Fourth of July

Fourth of July was a beauty this year. Great weather and practically the whole family showed up. For those who don't know, Fourth of July is a big holiday for Keith's family. His mom's side of the family has traditionally gathered out on Smith River in the middle of a chunk of remote BLM land. It is remote camping for sure, with water gathered from a nearby spring, tents as a home and a self-dug pit toilet out at the back of camp. Unless of course you bring your big 'ol RV, which everyone seems to have now except for us, Keith's parents and two of the cousins. The RV's outnumbered the tents this year by far. It was a large gathering this year as we were back from our trip, Keith's aunts were back from their two years of cavorting around the country and the two cousins from afar, Mark and Keri made the long drive from Sacramento and Seattle, respectively.

The weather was beautiful, and we did all the usual activities of visits to the swimming hole, poker nights, dart games, singing around the campfire, way too much eating and the annual cribbage tournament, which I had to sadly miss this year, as I had to leave the party early to get back to work. Some pictures of the camping.

First a shot before leaving. We were dogsitting again, this time for Laylee, a very mellow and attention-seeking lab. Here I am with the dogs under the hypnotic spell of a biscuit.


The camping dart board. We had three games of Cricket that came down to the last bulls eye. Although, I won't tell you how long it took to get that last bulls eye...


Poker night. Good 'ol Texas hold-em. I can't quite get into it, but these guys sure love it.


This was the cutest. After full, non-stop days of rock diving and scrounging for food, the pooches were wiped and would crash by the fire. Laylee, however wasn't satisfied with just the fire, she had to snuggle up right to Gracie and spoon with her. Of course, Gracie didn't mind, taking it all in stride.


Night two by the fire, Laylee literally laid on top of Gracie.


Typical stuff that Gracie has to put up with.


A visual and audio of what camp is like. Note what Dwayne is doing with the dogs. Caught on tape Dwayne!!


After camping and two more days back at work, we jetted out to the coast and spent two full days at John and Jenn's house on the beach. It was beautiful weather and great to be on the coast as it was cookin' in the 90's back in the valley. At the coast we had lovely mid-70's and slightly breezy weather. Keith and John installed a water heater, while Jenn and I kicked back with a beer on the deck, then we all went down to the beach and tried to fly kites for a while. Something none of us had done in a long time.

We didn't have a lot of success with the big long one, but the smaller one did better and it made for some nice pictures regardless.





Run Jenn, Run!!


Awwww, cute.


Of course Gracie had a blast chasing sticks and rocks and even doing a little surfing. Look at how excited Keith is that Gracie is about to get swamped by this wave.


The next morning we had a great low tide, so did some tidepool gazing. And we found beautiful nudibranch! We first learned about and saw them in the tropical waters of Indonesia and Thailand and had no idea that they existed in the waters of the Pacific NW. But they are here and are so unlike anything else in the tidepool. They are so beautiful, it is unfortunate Wikipedia defines them as sea slugs.


How you find nudibranch:


And then we got back from our vacating and signed closing papers for our new house. Here are a few glimpses of it. I mentioned it is a fixer-upper, and the reality of the work we have ahead is starting to sink in....

Here's a look at her. It's at the end of a cul-de-sac which is nice, but it's a compact neighborhood, so we won't have street noise, but I'll think there will be plenty of "neighborhood" noise, which doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing.


The kitchen. Yep, needs a bit of remodeling.


The backyard. The fence will be one of the first things we tackle. So, yes Paul, we need help digging fence post holes!


The main bathroom. A not horribly offensive olive green. Retro is in, right?


In the living room, Keith calculating the neighbor's portion of the fence material cost, and Gracie investigating the suspicious noise coming from the chimney (birds).