Mother Daughter Camping Trip

i think she's growing up.......
Originally uploaded by cameradawktor.

For the last 5 years my hubs has went with his brothers, brother-in-laws, nephews and his sons to a Dawktor boys' camping trip. The first two years TSE was too little to go, so i stayed home with Meyers D and him.

Two years ago, he was old enough to start going as well, and Meyers D and i decided to go on our own camping trip. We went to Ohanapacosh @ Mt. Rainier. It's a lovely place and we went on some hikes to an old growth forest and an alpine meadow to see alpine wildflowers.

Last year we went to Dash Point State Park. I will never go back there by myself, as about 2 a.m. a man started attacking another man and i have never feared for my life as much as i did that night! I almost began to think that i would never take the children camping by myself again.

However, we found this fabulous place in Cougar, Washington that has cabins. It is a small park, with a woodsy feel and i felt very safe there taking the children there in June. So that's where Meyers D and i are going tomorrow for two nights.

She really enjoys this special time just the two of us, and wrote about it numerous times in school last year. Even though she hasn't come out and said it, i think it is one of her favorite things that we do all year.

We are taking some crafts, she is taking something to paint, a denim bag to decorate for a friend's birthday, and a shirt to decorate for her friend's sister. We are also taking some stuff to make decorative candles. We got this kit a few years ago to make for her Grammy, but we never got around to doing it. So we will attempt that as well. I am taking my knitting that i am practicing with and a cross-stitch that I want to make for my mother.

I haven't done cross stich since i was Meyer D's age, so not sure that it will turn out very good. But i want to give it to my mom as a Christmas or Birthday present. It is of some pansies, and pansies are her favorite.

We are both taking a book to read, my friend Steph who just started her own flickr page gave me a Maya Angelou book: I know why the caged bird sings.

It seems like everyone i know has read it and i never have. So i'm planning on getting started with that. I don't think a Mon.-Wed. trip will be enough time for all the things we want to do. Especially if we decide to go up to Windy Ridge, the farthest vantage point on Mt. St. Helen's from Cougar. It has been probably 15+ years since I've gone to Windy Ridge and it is at least 45 min. from Cougar.

Today has been a pretty icky day healthwise for me, but i'm bound and determined to not let anything stop us from going. Miserable or not, (I'm sure i will be fine) I AM GOING!

I mean, what's the difference if i am on drugs there or at home!

I woke up with a migraine, but my reversal med kicked in about an hour after i took it. My back decided to be crampy and now it feels like i might have some kidney stone action going on. So i've taken a few percocet today. Good old Percy...what would i do without that?!

My birth control pills to help the menstrual migraines has been working pretty good. But you can get a breakthrough cycle every now and again and that's what decided to show up today. I am sure that's why i woke up with a migraine today. Usually during this cycle i get 4-7 days of pain, so i guess that's my hesitancy and unsuredness about the next couple of days. But like I said, I AM GOING!!!

Poor me, last year the twelve days leading up to our camping trip i had a really bad stretch of headaches. I had to go in the morning of our trip and get an Imitrex shot. I had never had one before and it worked really good. So the doctor started allowing me to give myself Imitrex injections at home. So some good came out of that 12 day stretch.

I just thought it was interesting this morning when here it is one year later, the exact time as last year, and something threatens to throw me off. I WILL NOT BE STOPPED, lol!!

Well, we are finishing up our packing tonight and the excitement's building. We are going to try out a new recipe using my cast iron dutch oven. It is chicken breasts stuffed with crab w/ a white sauce. Of course, we'll take photos of that and post the recipe if it turns out very good!

Hopefully some huckleberries will be ripe and we'll throw them in our pancake batter.

Papa D will be taking the 35mm Nikon, so i'm hoping to be able to see their fun.

Here's the link to the place we're going and some old photos of past dawktor boys campouts. http://flickr.com/photos/cameradawktor/sets/72157594163873584/






i'll be back wednesday, so hope you have a great week and i hope to get some photo memories of Meyers D and i's special time together!

Zombie Boy

Zombie Boy
Originally uploaded by ajrpix.

Do ya ever feel like this?

* you know this ain't my picture, but when i saw this i favorited it, because i just feel like this kid sometimes.* please click the link and check this dude's other photos out.**

Do ya ever feel like just when you get your head above water, something tries to suck ya back down to the bottom of the ocean?

I AM SO FLIPPING FRUSTRATED!!!

I have this neurologist that i saw for the migraines, and he wanted to see me in two months. that should be NEXT WEEK. but no, they couldn't get me an appointment until SEPT. 7th.

UGH!

the meds he gave me (lamictal) has helped my mood (which is a good thing since the birth control pills were making me go INSANE!) but has not helped the headaches.

so the nice guy that he is, he says i'm a candidate for BOTOX. the insurance company approved it over almost two weeks ago. that is a MAJOR EVENT!

here's my problem. i said, "so when can i come in for you to do it?"

"OH, well the procedure shouldn't take very long so maybe we can squeeze you in somewhere."

that was 9 days ago. 7 days ago i called back and said, "did you find out when you can get me in?"

"i'll talk to the dr. and see when he wants you to come and I WILL CALL YOU BACK. you will hear from me so just wait until i call."

THAT WAS A FUCKING WEEK AGO.

so today i am very nice. "Hello," i say trying to sound sweet.

"oh, you are calling about the botox?" she said.

"yes, i was just wondering if there's a time that I can come in."

"well, i haven't heard from the dr. yet...."

"so you just want me to wait until my appointment on sept. 7th?

"well the plan was that i will call you when i know and i don't know yet, so i will call you when i know."

"well, was he on vacation or something?"

"he was in......yesterday,....but he was very busy, so when he sends me a message I will call you."

"allright, fine." click.

so i sit here on the computer checking my flickr site, seeing how my pics are doing. the longer i sit the more anxious i feel myself stirring inside.

i am trying, TRYING to tell my dr.'s that i need help, and trust that they WANT to help me.

this neurologist is very nice. he was more than nice, he was kind.

but this feels like torture to me.

doesn't it sound a little like dangling the fricking carrot in front of the starving horses mouth?

ARGH.

I just want to pretend i don't feel this way. distract myself with some mindless activity and pretend that I don't want to cry.

but that's bullshit.

and bullshit is just one thing that i am way too freaking tired of.

SPF 7-28-06

mean looking
Originally uploaded by cameradawktor.

Here's my lineup for SPF @ www.randomandodd.com over @ Kristine's website.

Mean Looking: my doggie looks weally weally mean in this photo. actually, we think she got stung by a bee....she like to eat them, yikes!

My weapon: I have two weapons, courage and bravery. my grandfather was a hard man to deal with. i loved him and he loved me, but he alienated a LOT of people in his life. very few of his grandkids came around to see him. we had a specialness to our relationship and i was one of the few who stuck around. don't get me wrong, he wasn't all bad......

he would say off the wall bizarre things about people. mean things, that weren't true. it was scarey to call him on it because he had the habit of telling people to get out of his house and not speaking to them for a year or more. he did it when my dad turned 18, and then he did it again to my dad when i was 5. there were times though, when i'd get a lot of courage, be really brave, and tell him what he said was not true.

this took guts, because i loved my grandpa and i didn't want him to tell me off, to tell me to get out of his house, and there was always the fear that he would. so it wasn't taken lightly to correct him. in fact, i don't think i ever saw anyone do it, i could have been one of the very few.

so those are my weapons, the weapons that help me survive in life's battles, and God only knows i've had a few. it doesn't mean i'm weak, its just that we all have to call upon courage and bravery sometimes, and with my grandfather is one of the places i learned it.


my hiding place: well, i've never been much of a hider, it's not my in my nature to hide, but i've sure done a lot of it in the last year. hiding isn't a good way to make friends, it's not a good way to keep friends either.

and, maybe i wouldn't call it hiding...perhaps its surviving. i don't know, all i know is that i spend way too much time here. it's much safer to not plan anything, have anybody over, schedule things to take the kids to....than to do all these things and then have to cancel because i am not feeling good.

i need to stop hiding, stop sitting around because i am afraid of disappointing others, but mostly MYSELF!!

so here's where i hide:

DID YOU PLAY?????

grandma mary by TSE

grandma mary by TSE
Originally uploaded by cameradawktor.

My son TSE took this photo of Grandma Mary. She's not actually my Grandma, but she knew my mom before she was born, and was friends with my grandma since the 5th grade, so she's pretty much my "adopted" grandma.

i haven't been to visit with her since before Christmas, after i got back from my grandma's funeral. excuses, excuses, but i just haven't gotten over there.

grandma mary is diabetic and can't drive anymore. she gets dialysis 3 x a week. so its not like you can go expecting her to come visit YOU!

a couple of weeks ago, not prompted by anything that was said or was happening, TSE said that we should go visit grandma mary. at first i thought my mom had subtly exercised her influence and "hinted" to TSE that he should tell me that we should go over for a visit. so i asked him, "what gave you that idea?" he said, "just my own mind."

so last thursday evening i was feeling pretty good. papa d wanted to go to an outdoor concert which is very near her house. so i had him drop max-ay and i off @ grandma mary's while he took the other two to the concert.

we had a great visit. she told me the story again of how she met my grandma, and how my grandpa (that i never met) hated rhubarb pie, but once, in the dark, while camping, he ate it and loved it, thinking it was apple. these are great stories, she's told me them many times. yet i never get tired of hearing her tell them.

thanks to TSE we made grandma mary's evening. next time, we won't wait 6+mos. to get over there for a visit!

this is what a man looks like after eating too many coumpas on his sixty-first birthday

this is what a man looks like after eating too many coumpas on his sixty-first birthday
Originally uploaded by cameradawktor.

we had a great time the other night celebrating all of the july birthdays and the anniversary in my family. everyone loved the coumpa and my biggest joy is to hear my grandma grace brag how my coumpas are better than my uncle's! haha!!!!!!! i'm evil but that's my favorite part.

of course eating them is pretty fabulous too. but they don't keep long, so my daughter and i had leftovers yesterday for breakfast AND lunch, so i don't think i'll be needing to make coumpa again until christmas eve!!

today and tomorrow are supposed to be hot hot hot here. like over a hundred degrees. we are just not used to that in the Pacific Northwest! yesterday our neighbors invited us over to go swimming in their pool, which was lovely. i think i may take the children to my brother-in-law's to swim and eat lunch over there. the problem is the pool is a little too deep for them, so we'll have to dig out some life jackets. @ least they will have a way to cool off and they can play on the trampoline if they don't want to stay in the pool.

after looking @ some of the photos i've uploaded recently to flickr, i need to work on my tan!!

here's a slideshow of the birthday dinner:

Coumpa Recipe - Norwegian Potato Dumplings

coumpa ~~ ready to eat
Originally uploaded by cameradawktor.

Tomorrow is my Daddy's 61st Birthday. It is a family tradition on his side of the family to eat potato dumplings called coumpa (Koom-pa) or klub (cloob). My Grandmother used to make it a few times a year and all of my cousins, aunts, uncles and parents gathered around their table (now my dining room table) to eat a Scandinavian boiled potato feast.

I have posted my father's aunt's recipe before: http://troublealwayshasadoor.blogspot.com/2006/02/grace-has-been-graced.html

But since I was making this dish for my Dad's Birthday, I decided to measure all the ingredients and put the recipe down here for you (and Tee http://spiltmilk.blogspot.com) exactly the way my Grandmother taught me. She no longer is able to cook so I am glad I took the time to learn and therefore carry on the tradition for my children and future grandchildren.

Coumpa or Klub (Norwegian Potato Dumplings)
as taught to me by my Grandmother who married my Swedish/Norwegian Grandfather

10 lbs. white baker potatoes, peeled sliced into large wedges and food processed until they are in tiny flakes. Can also use an old fashioned hand-crank meat grinder.
7-9 c. white flour (I used 8)
3-4Tbsp. white kosher salt (I used 3 1/2)
1 8in. lightweight pie tin with holes pricked in bottom (this is to place in the stockpot before adding coumpa balls, to help them not stick to the bottom of the pan)

Before you start grinding potatoes, place a large 10-12 qt. stockpot 3/4 full of water on the stove to begin heating to the boiling point. Grind raw potatoes and put in large mixing bowl that will hold approximately 16 cups or more.
While working on grinding potatoes, keep peeled potatoes waiting to be ground in a sinkful of cold water, this helps them to not brown as much.

Before adding flour to ground potatoes drain off as much excess liquid from the ground potatoes as you can. Next add 5c. flour and 3Tbsp. salt. Using clean hands, mix well. Add remaining flour one cupfull at a time until dough becomes very sticky and is able to hold the shape of a ball, should be approx. 8 c., give or take. Taste to see if it needs more salt. Do not add more than 1 Tbsp. more.

By now water should be boiling in the kettle, place the tin on the water and with hands that have been rinsed in cold water, scoop about an apple sized amount (1 cup) of coumpa dough out of the bowl and place a few pieces of salt pork inside.
Loosely shape into a ball and carefully drop into boiling water, aiming for the middle of the tin to secure it on the bottom of the pan. After making 2-3 coumpa balls, rinse hands in cold water. This makes it easier to shape them and have them slip off your hands easily. Continue making coumpa balls and placing them in the boiling water, making sure to alternate where you are dropping them as to cover the pot evenly. When last ball is made, place lid on stockpot at an angle leaving an air hole for steam to escape. If there is too much water in the pot, remove some as this boils over easily. If there is not enough water, add a little more hot water and don't start timing the cooking process until the water returns to a boil. Once water reaches a boil, cook coumpa at least one hour. Remove one at the end of one hour, cut in half to check done-ness and boil 15-20 min. more if needed. Serve warm with margarine or butter. Our family enjoys them most cooled, then fried golden brown in butter. Makes approx. 2 dozen large balls, they are very filling so plan on 2 coumpa as an adult sized serving.

Determination

Determination
Originally uploaded by DaveSinclair.

one of my new flickr contacts, Dave Sinclair, took this photo in Cambodia. i suggested this title for him, and he must have liked it. i needed to see this pic today. it was inspiring to me.

i mean, just look @ the determination of this child. i think it is a most incredible photo!

woke up today with a headache. i've had worse, but there's times when i have many in a row (this week 5 in 6 days) and that makes it tricky for me to know what to take and when. i could be in this "cycle" because of the pain meds i was taking for the kidney stones causing a rebound headache effect. that makes it more tricky for me knowing what to take because i don't want to exascerbate the problem any more than it is~~

i made the coump for tonight's family dinner yesterday, just in case this sort of thing happened. so there isn't anything I HAVE to do today, so i am able to keep a good attitude, even if i have to miss out on the fun tonight. but i've been trying to figure out what i should do for this headache.

and i see this photo and it reminds me to just keep pressing on, keep moving forward.......be determined to have hope.

so i called my neurologist and yippee.........Botox has been approved from my insurance company. just waiting on a date for when the procedure will be, i'm sure they will get me in as soon as they can.

determination to keep a good attitude has been working so far for me today. my little fishing line of hope with botox as the bait.........one more reel into the pain problem to see if the stinky migraine fish will take the bait!

if not, then i look @ this picture again and keep rowing through the muddy waters.

yesterday was papa d's official bday, so we went out to pizza and to see the new pirates movie. TSE and Meyers D did ok but Max-Ay got quite scared. i was really looking forward to seeing the movie, but i finally had to go outside with him in the middle of it, i could tell it was really troubling him. after about 1/2 hr - 45 min. Meyers came out and said it would probably be a good time to go in and watch the end.

so we did. i definitely did not like this one even 1/2 as much as the first. it was so dark, not much great dialogue, everything taking place in the dark. depressing....... the children even said on the way home, all three of them, that they thought it had too much violence.

that's the kind of thing a mommy wants to hear her kids say. they are good @ determining what's good and not good for them to watch. i love that about them.......another reason why it was so important of me to let max-ay leave the theatre, to show him i believed in his judgement of what is/isn't appropriate for him.

they're good kids.

DETERMINATION. Good word for the day. Hope you liked the pic and please click the link and check out Dave's other pics of Cambodia.

39 fabulous years for a fabulous guy!

some people see things a little differently
Originally uploaded by cameradawktor.

happy birthday to my loverboy!

view an extremely old slideshow of old scanned photos of my hunka-munka when he was a little tyke. please comment and let me know if you enjoyed the show!

when i finish uploading the beach pictures from this past weekend (i must clean house now.......) i will have a link to that slideshow as well!

it feels good to be back! i miss you all!

i'm back baby!

the next kid rock....elvis style
Originally uploaded by cameradawktor.

as i'm ending my third day without passing stones it looks like i'm either getting another nice vacation or a temporary reprieve. anyway, i'm back from my "i need to get ahold of my mind before i lose it" temporary blog break! yippee!

i purposely titled my blog "Trouble Always Has a Door" because 1) i like that song by Bo Bice and 2) there's always a light, or a way out of every tunnel no matter how dark it is.

the problem is, that remembering this is easier said than done. all of us have felt like problems were crushing us and that is hard to endure. i am certainly no different than any of you. and i guess sometimes i get gol darn frickin' angry when i feel like that.

there's a new country western song that my hubby says is my song. it goes "life ain't always beautiful, but it's a beautiful ride......." yup, i think that's my song! i'm far from finding that door out of trouble, but having a break was a good time to do some thinking and some talking with doctor's to keep encouraging them to get their asses in gear!

still waiting to get approved by the insurance for Botox, so please pray for me that it will come through quickly. i'm ready to try something new to address my pain issue.

well, does anyone like this photo? the hillarious, always goofy Max-Ay had to pose with his ice cream cone microphone outside this pizzaria in Seaside, Oregon last night to try to outdo Elvis. Then he asked me if i'd blog the pic! lol!

tomorrow is Papa D's 39th birthday, and since yesterday was looking to be my 2nd day without kidney stone pain, he told me what he wanted to do for his birthday. i told him that as long as he was driving, i could go anywhere on drugs! lol! fortunately, didn't have to do that!

so here's what he wanted to do: drop in on his co-worker who took her horses camping in Nehalem, Oregon to let the kids have a ride, then go a few minutes north back 101 near Manzanita, Oregon to the best surfing beach in the Pacific Northwest. it's a short hike, maybe a mile from the highway through a pristine coastal forest to a spectacular beach for playing in a stream, surfing, making sand castles, doing the whole beach/picnicking thing. the scenery is spectacular.

on the way home, driving through Seaside, Oregon (a popular tourist/teeny-bopper party place) we stopped @ an ice cream shop for Papa D's favorite birthday treat. it was a great day to end the evening. this was my first outing in about a week and it was great to get some sun, take some pictures and just LIVE!!!

i'll be uploading some more pics of our day and a link to a slideshow of all the pictures of it, but i am still in the process of editing the 150 good pics i ended up with! obviously i won't have that many when i'm done, i already deleted 49! haha!

tomorrow, if i'm able, my plan is to clean house which has been sorely neglected because of all the couch potato sitting/movie watching/stone passing. and make the family favorite scandinavian dish called coumpa, as my dad's bday it thursday and we will be celebrating with my side of the family wednesday night for that. i can't wait to hear my grandma say what a good job i did, and that i make it better than my uncle! lol! i made sure grandma taught me how to make it and that i got proficient before she stopped making it. smart girl i am. i wasn't going to live the rest of my life without coumpa. besides, as american's most of us have very few family traditions that come from the "old country" and this is the ONLY one i have from either side of my family, so i wanted to make sure i carried it on!

just wanted to say i'm back, that i've missed everyone and i hope you all haven't forgotten about me!!!!!

my little piggies

my little piggies
Originally uploaded by cameradawktor.

Photo for SPF @ http://www.randomandodd.com Kristine wants us to show her our piggies. It's not Andy Warholish, just Grays Riverish. took this as a random photo while cooling off in the Grays River of SW Washington a few weeks ago. The water looks brown here, but actually it was real clear and you can see to the bottom.

did you play?

btw: for those who care, still passing stones.....let you know when it's all over!!!!!!!

oh me of little faith!

rock on baby rock, bring'em on!
Originally uploaded by cameradawktor.

the other day when talking to my brother-in-law (who recently passed a few stones) about my upcoming lithotripsy and stone passing, he made a comment: "Well lets hope you pass them without any pain."

I'm thinking wtf? hello? didn't you just pass some? you don't pass them without any pain. so i say that to him without the wtf and the hello? part.

he responds: "well maybe some people have bigger tubes (ureter's) than others. to which I say, "a tube is a tube, dude they are all the same size. there's no small, medium and large."

AND, i say, "i've had a stint, which widened one of my tubes and i still laid on bed w/ a heating pad on 2 percocets even with the tiniest of flakes. I DON'T think i'll be passing them without pain!" and you could hear the AMEN ringing in my head.

Well.........this little guy, a 3mm is one of the biggest i've ever passed (remember i've only passed stones that have been blasted into smaller fragments first). I had a percocet @ the hospital around noon, and about 4:30 i surprisingly passed this little fella. i say surprisingly, because usually the percocet wears off about an hour before and i was thinking i didn't need to take more yet, because i wasn't having any pain, so the last thing i thought was that i would find a little gift. besides, with the last lithotripsy it took a few days to pass any.

what a pleasant surprise! and oh how right the dear b-i-l was to say it was possible. sometimes, in my attitude of hopelessness, i forget that good things are possible. clearly, i have no problem pointing this out to people who are TRYING to encourage me with thoughts and wishes of hope. i can be SO negative it's astounding.

so i'm happy, not just because i'm not too "stoned out" on pain pills, or because the hubby was so kind during and after the procedure, or that my parents had the kids overnight, or that i passed a stone so soon. i'm happy because something that should have been painful came easily to me, and i so need a few good things like this right now in my life. i need things to start pulling me out of my hopeless thinking into a thought pattern that contains a little more faith. perhaps it will come one immensely tiny stone @ a time.

and you know, besides wanting to show the family, you all, my kiddos (who get so excited too) but i called that dear b-i-l and told him he was right!!!!!!!!

Prayer of a Child

Prayer of a Child
Originally uploaded by csamuel23.

Heard by my son Max-Ay:

"Dear Lord Je- Hiccup! sus,"

"hahaha.....please.......STOP IT TSE!" (TSE can be heard giggling in the background)

"ple- Hiccup! - Please, help my mom's........hahaha........I'm only laughing because you are laughing TSE!"

"OK, go on," i say.

"Please help- hiccup! - my mom's kidney stones when they get bla- hiccup!- sted. Please help them all come out, even - hiccup! - even though I know they won't, please help her- hiccup!" "Thank you Jesus, Amen"

~now which part do you gotta love, the hiccups or the "i know it won't but help her anyway.....~

sounds an awful lot like me, i sure hope God can't resist the prayers of a child..............

farmer bob explaining the death of his beloved wife

farmer bob explaining the death of his beloved wife
Originally uploaded by cameradawktor.

OK, I'm still on a break, but you knew I'd pop up sooner or later. farmer bob here has had a tough year, sometimes in life, sometimes more often than we'd like, times are real tough. I can relate to some of the personal pain farmer bob is sharing with leroy. it's easy to share tough times with leroy, he's that kind of a guy.

well, i've been struggling and that's about as mildly as i'm going to put it. i've always tried to be real honest here but some things are just too rawly honest to share, so believe it or not i'm going to be a little tight lipped. just realize that on my break i am hoping to sort out a few things i've really been struggling with.

but besides wanting to share farmer bob with y'all, i had a real hallelujah moment this afternoon that's brought me the brightest glimmer of hope i've had in a month. BOTOX, yup, that's right, that's next on my line-up and I just have to wait for the paperwork and insurance ok but the neurologist is going to shoot me up with botox. now before you go getting all excited about me getting rid of my crows feet, search the archives here for a picture and you damn well won't find any crows feet on me! but guess what, if and i mean IF this works as an anti-migraine med for me, you will never see the crows feet on my face that will eventually emerge! yippee, wahooo and hallelujah.

now before you get all mushy on me, don't think for a gosh darn minute that i think it's going to help, but dang if i won't try.

so now i'm whisking back off into silence. comment if you wish but don't be disappointed or take it personal if i don't respond back, i'm still trying to keep it low key here. say a few prayers for me on monday as my lithotripsy is at 8:30 am PST and then I hope to be passing a few stones for a while after that. i need all the encouragement and hang-in there's i can get.

now meet bob:

here's the description i wrote for this photo: "personally, i am really anti sneak-up-on-a-stranger type photographer. but this man was so fascinating, so full of life, work, history, farming, love.....

his hands were amazing and i wasn't bold enough to ask him to pose for a photo of his hands. he would have thought i was nuts. however, if i meet him again, i just might.

he was dusty, with bits of hay scattered over his old worn-out clothes. his hands were stained with grease in the creases of his wrinkles and his beard unshaven. it's haying time and this is the first summer he's had to farm without his wife.

he remembered leroy when he used to live on his dad's dairy farm (which he now owns a piece of) as a boy. he was quick to tell all the details of his wife's passing and a slight tear was seen in the corner of his eye. he's the kind of man that is quick to take a firm shake of your hand as he pauses from his hard work, and will look you squarely in the eye. men like this are hard to find these days.....meet farmer bob."

Taking a Break

Missing Santa Claus
Originally uploaded by cameradawktor.

HI! I hope everyone had a great fourth of july.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm going to be taking a week or two break from blogging. I have a lot on my plate right now with the upcoming lithotripsy and the other concerns I am dealing with.

I just need to take care of myself and I'm very tired.

So I will be back soon, thanks for always stopping by and enjoying my photos. Have a great few weeks!

Also, I won't be checking my e-mails so any comments to this post probably won't be posted. K? Thanks~

Alpha Dog Syndrome

Missy
Originally uploaded by cameradawktor.

Boy I'm tired, maybe its the benadryl. My eyes were killing me from allergies because of all the fresh cut grass, hay and cottonwoods. So I am sleepy, very, very sleeeeepy...........

What a fantastic weekend. Good friends, good food, good fellowship, great swimming, beautiful scenery. Wow! All that fun sure wears you out!

This photo is of the renter's dog who lives on the property we camped on. She had a BAD case of Alpha Dog syndrome. And, my dog can be so freaking clueless. When she or all the other 4 dogs growled at her, she just didn't learn to stay away. Well, tonight right before we left Missy (Alpha Dog) decided to attack here. Sweet little Zoers got a tooth or a claw right through her ear and it bled fo a while.

I hope she has learned from this that when Alpha Dogs say leave me alone that means LEAVE ME ALONE>>>>>>>>>>

So, I will not be camping there until that guy moves out and takes his dog with him!

We had such a blast. We spent two afternoons intertubing and swimming on the Grays River. It's a small river that you can see all the way to the bottom, its so clear. Nice and cool on a hot day.

So much to tell, but I must hit the hay now. Early to bed it is for me tonight. But I will work on uploading my photos to flicker and posting more pics and stories from our special time. LeRoy and Jenny are such easy people to be around, they genuinely love our kids and express it often, and aren't uptight campers. It was sublime.......

Goodnight y'all!