Homemade pretzels

The other night, we made pretzels. I made the dough in the bread machine then I twisted it into long ropes and then folded them overthemselves to be shaped like pretzels. David boiled them and then I salted them and baked them in the oven. They came out really yummy!

Buyer Beware

This is a purse made out of a caiman
This is canned bird of paradise

this is the worst one! A sea turtle!

On Thursday, we brought out and showed the kids some animal products. Some of them are really cool but most of them are really sad. They've all been confiscated mostly at airports.

Flamingoes!

The pond is filled up for the first time!
before...

and after! This is a picture I took the morning after the flamingoes got put in their new home! (notice the painter's tape...!)

Bizarre Animal Bazaar

This weeks' morning camp theme was bizarre animal bazaar. I made up this activity and the kids got really in to it. I gave them a bag of props which were meant to be used to creatively represent a cool/weird/amazing animal. We gave them cards with the picture/pictures of the animal on the front and facts on the back. They prepared presentations for us and then performed on the "stage."

4th of July Weekend

Apparently, this is the only picture I took of her boat. Her dad is in the driver's seat.
I don't think her friend realized there was a zoom on the camera. :)

This is me and Dave watching the fireworks in Mandeville. The weather was amazing! Well, I guess you can't really see anything else but I think the barge is in the background. It was a sea of boats!!! There were soooooo many! We were by the yachts and across the water from us was the "redneck yacht club" Haha! we got there a little late otherwise we would have posted up with them but by the time we got there, the police boats were blocking the way because the passage was too close to the pyro barge.




This is David, Whitney and I out on the tube at sunset. This was on the 4th of July on the delta. We started in Locke. We went to Mandeville to watch the fire works! They were amazing! They were shooting them off this giant barge and we got to get pretty close. They had over 300 fireworks. (we were right by the coast guard boat and they were counting! haha) It was a lot of fun even if Dave and I had to wait 3 hours because you know how when you start a repair project, you find like 50 other problems? Well that happened to them. She bought her boat a month ago and it's a 1991

Ruth Lake pictures

Random lunch stop on our way home. Somewhere on Ruth Lake.

Ruth Lake

This last weekend Dave and I took Brittany on her first camping trip. We went to Ruth Lake near the town of Mad River off Hwy 36. The road is super curvy to get there, they even have sections where there isn't a yellow line! I drove...so at least I didn't have to feel carsick, I swear if I drive I don't get sick. It was a really fun time. We mostly laid out on the lakeshore and I went swimming a lot. Dave thought the water was really cold but as long as you kept swimming, it was tolerable. Brittany just got a tattoo on her foot so she couldn't swim. (I never got told not to go in the water after I got mine but a lot of people say you can't go in the water for like 2 weeks) It was amazingly warm and sunny! We decided to go Friday night so we just spent Sat night there. We met a pretty nice lady who was camping in the site next to us.

Also, the water police patrol boat would ride relatively often and the first time they came by, Dave and I were swimming. The second time, we were all sitting on the beach blanket and their boat stopped and did a few circles and then one of the cops was looking at us through binoculars and they did this for like 5 minutes. Dave decided to go back to camp and as soon as he stood up, they left. My theory is that they thought Dave a topless chick from far away with his long hair and he stood up and they saw he wasn't!! Haha!! I hope that's what they were doing!

Pictures to follow soon.

A weekend in the city

This last weekend, I got to go on a mini vacation for a long overdue visit to Brittany. She has a cute little flat on Taraval Street (off 19th Ave) in San Francisco just 2 blocks east of the Great Highway. It's a 2 bedroom, 1 bath with a little kitchen and balcony 2 blocks from the beach...you can see the ocean from her balcony! She has 3 roommates, shares the master bedroom with her friend Erik and a couple, Juan and Tiana, live in the other room. Juan and Tiana have a Japanese lab named Chai and an evil kitten named Wobbles and Brittany has an old snake named Marley. It only took me 5 hours to get there and it was really nice because we haven't seen each other in two years and she's been living in this place for almost a year.


On Saturday, we drove east to Livermore to see Brian off to the prom. My parents took us out to sushi dinner after the pictures.

We also got to visit Brittany's parents' and sisters in Dublin on our way back to the city. We had tea with her mom and tried on her little sisters prom dresses. Her sister, Lexi, is also graduating high school next week.


We got back to the city and Brittany and I stayed up all night catching up and then we walked to the beach to watch the sunrise.

I left Sunday afternoon and stopped at In N Out to get myself a cheeseburger and bring back food for David. (He was so surprised when I showed up with a double dounble, cheeseburger (yes, I had two In N Out cheeseburgers on Sunday!!) and french fries!! It was still delicious cold. (I'm sure that's not necessarily "food safe" but we're deprived up here!!! Hehe
I returned to a spotless place! (except for quite a few boxes). David did all his dishes, cleaned the kitchen, put away all his laundry and even cleaned the bathroom. :)

This is the section of 101 near Garberville where the big landslide closed the portion of the road for a couple of weeks this spring. It's crazy how it just looks like it's supposed to be there but really it's blocking almost a whole lane.

Moving

Boxes everywhere! Currently, this room is serving as a temporary storage locker. I could host an episode of storage wars! Hahaha
This is how the living room is currently set up. David had a couple of fishtanks he received helping a friend move some pet store supplies the friend bought from a pet store that defaulted on their payments to their landlord.


On the far right, we have the hamster there for right now but will move it to the stand to the left of the TV and get more tunnels to hook up and weave around the shelves of that stand.

The Kinetic Sculpture Race

Memorial Day weekend brought my mom and dad up to the county. We lucked out and actually had pretty good weather. It was sunny but windy. We watched the Kinetic Grand Championship Race. Check out their website This is a 3 day race where contestants create a kinetic sculpture which must be man powered and has to be able to go on pavement, sand, and water.

Day 1: The race started on the Arcata Plaza at the noon whistle. All the sculptures went around the plaza for a couple of laps. I think the plaza was as far as some of the sculptures were going to make it. After the plaza portion, the racers had to navigate the dunes. We were able to stream some of the coverage off of their website.


Danielle and I @ the Kinetic Sculpture Race







After watching the race, Dad rode his bike to Trinidad.

Oh boy was that an adventure. We had him on a route to catch the Hammond Trail which starts just around the bridge @ Mad River Beach. He got a little lost and took a couple of detours. Then, the Hammond Trail ends @ Clam Beach and so he had to ride for an exit on the freeway to get to Westhaven Exit (Moonstone Beach) so he could take Scenic Dr. into Trinidad. He rode home from Clam Beach. 40 round trip. MOm and I tried to exit @ Westhaven and find a road to backtrack to Clam Beach. What we found was a dirt (well, muddy) road which had a gate it was open so we drove through...more mud, more mud windy up and down little hills. narrow, vegetation with just enough room for the Maxima to fit through. Then mom had to back up the whole way out because we started seeing no trespassing signs and the mud started getting a lot muckier.

Mom at a pretty spot along Scenic Dr.


Day 2: This was the water portion and started at the boat launch just under the bridge if you drove along hwy 255 aka Samoa Rd. It was sooooo windy! We brought my friend Becca along for the hilariousity! Seriously, it was pretty funny watching them fling their sculptures off the boat ramp! Many sculptures suffered crippling breaks and had to be repaired.







After watching Day 2, we decided to go for a hike @ Headwaters Forest Reserve. This was a trek! We made sandwiches and planned to hike a couple of miles of the 11 mile roundtrip. Well, we hiked 3 miles and ate and then we still had energy and figured we were pretty close to the old growth. Just a mere 2 and a half miles. Well, from mile 3-4 was a HUGE uphill and took an hour. At this point, dad was tired and hungry since he rode 40 miles the day before. He turned back. Mom, Becca and I were determined to get to the old growth. We hiked all the way there and the trees were very big. It's hard to capture their size in pictures. We walked about an eigth of a mile around the loop and then started back. Oh man...we made it back to the car intact. It ended being an 8 mile for dad and a 10 and a quarter mile for Mom and myself and Becca. We were soooooo tired!!! Then we went to a nice dinner at the Six Rivers Brewery in McKinleyville.











Monday morning we were recovering so we had a lazy morning with bacon and eggs and then mom and dad headed for home. All in all, it was a great trip and I think we all had a really good time.