More Family...in the good ole summer time!

One of my favorite summer pictures! My son-in-law taking a run through the rain. He even put his swim suit on for the occasion. He doesn't see much rain in his neck of the woods and just had to get out in it and enjoy it for awhile. He is such a fun guy!

My son joining in the fun. See how brown the grass became this summer? Hot, hot and hot days with very little rain.

HA! After their run, someone was even a little bit cold. Felt great!

Had to pull out the rocking horse from storage. Ride'm cowgirl. This little sweetie needs cowgirl boots...pink cowgirl boots, for sure.

We sure enjoyed celebrating the 4th of July together. We even braved the heat and ate outside.

Plenty of chefs on hand to do things up right!

I do love a good ole bbq......

...and all the fixings!

Time to eat and enjoy each others company!

The more, the merrier!

A favorite past time. Ha! Pushing one's own stroller around and around.

There was work to be done, too! We put in a little, lovely rose garden off of our back porch.

Everybody needs someone to supervise a ground breaking activity....and to eat snacks.

Just about done. Love seeing this rose garden each and everyday. I am loving the colors of roses this year...orange, yellow and lavender. The lavender has a beautiful scent....very different from other roses that I am familiar with. I have been clipping many a bloom. They sure do brighten-up our home and smell so good.

Keep on enjoying the summer everyone! xo

Camp..Somehow I survived.

Our stake had girls camp two weeks ago and I finally feel like I'm back to normal life ha! It's been so nice not to have to worry about meetings and getting bandanas and paint and decorate our flag and get beads and registration forms blah blah.. it was quite the adventure. Our stake drives up to Kolob in Utah 4 hours from Vegas so it was a big trip. They had us stop in St. George to visit the temple...

It's a beautiful building I could have stayed there longer taking pictures on the grounds.

Our kitchen and dining room and campfire pit. The tents are farther back to the right and the leader tent behind me down the hill a little bit. There were a lot of flies and mosquitoes, somehow luckily I came out of it unscathed.

Our illustrious YW President.

Our girls had skit night so we had plenty of characters..

Some hobos..

Mean Girls..

Two "old" grandmas..

And a nerd or two.


They also had rappelling, canoeing, zip-lining, flying squirrel, archery and target shooting. Yep, we were busy.

Camp Flag

A little friend. There were also snakes. One of them I almost trampled getting back to our campsite!

Getting harnessed for the flying squirrel. I had never heard of this before.. One girl is on this end and.....

Everyone else on the other end of the rope. It's tossed over a tree branch in the middle and some fandangled pulleys and whatnot so that the girl goes shooting into the air as the group pulls on the rope...

It was crazy and so fun to watch.

Phew! But I'm glad it's all over with and to be back at home with this cute face..

M helping Dad fix the shower plug. Best friends :)


Happy Weekend!

Gone Fishing! And other tall tales....

It is that time of year! My husband and I took an early wedding anniversary trip up north to our favorite, favorite and I do really mean, favorite camping, hiking, fishing, biking, etc. place. We are not only celebrating our 27th anniversary this year, but, we are also celebrating 20 great years of camping in these woods. Love it! Let's head to the campground...ok?

Lots of trucks and trailers in this particular shot from the upper side of the campground. We prefer the lower side of the campground that is loaded with tree's and wildflowers....a little more private, and near a biking trail.
We unloaded, set up our camp, had a snack and headed for the woods. How I love these woods and all the memories over the past 20 years. So, park your car, or bike, and let's head across the bridge.

Now, think...have you forgotten anything?...water bottle, camera, bug spray....check, check and check. Carry on.

Keep on going. Up above the forest floor and heading to the Visitor's Center. We are almost their.

Hello, old friend. What a happy and welcoming sight. We enter and chat with a few park rangers, look at the new displays, check out the quilt that is sewn every late winter, early spring and raffled off at summers end, sit for a while at the bird windows (huge windows across the back side of the visitors center) and enjoy watching the birds come to many different bird feeders.

And, what do I spy? The BLACK SQUIRREL!!! I am a winner. Every year...for 20 years of camping, we have a contest in our family to see who can spot a black squirrel first. Well, in all fairness....hubby was asking a question at the info desk and I snuck out the back of the visitors center to see if I could possibly see a black squirrel and...well, there you go. Candy bar of choice for me. Lucky day!

Off we go into the woods. Here we are at the logging museum....life from the logging days can be seen in each of these buildings. For years (too many years to count) I have taken a small slip of paper with a "vinegar pie" recipe on it from the museum, logging camp, kitchen. I finally made the recipe this past year and have to say, it was pretty good.

Don't know how the loggers survived the hard winters and all the trees that they chopped and hauled and floated down the rivers to their destinations.

On with our walk, out of the logging camp and up and around the bend and down the hill ---and up again to the chapel in the woods. We have seen a bride and groom, here and their through the years, going or coming out of the chapel and woods.

Rough storms this year brought down a lot of large trees. We counted 5 downed trees, close to the chapel. So glad a tree did not land on the chapel.

Making our way through the woods....taking pictures, talking and swatting a mosquito or two or three...ok, or more.

Forest floor with new seedlings growing and spreading. Have to see if they can get enough light to grow. The forest is so dense that you can easily walk through the forest when it is raining and not get soaked. We use to do this with our children when they were little....rain was not a problem. We would just go into the woods and hike the trails and stay fairly dry.

My husband loves to look up into these particular old trees. It is one of his favorite spots in the forest.

More trail.

More beautiful woods.

Just love all the sounds and smells of the forest. My mind goes back to all my tree climbing days as a child....when I was sure I wanted to build a house in a tree.

Maybe I need one of those bumper stickers that says, "Have you hugged a tree today?"

Any favorite hiking or biking trails for you? Any campers out their? I do love Mother Nature and all her beauty. Can't wait to go up north again. We had a blast.

Enjoy the day. We have gone from a gentle spring into summer over night. Saturday was 92 with humidity....that is rare for this time of year...or for us to reach into the 90's does not happen very often all summer long. Whew! Happy times ahead!!! xo

Swimming and being Lazy

We've had a nice spurt of warm weather out here so we've been away from the computer for a while....

And out with friends to the pool!

I think these floatie things are so cute..kind of a big contraption..but cute...

Along with this nice weather it's time to round up our summer reads. I've gotten into a "classics" fever lately so went to the library to get:

1. Brothers Karamazov -Dostoyevsky
2. Ethan Frome -Edith Wharton
3. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame -Victor Hugo
4. Selected stories of O.Henry
5. East of Eden - Steinbeck and
6. Maya Angelou. Anything by her.

What's on your reading list? Are you in a certain phase? Reading a certain author? Whose your favorite?