocktail appetizers consisting of mini-oreos while we waited. I wasn't so very hungry when dinner finally hit my plate.
I did manage to find room for s'mores though. You should always try to make room for S'mores. Mostly, I just licked the marshmallow off but still very good!

We finally hit the hay about 8:30 and didn't need to use heat either. The only thing that kept us up was the motorcycles racing up and down the highway, but I guess you should expect that when camping in the great outdoors.
I had everyone up bright and early. 5 AM to be exact. I wanted to make sure everyone saw the sunrise, which was quite spectacular. We had delicious hot cocoa- again outside because it was so nice and warm. Then we headed out for a little hike before packing up and heading home.
We spent most of Saturday recovering from lack of sleep and just resting at the house.

On Sunday, Grandma Sue came over to play with me while dad went for a bike ride and mom went for a nice hike. Grandma and I had a great time and played just about everywhere in the house we could.

Mom had to head out for the afternoon to help organize for the Children's Museum Fun Brunch next weekend so dad and I hung out. We walked to the video store and then to the gelato store . We came home and watched movies and waited for mom to re-join the fam.

We will see you Wednesday and post some pretty sunset/sunrise pictures!

Calmness

We have calmed down significantly since the weekend and thank goodness for that! Now it is just a nightly negotiation (battle) for candy. The negotiations actually start in the morning on the way to school. "Mom, can I have candy after dinner?" "How much dinner do I have to eat?" etc., etc. I figure I'll wear them down eventually and be granted unlimited access to my candy bucket. I can only hope!

Other than that, not much going on. It is hot, hot, hot for November- 92 degrees yesterday. Kind of crazy but there aren't to many other places in this country that you could wear shorts this late in the year!

See you Sunday!

Halloween Crazies

We are a day late in posting because Blogger wouldn't let us upload pictures last night. Busy night on the internet I guess!

I had a crazy fun weekend with the emphasis on crazy. It started at school on Friday when we got to wear our costumes and had all kinds of Halloween fun. Some parents (including my mom) came to help control the chaos. We started out in story time with Ms. Barb reading us a scary Berenstein Bears story. Then we paraded around the school and into the infant and 1 year old room to show off our costumes. Then we trick or treated in all the classrooms and came out with loads of candy. Which mean Ms. Barb said we weren't allowed to touch until our parents picked us up that afternoon. After all that trick or treating, we had a party with all kinds of good snacks like cheese sticks and fruit. The teachers decided to save the cupcakes until afternoon snack. The parents LOVED that idea because it is all kinds of fun to send a kid home amped up on sugar!

That night, dad and I carved the pumpkin- well dad carved while I supervised from the couch watching Dora the Explorer. I wasn't so into the carving thing. Mom tried her hand at making pumpkin seeds but she burned them. Oh well. It happens.

On Saturday, things got even crazier. Mom and I spent the morning baking and frosting cupcakes for a party at my friend Caroline's house. Mom and I headed over early to help her mom set up for the party. Caroline's 3 cousins were there also so we started with 6 kids under the age of 5 and it only got worse from there!
By the way, I dressed up as a reindeer in case you can't tell. Make sure you tell mom how fabulous my costume looks as she worked very hard and stayed up late making it for many nights. (Not really but it sounds good!)

Dad joined us a little later. As you can see, mom won for most creative costume. At least dad and I made an effort.

After the party wound down a bit, the original 6 headed out for trick or treating. I was a raving lunatic. Jumping up and down, screaming "I'M SO EXCITED!!!!" "LET'S GO, LET'S GO, LET'S GO!" "MOM, THERE IS A HOUSE WITH THE LIGHTS ON!! WE HAVE TO GO THERE!!" I think I intimidated the other kids a bit. Ms. Casey called me a "little orb of kid joy"- Ha ha.
After Caroline's party, we headed to another party for dad's work. This party was more for grown ups but the hosts were very thoughtful and had about a 10 pound bag of candy for each kid that was there. Saaweeet! We stayed there and I jumped on the trampoline, jumped off the steps and ran around the yard. Mom and dad decided it was time to go when I started falling asleep on the steps.

After all the craziness on Friday and Saturday, we had a nice quiet Sunday. Thank goodness!

Halloween Prep

We have had a cooooold day today! The week started out OK with sun and 83 degrees but today- whew! Winter has come to Tucson. It was only 54 degrees today and very windy. Mom kind of liked it though because she got to make home-made veggie soup and grilled cheese for dinner. The dinner of champions!

Mom has been busy being creative with my halloween costume. I want to be a reindeer so she went to Joann Fabrics on Sunday to get fuzz for my chest. She was going to take me but it turned out to be a very good thing she didn't. It was worse than Best Buy at Christmas. She took a number to get the fabric cut and saw she was number 40. Then she saw they were serving number 3. Ten minutes later, they opened a line for people needing just 1 cut of fabric so she jumped in that line. Thirty minutes later, she walked out and the original line was serving number 5. Yikes.

Now she has been dutifully stitching the edges of my fuzz so they don't shed everywhere and then stitching the fuzz onto my costume. Sure hope this works!

So here is a conversation we had today:

Me: "Are you and dad married?"

Mom: "Yes, we are."

Me: "Can I get married?"

Mom: "Yes, someday when you find a special boy."

Me: "Will you help me find a special boy?"

Mom: Pause, pause, "Sure"

Me: "My special boy is Brian"

Mom: "Who is Brian?"

Me: "I don't know."

Mom: "Brian?"

Me: "Yeah, he comes over to our house sometimes."

It took mom a minute to figure out I was talking about our friend Brian who comes over with his wife and baby and makes me laugh like crazy. I'm not sure how his wife will feel about this.

I've put in more camping pictures:

This is me and mom bright and early in the morning before out hike to the lake.

Dad enjoying his first meal in the ol' Aliner. That is the beer cooler sitting right next to him.
Bundling up for a very cold night. This was before we turned out the heat.

A "brochure" shot of our cute little trailer.

Pop ups and Pumpkin Patches

We had another fabulous weekend here. The weather is just about perfect and life is good.

We took our trailer out for its maiden voyage on Friday night. This was a trial run to see how things worked and what we would need in the future. Our plan was to camp at a spot lower down on the mountain but that wasn't open for the season yet. So Plan B, we headed up to Rose Canyon Lake which was a lot higher up and ended up being a lot colder. We got up there and set up by about 5:30 but it was much colder than we were prepared for so we ate, roasted marshmallows and went to bed. Lucky for us, our trailer is equipped with a handy, dandy heater, so we ran that all night. It felt a little , OK, a lot like cheating but mom and dad are old, so what you can expect?

The next morning, after a warm oatmeal breakfast, we walked down do the lake and wandered around for awhile and then packed up and came home. All in all a very successful first trip.
On Sunday, mom and I drove down to Agua Linda Farms for their pumpkin festival and met up with our friends Caroline and her brother Evan and my old friend Christopher who I haven't seen for a year. They moved to Seattle and were in town for a visit. We had a fabulous time! We ate hotdogs for lunch, ran through the hay maze (which none of us could find our way out of, so we just crawled over), climbed on hay bales (which mom was very afraid of because she could just see broken legs and arms) and rode on a hay wagon to pick pumpkins.


Us kids were so fabulously well behaved and it was even better because Ms. Celeste, one of our old teachers from Casita, was there to help out. The moms actually had a semi-relaxing time and Ms. Celeste stepped right up! Yeah! Thanks Celeste!

I got a wonderfully huge pumpkin that a I made mom carry all the way back to the car.

It was so good to see everyone again!