Ok, I guess I'm a little behind on my blogging. I haven't even posted any pics from Big R's birthday! Bad me. And then we went camping at Bear River last weekend and I have a few pics from that. AND here's the really excellent news...Hubby had interviewed for a job Friday morning before we left for Bear River. On Monday he got a call offering him the job! Yay! I was hopeful that he'd get the job since he used to work with people from this company at his old job. he knows them all and gets along with them and the work is pretty much what he did at his old job. But there were other people interviewing as well so I was little nervous. Apparently another thing he had going for him was that he already has the clearance (ie. Secret, Top Secret, etc) required for the job. That he already had the required clearance also means he can actually start working sooner instead of waiting for the clearance to go through, which can take 1-2 months or longer. So, I guess that means that we will be staying here for the foreseeable future. Not that I mind so much. It is a nice place to live (when it's not -20 degrees LOL). The biggest downside is the distance from all of you. But I digress...
So, anyway, Big R's birthday. He decided this year that he didn't need a theme. "Just whatever," he told me. But he did want to have his party at the park and play baseball so I went with a baseball theme. He recently started watching Major League games on tv and his favorite team is the San Francisco Giants. I found some Giants party things to mix in with the generic baseball things. Ok, so here are some pics of him opening presents. On his actual birthday I made him a cherry pie instead of a cake. (Hey, I asked him if he wanted cake or cupcakes but he said no) The next day was his party. The bad part about having a summer birthday is that people go on vacation. Only 3 of his friends were able to make it (though NO ONE RSVP'd) but he still had a lot of fun. Now I normally bake him a cake and I actually did bake him one for his party. But he and his dad had come up with the idea of having an ice cream cake--vanilla cake with mint chip ice cream and Magic Shell on the top. I bought all the stuff, baked the cake and then realized that my freezer was not big enough to freeze the cake in once assembled. Ooops! So, he ended up getting a store bought ice cream cake instead. I know, blasphemy! LOL So, here are the party photos.
Unfortunately with the party being outside, the candles wouldn't stay lit so we just sang sans lit candles. And that about covers it. Big R's 8th birthday. Can't believe he's getting so old.
Well, I will try to blog again soon about our Bear River trip and I have some photos from that. But for now, I'll say adieu.

Happy birthday to Big R! Today he turns 8! He's been dying to see Toy Story 3 and was pretty excited that it came out on his birthday so I took the kids to see the first showing in 3D at midnight. Wow! It was so awesome! Just amazing. I definitely recommend seeing it. Anyway, in honor of Big R's birthday I have some photos to share. Some of my favorites. I scanned them and they could use a bit of editing to fix them u p but my Photoshop is malfunctioning. Grrrr! Well, here they are, anyway.









I love you so much my big boy! Happy birthday!

So, we just got back (well, ok, a few days ago) from our annual family campout and I have a confession to make. I took absolutely NO photos while we were there! I know, what is that!? But we did have a nice time fishing and enjoying the scenery for a couple of days before the second wave of family members arrived, bringing the rain with them! It was nice until they showed up so they must have brought it...LOL Anyway, I was very happy to see my adorable nephews, especially my newest, LilBear, who is only 2 months old! My sister and her boys braved the elements for a day or so before opting to head home to their warm, dry beds. And I really can't blame them. I'm just grateful for the time we did have. It's really the pits living so far apart. But my nephews Lil B and C had the best of times together getting dirty. My kids were really looking forward to fishing and the first day we were there they wanted to hit the creek for some fishing before nightfall. MoMo caught her fish right away! Big R was unsuccessful that evening but he eventually did get his fish a couple days later. Unfortunately the rain that came, along with the cold it brought, put a damper on things, forcing us (well, some of us. Others went out fishing anyway and my bro D caught a HUGE trout!) to huddle in the food tent around a propane heater. First time ever we've had that much rain when we've gone. But we survived. Now, Hubby and the kids and I planned to camp at Great Basin National Park on the way home. Guess we just can't get enough camping! LOL But while in UT there was a dog altercation and our dog got a nasty wound. Well, it started out fairly small and we tried to treat it with antiseptic wash and ointment, however, it got worse until it was a large wound oozing pus. Gross! So, we skipped Great Basin and headed home to get his wound treated. But on the way home we did make a couple of stops. We discovered the ghost town of Frisco along UT highway 21 and stopped to investigate and stretch our legs some. We're suckers for ghost towns. Here is the historical marker with some info about the town.And then one of the most striking features (I think) was five domed ovens or kilns set together up on a hill. Apparently at one time the tops were lined on the outside with brick, though most of it is gone now. You can see in one of the photos where there is a bit of brick left on one of the domes. You can also see that the domes are falling apart, with big holes in the tops.
It's pretty amazing to me how they were able to place the rock just right to make a domed shape. There were a few other structures there as well in various states of decay.
It was a nice little rest stop and then we headed on, soon coming to this scene.
We drove right into a storm. The kind of scary thing was that this is open range. The rain was coming down so hard that visibility was poor and we had to be on the lookout for cows in the road and cows near the road who might dash into the road as we approached. Thankfully we didn't hit any cows and we made it through, out of the storm and the rain.
As I said before, part of our original plan for the trip was to camp at Great Basin. Another part of that plan was to stop near Ely at Garnet Hill. Garnet Hill is a cool rockhounding site which is managed by BLM and is free to those who want to try their hand at finding garnets. So, we stopped there for a couple of hours until the sun started to go down to try our luck at finding garnets. Big R right away found a garnet imbedded in a rock. (Sometimes I call him "Eagle Eye" since he spots things so well) Really, it wasn't too difficult to find garnets imbedded in the rocks that lay all around, though most were pretty small. And then old Eagle Eye found a big one, just lying there on the ground and not attached to a rock at all!This photo was the first garnet he found.

And then here's MoMo. She found a number of garnets on her own and then she also claimed any that her dad found as her own! Here's a bit of a teaser. I tried (unsuccessfully) to get some good shots of our garnets. This is the best I could get. (boy, I sure do wish I had a nice DSLR and knew how to use it!)
This was one that I found. Still need to remove the remaining rock on it. This one got chipped out of a larger rock. This last picture is badly out of focus but it gives you more of an idea of the sizes. The coin is a dime. And notice that the biggest chunk of rock has TWO garnets poking out, wedged together. Oh, and Kaos is doing well. He's got some antibiotics and a lovely Elizabethan collar (think lampshade around his neck). His wound should heal up just fine. Well, I guess that about covers everything. Until next time...

So, this weekend we set off and another desert adventure which turned into a scavenger hunt of sorts. Our goal was to find the California Trail, Carson River Route, which passes through the dreaded 40-Mile Desert (And Hubby wanted to metal detect for artifacts). Back in pioneer days, the journey from east to west was a long and difficult one but toward the end of the journey was the 40-Mile Desert. Forty miles where the landscape was hot and desolate and there was no drinkable water. As you can see on the markers in the following pictures, many, many people who attempted the difficult crossing died.
We started out with an idea of where the 40-Mile Desert was and directions found on the internet to a marker near the end of the route. We set out and found the first marker fairly easily. From there we were able to follow a portion of the trail and find a second marker. But then the trail went cold, so to speak. The area we were traveling had many dirt roads crossing every which way and we drove about looking for another marker to let us know we were on the right track. Unfortunately we could not find a third marker in this area. We decided to visit Soda Lake which is along the Carson Route. Now, you might think to yourself, "But I thought there was no water!?" And the answer is, there is no drinkable water. If you read the marker in the photo below, there is a journal entry which tells of finding a lake of salt water. I love how it says "...it is almost Strong enough for brine to save meat with..." But can you imagine being on this journey, nearly (literally) dying of thirst and coming upon a lake only to discover the water is too salty to drink? What a cruel joke.
At this point we decided to try finding the Carson Route near the point where it branched off of the main California Trail. On the Trail there was a point where the travelers came basically into a fork in the road. There was the choice to cross the 40-mile Desert via the Truckee Route to the Truckee River or the Carson Route to the Carson River. So we set off the try to find the trail nearer to this fork, hoping to find a marker to let us know we were in the right place. On the way we saw a large structure made of stone, stacked like a chimney so we stopped to investigate. It looked to be a large oven but there was nothing to tell us precisely what it was used for. After a bit of walking around there we headed on. When we approached the area where we should be able to pick up the trail we found that there was a large wet and muddy area which would be impossible for us to cross as we don't have 4-wheel drive. We had mostly given up hope of finding the trail again and Hubby wanted to drive a little further to try to find a hot spring that we had seen from the road on a previous trip in the area. But when we got there everything was all fenced off. There is a large geothermal plant operating there. We decided to head back toward home. As we were driving along the highway, Hubby spotted what looked to be a marker! It wasn't too far off the main highway and the road here was nice and dry.
Then after looking around we spotted another marker on the other side of the highway.
Again, we lost the trail and headed back down the highway. We were feeling pretty optimistic because now we knew what the markers looked like and it was easier to spot them from a distance. We spotted another and when we got to it realized that it was very close to the stone oven we had stopped at! We had missed it.

We followed the trail a short distance but came to a deep wash that we could not traverse. We doubled back to the highway, passed the wash and found yet another marker. We were on a roll!
Again, the trail became impassable to us so we hit the highway once again. When we left the highway we found this marker. Sorry, it isn't a very good photo but I was trying to hold the camera up over my head to get the whole thing in the shot and I couldn't see the camera display in the bright sun to see what the photo looked like. From this point we set out along the trail once again veering away from the highway. The trail more or less parallels the highway for a number of miles and then angles off westward, away from the highway which runs north and south. We headed out on the trail for a distance but the sun was getting lower in the sky and we certainly didn't want to get out into the unfamiliar section of desert, far from a major road or highway in the dark only to find the road impassable due to mud or deep sand and end up stuck. So, we stopped and pulled out the metal detector. Big R hunted around with the detector but mostly only found gun shells and some spent bullets. Here's one last photo of the 40-Mile Desert with the sun dipping low in the sky.
It was another fun adventure for us in the Nevada desert. A historical one and, once again, I find myself thinking of those brave and hardy pioneers who faced such a difficult journey and feeling thoroughly grateful that I don't have to cross vast miles of uninhabited, inhospitable country in a wagon. I have the luxury of following their trail in a pickup truck and heading home to my comfortable home and bed at the end of the day.

Happy birthday to my one and only niece! She's growing up way too fast (she's 9 today). And lives way too far away! I hope you have a wonderful day full of joy and laughter!

Here are a couple of pics from Hubby's birthday today. Look at all those candles! And that's not even one for every year. The kids put on the candles and it sort of ended up being a random number. Then again if you ask MoMo how old Daddy is she'll tell you 10. Hubby asked for chocolate ice cream to go with his chocolate/chocolate cake so it was chocolate overload. And you can see in the second pic that MoMo added some sprinkles to her slice. ALL of the sprinkles! And, yes, she's lapping up the melted ice cream with her tongue. Somehow I didn't get a pic of Big R but Hubby got a DSi for his birthday so I do have a pic that he (Hubby) took of Big R with the DSi.And here's one of Hubby.And MoMo...Alright, that's all I've got. Bye!

Ok, so I saw this on another blog and even though this is a high tech version, it brought back memories of playing MASH the low tech way--on paper! LOL I hope it brings back elementary school memories for you, too! Click here if you'd like to read the original post at OneCoolPick.blogspot.com.
Oh, and by the way, today is Hubby's birthday. Happy birthday! We'll be having chocolate cake with chocolate frosting since that's what he ALWAYS has for his birthday cake. No vanilla or strawberry or even plain white or yellow. It's gotta be chocolate. Ok, well, I better go get some things done. Love to you all!