The last hurrah!

We managed to squeeze in another camping trip last weekend. We stayed pretty local and camped at a nearby private campground with a beach...not that it was warm enough to swim! On Friday night, our kids and Scott and Sue's kids all stayed at home with grandparents and we enjoyed an adults-only camp night! Friday also happened to be rather warm, though a bit rainy, so we took our adult beverages and a light over to a pavillion across the lane from our campers and had an enjoyable and fun evening talking and reminiscing! Below, Scott tries out his son's bike!


On Saturday, we retrieved the kids and brought them to a wildlife festival being held in a nearby town. There were critters there I had never even heard of before! Everyone, kids and adults alike, enjoyed it! Luci is brave enough to pet a snake.

Hey, look...it's King Julian!

This is a wallaby.

It's hard to see this toucan's huge beak behind the feeder dish!

A baby alligator!

Luci in the bouncy house!

It appears as though this camel is gobbling up the girls' hands, but those hands had some yummy food in them!

All the kids got goody bags, so they posed with some of their goodies! L to R: Jeb, Darien, Drew and Luci. Cutie-pies!

A bubble wall...check out Darien's pose!

Inside the visitor's center at the hydro-electric dam.

Sue peddles as fast as she can to generate enough power to raise the light to the top!

Back outside for a horse-drawn carriage ride!

At the end of the day, we took the kids back to the campground where they proceeded to have a blast as usual. The next morning, while we were packing up the campers, we gave the kids some left-over food to feed the seagulls. The picture doesn't do it justice...it was like a scene straight out of the movies, "The Birds"!!

Tonight, I brought the girls over to Uncle's house so we could visit with Mr. Darcy again. The breeders live directly across the road from Uncle! While waiting for the visit, Luci announced that the tree in Uncle's front yard was sick (since it was completely brown on one side) and she proceeded to grab handfuls of grass to cover it up.

It wasn't long before Drew got in on the action! When they were done, Luci proclaimed that the tree felt much better! Silly girl!

Uncle is an avid hunter, and being that today was opener for bow-hunting, Uncle had alot of his hunting clothes hanging on the porch to dry from his early morning foray into the woods. Drew decided to try some of them on! Check out those size 13 boots!

And at last, we got to visit the puppies! Here are Mr. Darcy and his brother. My dad slipped that he was planning to give us the other dog for Xmas as well as Mr. Darcy, but Dean promptly put a kabosh to that! Too bad, we could have had a Mr. Darcy AND a Mr. Bingley! Bummer! Anyway, Mr. Darcy is the one underneath in this photo.

LOOK at that adorable little face!!! How can you not fall in love with this little guy?! His eyes are finally open, his ears are taking shape and his fur is starting to curl! I can't wait to see him in a week or two! He'll be a little fluffy furball by then!

Jersey is a great mom! Dinner time!

I finally got a shot of the dad...here's Jake! He's slightly larger than Jersey, but both are still quite small!

Mr. Darcy on the left and the almost Mr. Bingley on the right! They are so freakin cute!!

Today's Quotes:

Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot little puppies. ~Gene Hill

There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face. ~Bern Williams

We've adopted again!!!!!!!!!

I've got your attention now, don't I? Hee hee! Well, more on the adoption news in a bit. First up is Meema's birthday surprise! Today is my wonderful mother's 39th birthday! Yes, you read that right, she is 39! (Again!) The girls surprised her with some hand-painted flower pots and a dvd collection of some of her favorite movies...Ma and Pa Kettle! Here she is with the girls, her presents, cards and cake!


She thinks about her wish before blowing out the candles...

And out they go! I hope she gets her wish!

And here's her cake...a yummy cinnamon cheesecake! Meema, we sure hope you enjoyed your birthday, today! We love you very, very much!!!

And now....what I know some of you've been waiting for...our adoption news! Yesterday, we officially adopted a new puppy! He was born 2 weeks ago, on September 6th. (We should have him home by the middle of November!) He is a toy poodle that I've named Mr. Darcy. (Anyone who REALLY knows me will not be surprised to learn I've named him after my most favorite movie character from my most favorite movie EVER!!!) Chances are we will call him something else for short, but his official name is Mr. Darcy! Here, Luci holds him! Isn't he the teeniest, cutest little thing?!

And though this picture is slightly out of focus, Drew shows us his sweet little face close-up! His eyes are still closed as yet, but the breeders tell me that they started noticing yesterday that one of his eyes is slowly but surely opening up!

Here's Mr. Darcy curled up with his larger brother.

SOOO stinkin' cute!!!!!

This is Mr. Darcy's mom, Jersey.

The breeders gave me this picture tonight. It shows the whole litter on their birthday! I believe Mr. Darcy is the top puppy closest to the mom. The two smallest puppies in this picture never made it past a couple of days. They think the mom may have rolled on top of them, poor little things! They took a picture of the runt next to a cigarette lighter to show just how small he was! He was literally not much longer than the lighter!

The girls are SOO excited to get the puppy home! Ever since our visit last night and tonight, Drew has talked of nothing else! It's going to be a LONG 6 more weeks waiting for this little guy to come home!! We'll go back for a visit in a couple of weeks. He ought to be alert and frisky by then...and probably pretty fluffy! I can't wait to see him at that age!

Today's Quotes:

Few women admit their age. Few men act theirs. ~unknown

The more I see of man, the more I like dogs. ~Mme. de Staël

A dog is not "almost human" and I know of no greater insult to the canine race than to describe it as such. ~John Holmes

Summer comes to a close...sniff!

In August, Drew lost her other top tooth. Here she shows off her new gap.



Luci hadn't lost a tooth at the time of this picture, she just insisted on having a picture of her, too! Incidentally, she did end up losing her other bottom tooth. After a routine dental cleaning, however, we were informed that Luci's adult teeth are so large that she will most likely need braces on the bottom to add space. She'll need them probably sometime in the next couple of years...yes, she's only 5 yet!

Also in August, we took our annual "Uncle Trip". This is a camping trip we take that is strictly roughing it! Tents, sleeping bags, coolers, etc. We went to the same place as last year's trip since we all loved it so much! This year, in attendance: Dean and I and the girls, Dan, Tina, Sonja and Max, my brother, of course, his girlfriend, Sarah and her daughter, Kaydence.

Monty was invited along again. He had a ball and enjoyed the water, but would only go in as deep as this voluntarily. Occassionally, we grabbed him and gave him a good soaking!

My brother's dog, Boone, however, wouldn't stay OUT of the water! He's also VERY attached to my brother and didn't want him out of his sight! Anytime my brother would take his kayak out, Boone tried to swim after him! Thadd also couldn't get much swimming to himself as Boone always swam out to him no matter how far out he got!

Thadd dances in the water with all the kids!

Kaydence goes for the lift, as seen in "Dirty Dancing"!

Luci mainly did ballet moves on the shore!

Goofy Uncle!

A tired Max chowing some dinner!

Drew and Kaydence doing a little fishing.

What a beautiful place! So scenic!

Drew snuggled up in the sleeping bag one morning.

Monty is forever digging in any loose dirt, so when he got to the sandy beach he dug holes along the beach the entire trip!

Even I got brave enough to try my mom's kayak! It was surprisingly easy to do and really a lot of fun! Tina and Sarah both tried it as well, though I don't have pictures, and both agree with me!

Of the kids, Kaydence and Drew tried it as well. Here's Kay next to my brother in the water.

Drew loved it! I think Meema has plans to get the girls their own kayaks next year!

Teamwork! Sonja and Luci work together to dig a ditch and watch water flow down back to the lake!

Boone relaxing by the fire.

Dean and Drew tend to the fire.

My brother getting really goofy! Gansta Thadd!

L to R: Drew, Kaydence, Luci, Max and Sonja on a really big rock!

The most part of everyday of the trip was spent swimming! Thanjfully, we had beautiful weather!

Taking a walk along the beach.

Someone brought lollipops!

Dan got some realxing in!

The dogs doing what they do best...mooching!

The kids got together and built their own "fire"!

The fishing was pretty good, although we only got some small mouth bass! Here's Dan's first fish of the trip.

Uncle being goofy again!

The girls had Sonja and Max spend the night one night. The next day, I did their hair for them! Max wasn't interested in having anything done to his hair, thank you very much!

Labor Day weekend, we brought our camper up to Jim and Julie's land. I never took my camera out for the camping part, but brought it along for a little excursion in the area. This was taken on a bridge constructed in 1902. It is a wooden deck bridge with steel framing. I won't pretend to know what all the correct terms are...

Drew doing some of her constant cartwheels.

A large hornet's nest underneath one of the top beams. It was very active and we stayed well away!

On the trip back, as long as we stayed on dirt roads, Dean let the girls drive. I was too late for a picture of Drew, but here's Luci giving it a whirl! She didn't do too bad a job for a 5 year old!

A large gorge...it was quite pretty!

First day of school! (YAY!!!!!!!)

Here's the 2nd day as well. Waiting for the bus.

I'm sad to see summer go...winter is so depressing! (And freakin cold!!!!) But, life goes on and there's nothing we can do to change that! We had a great summer, so I'm thankful for that!

Today's Quote:

I still recall every summer night like it was yesterday; the times would never end and my friends were family. Nothing mattered more than the loyalty we had. ~Unknown