Camping Trip

Every year for the last 23 years we have been going to Valley Springs for a Gem and Mineral Show and camp out. Valley Springs is 33 miles from Stockton in the foothills. We camp in a cow pasture. When we first started going there were over 300 vendors. There were all kinds of rocks for the rock hounds, jewelry already set or semi precious stones you could set yourself  if you were talented enough. Every year the number of vendors have been dwindling. We might have had 200 this year. Every year it rains. Last year it only rained in the evenings and at night. The days were clear for shopping and browsing the different booths. In 2005 & 2006 it rained so much that we had to be towed out of there by a tractor. Great funny memories now but not fun when it was happening. This year we decided to come home on Saturday and not wait to be towed out on Sunday. It started sprinkling two hours after we set up camp on Thursday. By Thursday night it was raining good. It rained off and on all night. Friday was the same. Friday night it poured and the wind blew so hard my husband had to go out and take down the awning so it wouldn’t blow off of the trailer. By then we made the decision to leave on Saturday morning if we could get out of there. We were on the road by noon and it rained on us all the way to Ripon. Will we go back next year? Sure we will. We haven’t missed a year in 23 years. It is a yearly custom with us and our friends who go with us. Rain or shine we are there! I do remember one year, years ago, that we had 106 degree weather. It was miserable and I prefer a little rain to that! I took this picture on the way to Valley Springs. I swear it looked like a tornado only the sky had white clouds and the tornado looked white.

Here we are coming up on the Snyder Ranch where the Gem and Mineral show is.

Setting up camp.

We camp with our awnings overlapping. We put down tarps and outdoor rugs. We put a table in the middle with chairs and we have a cozy living room. When the wind gets too strong we put up a tarp to block the wind. Here is our cozy little camp.

Here are some scenes from the Snyder Ranch Pow Wow.

This is a blacksmith who was there for the first time this year. He was supposed to have a show on how it was done in the old days but he was rained out. I was disappointed. I wanted to bring my lawn chair and a cup of coffee and watch him do his demonstration.

There are Indians who come from Arizona every year. They put on a  show for the children who come on Friday morning. The Indians also have a tent set up where they make Indian Tacos. Yum Yum. I love those Tacos. I have had one every year except this year. It was raining so hard and we didn’t want to go over to the tent in the rain. I guess I didn’t want one that bad, huh?

This is one of the booths. They sell Indian rugs, blankets and jewelry.

There were rows and rows of vendors selling their wares. I bought a couple of cubic zirconium stones already set in a pendant. One looks like a diamond and the other is green, my favorite color. My husband bought some rough garnets. You could buy rocks, nick knacks, food, creams for Arthritis, flea market items and Indian things. The rain kept us from spending too much money which is a good thing. Next year I wish for weather in the 70s and no rain. That would be my ideal camp out.

Anniversary Dinner

The anniversary dinner for my Mom and Dad was a success and they loved the memory book I made for them. Mom started to cry and had all of us teary eyed. They have been married for 66 years. They only knew each other a few weeks when they got married. They met at Merced Army Flying School in 1943. When Dad was transferred to Hobbs, New Mexico Mom got on a bus and followed him there where they were married. He was 21 and she was 20. After a few months Dad got his orders to go to Italy. Mom moved back home to live with her Mom and await the birth of ME. I was born the day Dad shipped out from Virginia. When he came home in 1945 I was 18 months old. I know that is the story for a lot of babies born during the war. I was one of the lucky ones though. My Dad came home. My Dad is such an inspiration to me. He grew up in three different orphanages and never knew his parents. His mother had to give him up along with his siblings because she was too ill and didn’t have the means to care for them. Dad’s father was from England. He came to the States in 1912. He came home shell shocked from World War I. He fought in the Royal Canadian Legion in France. I think today that would be called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. He didn’t stick around to help raise his children. He would take off and be gone for months at a time. When Dad’s mother died he never came back to the family. Dad’s oldest sister found all of the siblings when they were in their teens and twenties. Dad is the only one still alive out of 7 children. He had such a hard upbringing but he is the most loving father anyone could ever hope to have. 

Here is their picture with the book I made for them.

 

About ten years ago I started on a mission to find Dad’s family. That took me to England. I found several family members and most all the men resemble my Dad. They all have the thin lips, high forehead, light blue eyes and that million dollar smile. I was told that all the men had that look. Dad is 86 years old and still going strong. He golfs three days a week and still does his own yard work. Mom is 85 and doing good also. She works out at Curves with me almost every morning. She has logged over 800 workouts while I am still trying to reach 700. When I am out of town she goes without me. A lot of the ladies there tell me what an inspiration she is to them to be there at her age. Yes, I know how blessed I am to still have them in my life.

I’m Back…The Book is Done!

It took me over a month to complete the book for my Mom and Dad for their 66th wedding anniversary. What was supposed to be 21 pages turned out to be 40. I tried to cover what was most important and not dwell on the facts that were not happy. I hope they like it. I devoted a page to each of their grandchildren and great grandchildren.  They have four grandchildren and nine great grandchildren. I read and reread the book over and over looking for errors until I was crazy. I sent it to the publisher on April 1st. It should be here in two weeks. I did the book through HeritageMakers.com

Without the book to work on I have been feeling kind of like a person without a purpose. I need to start on my next project soon. My husband and I bought seven acres of mountain property in 1978. We have developed and developed it until I was sick of going up there. This piece of property is located about 40 minutes from Yosemite National Park and is the apple of my Husband’s eye. Unfortunately, not mine. I have decided to do a book on the progress and development of this property for my Husband for his birthday in July. We narrowly missed loosing everything up there when the Telegraph fire consumed our whole mountain. We have pictures from when we bought the property to present with the mountain looking like a moonscape from the fire. I have posted pictures before of what it looks like up there. The good thing is the bushes have started to come back and the wild grasses are growing . The Merced River Canyon is in bloom with Poppies and other wild flowers. Here is a link where you can see how beautiful it is.

http://www.goldrushcam.com/2009/mariposa%20news/mariposa_news%20119.htm

I guess you need a good fire once in a while to create this kind of beautiful. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Hip Problems again…

I have been suffering from hip problems since February when I went hiking on the mountain with two of my Grandkids. I finally got a referral to my Ortho Doc. and it was good news. Bursitis. I can live with that. A good old Cortisone shot in the hip will do the trick. Yeah for Cortisone! The Doc told me no more hiking on uneven ground. Well, how do you hike in the mountains without uneven ground?  I love to go up on the mountain. I have a feeling when the pain goes away I will be back hiking on the mountain. The good thing is, I am not up there very often. Maybe if I were the hip would be used to the hiking. Or not. Maybe it is just my age. My Husband is always asking me if I have looked at my Birth Certificate lately. Smart-aleck!

Easter

We always have a big family Easter weekend on our place in the mountains. Last year we had 32 people. Some for the whole weekend and some just for Easter Sunday. We had three trailers we had to find places for last year.  It was so much fun. We did the Easter Egg Hunt for the kids, quad rides up the mountain, food, lots of food, and story telling around the campfire. We even have an old fashioned campfire popcorn popper. Good popcorn without all the oil. Just a little salt and my Husband keeps it coming. I hope we have a good turn out this year. This is the one weekend I look forward to.

Pictures

The last time I came home from Las Vegas I sat next to a very nice young man who was  professional photographer. We talked about cameras and  and what makes for a good picture. It seems like the hour flight was only 10 minutes because we were so engrossed in conversation. He told me that he knew when he was about 10 years old that he wanted a career that had something to do with cameras. He grew up in New York City and he took pictures of anything and everything. He told me that people who carry a camera with them all the time see the world differently. I agree with him. Most people I know who carry around a camera see the beauty in things and want to capture that moment forever. We are the ones who will run in the house and get the camera when there is a bug or butterfly in the yard. I told this nice man that I did just that. I took pictures of bugs, butterflies, sunsets, pretty flowers, hummingbirds and, yes, endless pictures of the grandchildren.

Here is a picture that I took last summer in my yard.

Now who but a camera nut would see the beauty in this?

I get teased by my children and grandchildren and even my neices and nephews about always having a camera with me. Two weeks ago when we were taking two of our grandchildren to the mountains I took this picture in the rear view mirror.

 Isn’t that a beautiful sunset? I took this with my Canon Rebel XT. It is a big bulky camera and hard to carry around. This was my dream camera. It still is but now I wish I had a smaller one that fits in my purse. I am looking at the Panasonic Lumix, 8.1 megapixel, 10X optical zoom digital camera. Just looking…my husband accuses me of buying a new camera every year. Maybe I had better wait a little while longer to think about buying another one. But, every time I see it on sale I am temped.

I took these today in my yard. I have Cala Lilies in the front flower bed and they are so beautiful.

These flowers are also in the front flowerbed.

And my peach tree in bloom.

And my African Daisies in bloom.

 See what a camera nut I am!

Weekend with Brittney & Robert

This last weekend we took Brittney and Robert, our grandchildren, to the mountains with us. What a joy these two are. Brittney is 15 and Robert is 11.  We have seven acres in Midpines. We are right on Telegraph Road where the big fire destroyed Telegraph Mountain in July. It still looks like a moonscape but it is showing signs of coming back. Not the trees, but the Manzanita and the other bushes that dot the mountain. Here is a picture of what it looks like.

The whole  mountain used to be thick with bushes and trees. Here is what it looks like now.

Over the years we had picked out a favorite spot on the mountain to dig for crystals. Robert and Brittney wanted to go up the mountain and find that spot. Everything looked so different I didn’t know if I could find it. We hiked for about two miles up the mountain and I was thinking I was going to be hurting in a couple of days from this. Sure enough, my hip is bothering me. Too much up one hill and down another. We had fun though and did find the old digging spot. We found several little crystals. I called my husband, David, and told him to come and join us. Here is a picture of Brittney and David very engrossed in finding crystals. This is such a cute picture.

I was so excited to find a pretty good sized crystal and was feeling pretty good about it. In the next instant Dave found one three times the size of mine. Here is what we found.

Of course, David’s is the one on the left. Mine is on the far right.

On a clearing there was a big stack of straw that the road department scatters on the side of the mountain to prevent too much runoff when it rains. The straw has seeds in it so there is green grass coming up along side of the road and a little way down the hills. It sure looks pretty next to all that black burned out areas. After about two hours we headed back down the mountain. Isn’t this a pretty picture?

Notice all the green grass coming up. There is that winding road we had to walk back down on. It was a nice day and we enjoyed being outside.

The kids enjoyed themselves. They had fun riding on David’s quadrunner. Brittney wasn’t sure of it at first and did several practice runs around the house before she headed out on the road. Here she is taking her brother for a ride.

All in all we had a great weekend. We love it when we can spend time with the grandkids. They were so much fun and we really enjoyed the games we played and being out in the great outdoors. Here is another picture I took.

As devastating as the fire was the mountian will come back as pretty as ever.

Back From Vegas, Again

The last of my three in a row birthday parties is over. I went back to Las Vegas to celebrate Matson’s third birthday. Matson was induced early because his Mother had pre-eclampsia and he had heart beat decelerations. After he was born he was in constant motion when he was awake. We think he had a grip on the umbilical cord and kept squeezing it causing the decelerations. Just a guess on our part. He also has Infantile Scoliosis. By the time he was a year old he had a 40 percent curve in his spine. At Shriner’s Hospital in Salt Lake, Utah he was casted to try to straighten his curve. It worked to a 21degree curve but he got a skin reaction to the casting material and had to have it removed. He was without the cast for several weeks and then they tried again and the same thing happened. So, I have a feeling he will need the surgery later to have the rod put in his back. You would never know he has this problem. He is active and on the go all the time.

His birthday party was fun and he was so excited. One of the presents I got him was a Spider Man punching bag. It was a big hit with him. Here he is sitting on it.

He did get the hang of punching it and had the best time with it.

He also got a sand and water table from his parents. He loves to play in the water so he was really thrilled with this. It was too cold to let him go outside and play with it so he was happy to play without the water indoors.

Here he is with his sand and water table.

At couple days after his party we took the table outside and filled one side with sand and the other with warm water and he had so much fun with it. After a while his hands got really cold. It was 64 degrees outside. He will enjoy it more when they get their usual 100 plus weather in Vegas.

His great Grandmother sent him a gift that was wrapped in bubble wrap. They spread the bubble wrap on the kitchen floor and you should have seen the fun and the noise of the bubble wrap popping as he ran across it.

I guess that was more fun than the toys he got. Just goes to show you that kids will make fun out of anything. Give them bubble wrap and a card board box and they are happy.

Here he is waiting to blow out the candles on his  cake. Isn’t he a cutie?

Well, hopefully, I am home for a while. Tyler, our six year old grandson, wasn’t too happy that I left again. He doesn’t understand why I can’t live with him. That is the hard part of leaving.

I have been procrastinating on starting the book on my parents life. Now that I will be home ,without interruptions, I will have no excuse not to get started on it.   I only have a month now to complete it.

Back and Forth, Back and Forth

It’s been two weeks since my last post. I have been so busy I have not given one thought to posting. I sure don’t know how I ever had time to work. Being retired is a full time job. I have been back and forth to Las Vegas since December. The reason being, birthdays, three months in a row. December is Tyler’s, January is Lily’s and February is Matsons. I did the same thing. My kids were September, October and November. My Daughter in Law, Stephanie, had the last two children 11 months apart. My two youngest are 13 months apart. It’s pretty much like having twins. I spent 10 days in Vegas for Tyler’s 6th birthday. Then I was back in January for 14 days for Lily’s birthday. I am leaving on the 14th of February for Matson’s 3rd birthday. I will only be gone for 5 days this time. After that I hope to spend some time at home. I have projects here that are not getting done. One is the book I talked about on my last post. I went on the website today to activate my account to get started and wouldn’t you know, the activation screen has errors and needs to be reported to the site manager. So much for getting started on the book today.

I did have a busy and fun trip to Vegas for Lily’s birthday. Our Son and Daughter in Law are having to close out their store due to the new lead law that will take affect February 10th. This law makes it illegal to sell used children’s clothes, toys and furniture for children under the age of 12 unless it is tested for high levels of lead. I guess we can blame China for this. I think there were two deaths resulting from high levels of lead in some things imported from China. To have the inventory tested for high levels of lead is expensive and several of the stores in the franchise are closing. The rest will stay open at their own risk. It is too bad because there is a great need for stores like this. A lot of people can’t afford new items for their children and with the economy like it is they turn to consignment stores for their needs.
I see the need for this lead law but it is too bad small business owners are being put out of business.

Here is a picture of Lily in her birthday dress.

Here she is with her new pink bike.

Her mother says it is so nice to have pink things in the house after two boys

Here is Lily with her brothers. It looks like she is anticipating blowing out her candles. 

The shirt Matson is wearing I bought in Amsterdam. If I remember right it means stubborn. Very fitting for him. He is my little character. You just never know what he is thinking or going to do next. My Son says he is from another planet. He is my sweet boy and I love him.

Tomorrow, lunch with the Golden Girls. I look forward to this lunch once a month. We three are retired from the same office and we get together once a month and sometimes sooner to catch up with each other. Bev’s husband dubbed us the Golden Girls.

Old Pictures – Memories

I have spent the last couple of days scanning pictures out of my Mom and Dad’s picture albums. It all started because my Daughter in law bought me a six month membership in Heritage Makers. That is an online program where you can make a book. I have not activated my membership yet wondering what to make a book about. I decided to do a book on my Mom and Dad’s life. I called Mom and ask her for her albums and told her I wanted to scan them and put them on a CD so they would be safe. I had not intended to really do that. I just wanted pictures that were of them. When I got into the albums I was overwhelmed with memories of my childhood. I decided to do what I told her I would do, scan the pictures for safety. I had pictures I had never seen before. Pictures of my Mom and her friends during the time my Dad was in Italy during WWII. I was born the day he shipped out to go to Italy. He did not know about my birth until I was almost six months old. He didn’t see me for the first time until I was 18 months old. That is probably the story with a lot of families during wartime. My Mom and Dad didn’t know each other for very long before they got married. My Dad was stationed at Merced Army Flying School. Later that name was changed to Castle Air Force Base. From there my Dad was sent to Fort Warren, Wyoming. When he wrote to Mom and told her he was being transferred to Hobbs, New Mexico Mom got on a bus and met him there where they were married. They lived in a motel with a dirt floor and ate a lot of meals of beans. They were there for 7 months and then Dad was sent to Kerns, Utah for overseas training. Mom came back to Merced and moved in with her Mother to await my birth. My Dad was raised in an orphanage so he never grew up being a part of a family. When he came home from the war in September 1945 he came home to a family he never had before. He had a Mother in law who became the Mother he never had. He came home to a wife he hardly knew and a baby 18 months old. My Mom and Dad will be married for 66 years this April. I hope I can do this book in a way that will make them proud. I don’t want to dwell on my Dad’s very unhappy childhood. I want it to start at a point that is happy for him. Finally having a family who loves him and who he loves with all his heart.

Here are some of the pictures from their album. This is Mom and Dad when they got married.

Here I am at 10 months old.

Here I am with my Mom.

In 1950 my brother was born. Here I am with my little brother Danny.

Check out those bangs. Mom never was any good at cutting my hair.

Here we all are in 1950 when my brother was born. I am on the left. The little girl on the right is my Aunt Kathy. We always got a kick out of that. I am seven months older than she is. We were raised almost like sisters. Even today we are close. She now lives in Minnesota but we talked on the phone often.  Looking back on my childhood makes me remember something I have always known. You don’t need money or fancy things to have a happy childhood. All you needed was love. My brother and I both had plenty of that.

New Year’s at Pismo Beach

We left for Pismo on the 30th with three trailers in a caravan. One in our caravan is very unorganized and he left his house without checking to see if his tires were OK for the trip. Between Chowchilla and Madera he got a flat tire and had no spare. He had to borrow a spare and all his tires were checked to make sure they were alright. That delayed us by an hour on top of him being almost an hour late for the 7 AM  departure time. We didn’t get on the beach until 2 PM. The trip usually takes about 4 and 1/2 hours from our home to the beach. But, when you travel in a caravan you always have someone who is not organized. Especially this one! Pismo looked sunny and beautiful. When we got to the gate to check in we found that they did not have us on their list. We always make our reservation through ReserveAmerica.com and have not had any problems in the past. We had to leave the beach and make some phone calls only to find out that we did have reservations for five nights on the beach. Back to the beach and our names were found on the list of reservations. Once you are on the beach you have to air down your tires so you can drive on the sand. I don’t know how low my husband aired down but we got stuck in the sand and he had to air down some more.  Farther down the beach the sand got really bad and we were stuck again. My husband was getting a little agitated and got out and aired down both the truck and the trailer tires. That did the trick. I think he aired them down to 20 pounds. We had no problems after that. We usually camp around poll 5 but this time our group was at poll 7. That is way down to almost the end of the beach. The early arrivals in our group had taped off a large circle because there were 25 trailer in all coming for New Year’s. Our grandson, Josh, was already there with his friend and his friend’s family. Josh had been their since Saturday and had to leave the next morning because he and his friend’s father had to work on New Year’s Day. His friend’s father is a detective with the Police Department. So, we got very little visit time with Josh.  Later that evening Josh’s dad, our Son, arrived. During the course of the evening and the next day all the 25 trailers were there. That is the largest group we have had so far. Most of them we knew and some were friends of friends. We had a good time. We had some wind and some rain but mostly sunshine. I spent a  lot of time visiting and sitting in the sun reading. I managed to read a whole book. Our Son brought his turkey fryer and on Friday night we deep fried a turkey. It was a 12 pound turkey and there wasn’t any left. Of course when you have 17 people eating a 12 pound turkey it doesn’t make for any leftovers. But, when I bought the turkey I bought a second one and had the butcher cut it in half. We brought the half of turkey and deep fried it so we had turkey sandwiches on Saturday afternoon. We sliced off all the meat and put it in a frying pan to warm it a little and put the frying pan, a loaf of sliced french bread and mayonnaise on a table and it was gone in no time. We had everything set up outside our trailer. We had a table with our bar b que on it and chairs and two little serving tables. Almost like home. It was fun. Here is a pictures of our little abode on the beach.

Our trailer is the one with the Christmas tree in front. We also have a portable fire pit and it sure comes in handy on those cold nights. We spent a lot of time huddled around it and visiting.

We had so many trailers that every group had dug their own fire pit in the sand. One was very elaborate and I wish I had taken a picture of it. It was really deep and around the sides they put sand ledges with flat pieces of plywood to sit on. They were actually sitting in the pit. I don’t think I would feel comfortable sitting in it. It took them hours to dig one that big. We had 17 people in our group so we mostly stayed within our own groups until New Year’s Eve. We all got together for the fireworks. Most of the fireworks were illegal but I think the rangers turn a blind eye when it comes to New Year’s Eve. One of our friends went to Las Vegas for the rodeo and brought back fireworks that are not legal in California. They had them all in a line and a few minutes before midnight they started lighting them off. The sky was lit up like daylight when they all went off. A very beautiful sight. I tried to get pictures but it was hard to get at just the right time. I did manage to get this one.

New Year’s Day was very quiet. No one came out of their trailers until late morning. Our Granddaughter had a really sore throat and when I looked at her throat I knew she had strep. Our Son had to take her into town to emergency to get her on antibiotics. She felt so bad and didn’t feel any better the next morning so our Son let her go home with friends who had to leave on Friday morning. It took a few days for her to feel better.

I got some really good pictures of the sunset on the beach. I was out on the beach every evening when the sun started to go down to get some good pictures. Here are a couple that I took.

   

We waked on the beach almost every day except for the day it was drizzling off and on. We got this picture of our friend in his sand rail going down the beach. He offered me a ride but I knew I would have sand in places that I would not want sand!!

Here I am on the beach. I can’t think of a better way to spend New Year’s than walking on the beach and enjoying the ocean and people you like being with.

Sunday morning we are packing things up for the trip home. We found it was high tide and the sand was really mushy. It was hard driving out and our trailer was bouncing all over the place. Our’s was not the only one.  Here we are packed and ready to leave.

This is what the sand looked like on the way off the beach.

We stopped when we got past the bad sand and had to air our tires up to normal for the drive home. Five days on the beach. Five days of visiting, walking on the beach, reading, eating and just soaking in the sun. What a way to end 2008. Very relaxing!

Christmas Past

Another Christmas is over. Our Son and his family arrived on the 22nd. He has not been home for Christmas in four years. The two little ones, almost 2 and almost 3 years old have never been here. What a joy the kids were. They are just at the age where they are little comedians. Matson, I swear, is going to be another Jim Carrey. He has so many funny expressions. He will be three in February. He is the life of the party. This is the little boy I thought I would never get close to. When he was an infant he wanted no one but his Daddy. Now he is a little social character.
We open gift on Christmas Eve. I have always hosted Christmas Eve. I had 18 people for Christmas Eve and the same for Christmas dinner. We went to our younger Son’s for Christmas Breakfast. We don’t lack for food and sweets during the holidays. It’s back to very little carbs after the New Year. My Mom and Dad turned 85 and 86 in the month of December. I am really blessed to still have them in my life. Back to Christmas Eve. We only buy gifts for the kids. We gave up on the adults several years ago. We were always wondering what to buy someone who has everything they need and just go out and buy whatever they want. Christmas is for the kids anyway. My grandchildren range in age from 17 to 2. I have seven of them. It was so much fun watching the little ones open their gifts with bright shinning eyes and that look of wonder on their faces. I did manage to get a picture of all of them in front of the tree. My little tree is almost not visible behind them. Here is a picture of the Grandchildren plus one who is not related.

Aren’t my two Granddaughters in the back beautiful? The blonde is Brittney and she is 15, Jenna is 14. The little boy in the front with the light red shirt is Matson, our little comedian. Lily is beside him and their big brother, Tyler has his arms around them. The very tall boy in the back is our 17 year old grandson, Josh. He will graduate from high school in May. The boy in the front row on the left is our 11 year old grandson, Robert. He is the sweetest boy and very caring of his little cousins. It was so nice to have them all together for Christmas. It was a busy week with lots of cooking and lots of dishes to wash. No, I don’t own a dishwasher. Never had one. We managed to keep up and still have fun with the kids who kept pulling on my shirt and saying “Gamma come on.” They wanted to play all the time.

Matt and his family left on the 26th to go back home to Las Vegas. I spent the afternoon taking down the tree and putting away the decorations in complete quiet. Even though the laughter and loud voices are happy noises the silence was very welcomed.  

NEW YEAR’S…

We are leaving in the morning for our annual camping trip on the beach at Pismo for New Year’s. The trailer is all packed, and yes, more cooking was done. I made a Macaroni Salad and some Chili Verde to go. More on this trip when I get back. We have spent New Year’s on the beach for the last 16 years.