Family Visit - 2 of 3 - Night time photos

The nights at the Hot Springs LTVA were nice because the winds had calmed down and the temps were lower.  After we were all sprayed with bug spray, the mosquitoes didn't bother us, either.

The first night I cooked lasagna and made garlic bread and salad.  The boys had spaghetti with melted butter and Parmesan cheese on the top.  Tom did the rest of the cooking all weekend.  He's a good cook and great on the grill, so we were all very well fed.

Nights were spent cooking and eating and talking around the fire.  And of course, S'mores!  The kids brought a folding fire pit; it's in sections that are attached and it just folds up into one square to store.  Pretty nifty!

Tom and Trish getting the burgers for the kids grilled:

Trish snapping a picture of the sunset.  Can you see the dogs sitting on chairs, both watching Tom getting food out of the cooler?  I just noticed that.  :)

Tom in his camp kitchen - without a pop-up top - heavy winds during the day made us remove it.

While Tom was grilling the burgers for the kids, he got out some of his homemade Sushi and grilled Linguica for us to snack on.  I'm not a sushi person, but I loved the Linguica.  I had gotten some chips and the makings for our special homemade onion dip which we always have when we're together, and also hard boiled some eggs for deviled eggs to have as Hors d'oeuvres.  I totally forget them both and didn't even prepare them.  :(  I was so distracted all weekend, I think I had temporary ADHD. 

This is the folding fire pit.  (...and Trish's Uggs.)

We had two boxes of wood and two wood bundles, so plenty of wood for two nights' fires.  We used it all, though.

It was a bright, crackling fire - and at one point when Gavin was walking by in his PJs, a big piece of burning cinder caught his pants on fire.  He started yelling and jumping around.  Grammy to the rescue!  I ran over and said, Pull your pants down!, and we both tugged them down and he pulled his leg out.  The next day he had a red mark where the cinder was.  Fortunately, Trish buys the kids good fire retardant pajamas.  See the hole in his pajamas below?  The hole was hard around the edges, which must be what the retardant does.  I told him this was a camping memory he'll never forget: caught on fire while camping.  Wow!  Can you imagine what could have happened if he had regular non-fire resistant clothing on and a hot ember caught it on fire?  (Can you tell he was snuggling the dogs?)

S'mores the first night - happy faces!

And filets on the grill the second night - happy Grammy!

Graydin is pretty enthusiastic about his burger!

And Gavin with his S'more. He cooked his marshmallows two-at-a time and put both marshmallows in the S'more.  Then he had a second one.  Unfortunately, his request for a third was denied.  Geez, I could only eat one, waaaay too sweet, even for this sugar lover.  I guess I'm finally an adult.

Here's Kennedy on her i-Phone.  She is the grandkiddle with the Touched by Charms jewelry business, and she spent some time on the phone (probably not on the business, I'd guess!).

And that's all I have for night time photos.  Tomorrow I'll post the photos from the Hot Springs.  The kids actually swam in the Oasis, too. 

From me and Katie, have a great Thursday!  :)

Wordless Wednesday - Painted Food

Hikaru Cho applies acrylic paint directly onto various foods, making them look like an entirely different food.  Can you guess what this painted food is underneath the paint?

 

You can see what the original items were below.

You can check out Cho’s latest artworks on her Website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles.

From me and Katie, have a great Wordless Wednesday, everybody!  :)

Family visit at Hot Springs LTVA - 1 of 3 - some daytime photos

While I was in Hot Springs LTVA my San Diego family came for a visit.  They picked up the kids at school and arrived on Friday around 3:30.  We had a great time!  I took tons of photos and I'm splitting the ones I like best into daytime, nighttime and Hot Springs posts.  They aren't in any particular order, it was time-consuming enough to just choose, re-size and post what I liked the best!  

Tom gets the Olympic Medal for packing camping gear.  Trust me.  One car, five people, 1 puppy.  2-room tent with 5 cots, 5 sleeping bags, 5 packed bags for clothes, 1 for toiletries.  5 large beach towels. Ground cover for tent.  Hard sided dog crate, dog foot tin and treats, dog bed and blankets.  Kitchen.  And I mean total kitchen.  Large covered popup, three or four tables, 2-burner gas stove on legs with large propane bottle, small Weber bar-b-que, 2 coolers and 2 hard sided containers of food.  Pots and pans, box of plastic ware, 2 large rolls of paper towels, 1 large water container, large bottled water and small bottled water.  5 adult camp chairs and 1 child camp chair.   2 boxes of wood and 2 bundles of wood.  2 lanterns, portable radio, liqueur and cigars for good measure. Toys and i-Pad, phones and all the chargers.  And I'm sure I'm leaving things out.

Every inch of the back of the car was used, plus a few things on the roof.  I took this photo after Tom had taken some of the things out:

They have a large two room tent with a hard front door - you don't have to zip it open and shut. I've never seen a tent like that.  Trish said when they did the family Indian Guides weekend and they all went, after their tent was set up, one of the people said, What's that, the Taj Mahal??  They arrived late in the afternoon and it was a new tent, so the other men helped Tom set it up.  This is the second time they've used it, he has Indian Princesses with Kennedy, 11, and Indian Guides with Gavin, 9, and Graydin, 4 is now going, too.  When he camps with the kids, he has a smaller, easy tent that he brings.  The two-roomer is the family tent.  Unfortunately, when they arrived he couldn't find the directions and it was quite a sight to watch him and Trish figure it out and get the tent up.  Amazing!

Here's Tom laying out the tent on the ground cover while Gavin sweeps off any dirt.

The tent's up!  This is the kids room side of the tent:

It took two hours to set up and two hours to break camp on Sunday.  But I have to tell you, even though they were visiting ME, I was royally feasted while they were here.  The only two things Tom forgot to bring were the tent directions and a can opener.  I was able to provide the can opener, but he had more things with him than I have in The Palms.  And he and Trish amazingly figured out all the poles and which went where to get the tent up.  

Luckily I had a pretty big campsite and I was at the far end of it because of the soft sand.  This allowed us tons of room for the kids to set up their camp.  Here are some of the photos I took during the day while they were visiting:

Three kids in a little Mickey Mouse chair:

 Hi, Grammy!

So what's inside the bush?  Kennedy went all the way in and Graydin was right behind her.  Gavin was thinking that wasn't such a good idea.

 Breakfast on Saturday.   Juice, fresh fruit, French toast and sausages:

Sunday morning we had pancakes, bacon, strawberries and juice.

Gavin snuggling with Jagger:

Graydin playing with his trains in the kitchen:

I took the boys over to visit Hazel, who was camping across the road.  They got to meet Fleur and Power and thought the Greyhounds were pretty cool.

Later Hazel stopped by our campsite while she was walking the dogs. I wanted her to meet Tom and Trish and Kennedy.  They all enjoyed watching her drive away in the car with the dogs walking beside it on their leashes.

Jagger is the friendliest puppy - he goes up to any dog, big or small, and just makes friends.  Power was pretty curious about this little furball.  

Graydin watching a movie on Mom's i-Pad:

Jagger sleeping - he was pooped after all the walks and running around.  Just like the boys, he put his head on a pillow and he was out like a light!

There's a little hidden area that's like a tree covered room with a bunch of really low tree limbs.  Perfect for climbing on.  The kids wanted to play longer, but a neighbor told Trish and me that further up the road from this area there's a grave site and we wanted to find it. We didn't see it, though.  I think we must have taken the wrong path.  I thought this was a pretty cool picture of the kids.

Sunday morning while Tom was cooking breakfast my neighbor, Maryon, came over.  She just stood there, and I invited her into the "kitchen."   She walked in and still just stood there looking around.  Finally she said, "You know, when you drove in and started unpacking and setting up camp, we couldn't believe what we were seeing.  How in the world did you fit all this in one car???"  She was flabbergasted - it was really funny.  Her husband said they should get one of the two-burner gas stoves like Tom and Trish have, but they didn't know where they'd keep it when they were traveling.  (I should have told her it folds down pretty small and flat.)  In the photo below, that's Maryon on the right.

Saturday afternoon was HOT and really windy.  We had to take the topper off the pop-up so it wouldn't blow away, and then the tent started lifting on one side.  Part of the tent was pegged into solid ground, but part of it was in pretty soft sand, and that's the side that was lifting.  Tom put ratcheting tie downs on two sides and attached them to strong branches on bushes and that held it firmly.

We were all pretty tired of the hot wind and decided to go into Imperial and see a movie, so we watched Mr. Peabody and Sherman and ate popcorn and drank cold, icy drinks.  That was a good diversion for a few hours and when we got back to camp it had cooled down a bit and the wind had lessened. 

The three grandkiddles were so, so well behaved, and even the puppy was really good.  I had filled the water tank the day before and cautioned them to be very conservative with water, and when they left, after six people using the water in the kitchen (not much goin' on in MY kitchen, though) and the bathroom, we had only used 2/3 of the tank of 25 gallons.  I was amazed.

Speaking of which...   A boy and his dog, what can I say?  I guess that I hope he never runs for office?  :)

This weekend camping with the kids will provide me with many wonderful pictures and memories for years to come. Thursday I'll post some photos of the nightlife in camp while the kids were here.  :)

A big WELCOME to our newest Follower, Carole Shuman!  Carole, you don't show any information so I can't list a blog for you, but Katie and I are happy to have you as a Follower.  Thanks for coming along with us on our adventures - Welcome Aboard!

From me and Katie, have a great Tuesday, everyone!  :)

Our Squirrel and Hummingbirds

I got a kick out of watching this little round-tailed ground squirrel the other day.  The day before I had taken the photos of him sitting in the seed feeder eating all the seeds, and the next day he was back, but I hadn't filled the feeder yet.  He stood up behind the bush and checked out the area for a bit,












then went over to the feeder.  Hummm. Where did all that seed go?













 So he went back to the bush, stood up - and ate some flowers and tender leaves.
 

Then he went back and checked the feeder again - still empty!   What the heck??

Then he went over and ate some of the ground cover nearby.  He must have been really hungry, poor guy.


After a few minutes of nibbling at the ground cover, he went back and checked the feeder again.  Still empty???  The third time his body language told me he wasn't as hopeful, and yes, it was still empty.

So he went back to that luscious bush and ate more it's flowers and leaves.


I guess he gave up on the seed feeder at that point and after a little meal of flowers and leaves, he scurried across the desert and away. 

The funny thing is, the feeder is right next to the bush, so he had it in sight all the time.  Yet, he kept going back to it and checking.  I started rooting for him that there would be seed the next time, too, but...   Oh, well.  I sure enjoyed watching him  :)

He's almost the same color as the ground here; like so many critters in nature, he has great camouflage.


This hummingbird was so bright in the sunlight.  Sometimes when the sun isn't just right on them, you can't see the brilliant red color, but it was just right on this day.  This is one of my favorite pictures from our stay here this time.

Same thing with the brilliant green on this hummingbird - you can tell it was a little windy, he has a mohawk:

A big WELCOME to two new followers.  They are both waaaaay back with the first Followers because they don't have a photo, and I just found them.  First is Ralph Amstutz, and then Lanigirl29!  Hey guys, thanks for following along with me and Katie, we appreciate it and are happy to have you aboard!!  :)

That's it for today!

From me and Katie, have a great Thursday, everyone!  :)