Family Fun

Our annual family camping weekend consisted of 25 adults, 2 children, 3 babies, 11 tents, 1 trailer, hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken, kabobs, beef, pop, water, booze, booze, oh, and did I mention, BOOZE? People came from Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida, and North Carolina.

Just sitting around shooting the breeze. The arrow is pointing to our son, Jason.



Two of my cute nieces, Carrie and Becky.



Camping is all about roughing it. Here is my nephew, Eric, changing one of his babies on a camping chair.



Isn’t she just adorable?



This is my daughter, Jessica, brushing my granddaughter, Lily’s teeth, with no water, OUTSIDE!



One night Ron and Karen brought out two sets of "skis". Each ski had 4 handles attached to ropes. So picture a person putting a foot on each ski. Now picture FOUR people standing on the SAME set of skis, and holding the ropes. This is what it looks like.



The object of this "game" is to have everyone lift their feet at the same time and move forward. Sound easy? Uh, it's not. The leader calls out "Right", "Left". Ideally when the word is called out, you would lift the correct side with the handle, bend your leg, and thrust forward to move the ski forward. I laughed so hard that I couldn't catch my breath. At one point my sister-in-law, Dorie, who is standing behind me in the picture above, fell off the skis, and the ground wasn't level. That's all I saw was her butt and legs up in the air. It was hysterical. Then she had to scramble up and get back on the skis as we were racing the other team. Although if you look in the background of the photo below, you can see that they weren't doing too well either, as someone is lying on the ground! Click to enlarge the photos to see the true silliness of this!









Nothing like a good campfire to sit and gaze at, or roast marshmallows for smores.



Usually smores consist of graham crackers, Hershey's chocolate squares, and roasted marshmallows. Karen introduced me to Keebler fudge stripe cookies



Just use those and marshmallows and call it a day! They also went back to the old fashioned way with graham crackers, marshmallows, and instead of the squares of chocolate, used Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. They are the connoisseurs of Smores!

I played around with the fire photo above in Paintshop Pro to get this.



Another night we all made ice cream in ziploc bags. It was a lot of fun! Here's the recipe:

What you'll need:

a.. 1 tablespoon sugar
b.. 1/2 cup milk or half & half
c.. 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
d.. 6 tablespoons rock salt
e.. 1 pint-size plastic food storage bag (e.g., Ziploc)
f.. 1 gallon-size plastic food storage bag
g.. Ice cubes

How to make it:

1.. Fill the large bag half full of ice, and add the rock salt. Seal the bag.
2.. Put milk, vanilla, and sugar into the small bag, and seal it.
3.. Place the small bag inside the large one, and seal it again carefully.
4.. Shake until the mixture is ice cream, which takes about 5 minutes.
5.. Wipe off the top of the small bag, then open it carefully. Enjoy!

Tips:

A 1/2 cup milk will make about 1 scoop of ice cream, so double the recipe if you want more.

Here's the group making the ice cream.









If that wasn't enough ice cream, there was an ice cream CAKE for my son-in-law, Dave's, birthday.



We all sang Happy Birthday to Dave. Here he is talking and cutting the cake at the same time. He's so multi-talented!



You may have noticed that we're all wearing the same shirts. No, we don't have the same taste in clothes! It was time to order a new T-shirt; it's been about 10 years since our last shirts came out, and some of us, ahem, have grown out of them, and there are always new members joining the family. Like these cutie pies.





Here we are in all our t-shirt glory!



And finally, if this isn't the epitome of a good time, I don't know what is!



(The penis water bottle was given to me as a gift [thanks, Lenore!]. I bequeathed it to my single niece. It looks like a good time was had by all!)

Devil's Lake State Park

Whew! We had a fun filled weekend our annual family camping get together. The majority of Jim's siblings were able to attend. This year we returned to Devil's Lake State Park, which is located in Wisconsin. Here is the drive into the park.



This park offers many things to do like canoeing:



Swimming (look way in the background!)



Fishing:



Paddle boating:



Playing along the water's edge with your dog:



Surfing along the water's edge with your boogie board:



Walking along the water's edge with your granddaughter:



Walking along the water's edge with your daughter AND granddaughter:



Throwing your baby up in the air:



Or just take one of the several hiking paths throughout the park. This one is called the "Tumbled Rocks" hiking path, and runs along the shore of the lake. Quartzite rocks are strewn throughout the path. Jim, our daughter Jessica, our granddaughter Lily, and me went on this hike.





Benches are placed here and there on the path so one can rest their weary bones and gaze out at the beautiful water.



You probably FELT what it's like to be between a rock and a hard place, but have you actually SEEN it? Well here it is! It's a small rock between two larger rocks.



This is looking up at all the fallen rock frozen in motion down the hill, with the tall fir trees at the very top.



I loved this dead tree with it's human looking arm pointing out to the water. It reminded me of the talking apple trees from The Wizard of Oz.



Look at this colorful lichen on the rocks.



I like how this fir tree just seems to grow straight out of the rocks. Perseverance!



We met up with some of our relatives farther down the path. Here are two of my sister-in-laws searching for a geocache "prize". (They found it under a nearby rock with the help from my niece!)



My brother-in-law Ron waits for the ladies near the path.




Nature's painted canvas:



Jess and Lily on the path. Lily is holding Grandma's walking stick!



A butterfly drinking nectar



Rocks and water



We met a second group of family members coming back from their hike. Notice that the men are carrying babies. The last couple are the parents of the babies.



These are the newest additions to our family - Brianna and Abigail. Don't ask me which one is which, because I can't see what color their eyes are from this picture. Brianna has blue eyes.



Here are their proud grandparents.



My next post will show you the games we played and other fun photos. Stay tuned.

Sunday Bridges - Custer State Park

This is the first time I'm joining in on this meme for "Sunday Bridges" sponsored by Louis La Vache at San Franciso Bay Daily Photo.

We came across this bridge while touring Custer State Park in South Dakota. This is called a pigtail bridge due to the way it is constructed.




Click on the photo to enlarge it so that you may be able to better read the sign about the bridge.



For more bridges, please click here.

Just a note

Hello everyone! Just wanted to let you know that I am away for the weekend at our annual family camping trip. We have NO cell service, NO internet, and NO satellite dish. Now THAT'S what I call roughing it! My brother-in-law was kind enough to lend me his wireless device for me to post this. I will catch up on all your posts when I am fully connected again! Have a great weekend!

Flashback Friday - Monument Valley

Flashback Friday is a segment where I "entertain" you with photos and captivating prose about places we've traveled since we've been on the road. So sit back, and hopefully, enjoy.

If you ever want to take a vacation where you want to see the natural beauty of our land, to feel insignificant compared to the vastness of it's size, then Monument Valley is just the place. It is located on the Utah/Arizona border and is on Navajo land.

This is the scenery just driving TO Monument Valley. Please click on each photo to enlarge them to see how truly beautiful it is around this area.











Our campground was nestled among the beautiful red rocks and was on the Navajo Reservation. Here are some pictures of the campground.



Looking out as the setting sun reflects off of the beautiful rock formations in the distance.



That's our truck, Big Blue, and our trailer, first in line.



We had no cell service there, which meant no internet, either (we use an air card for service). I had to use a pay phone to call family members. When was the last time YOU used a pay phone? Think about it! Anyway, I called my sister one afternoon. She was having a hard time hearing me for two reasons a) bad connection and b) her grandkids were acting up. So I said, quite loudly, I might add, "The NATIVES are restless?"

Oh yes I did.

After I uttered the words I quickly looked around to see if anyone heard me. Nobody was standing near the phone, but the gift shop doors were open and possibly the woman inside heard me. I was SO EMBARRASSED! I can honestly say that I had NEVER uttered that phrase before in my life! Where did it come from? It was like I had temporary TOURETTE'S SYNDROME or something.

Okay, back to the tour.

You can drive a few miles into Monument Valley on your own, but to see some really good things, you should really take a tour. Since it IS a reservation, you have to go with a guide to see more of the valley. These are pictures from that tour.

First we stopped at this traditional Navajo home, called a "Hogan".



Inside was this Indian woman who showed us how they spun wool, ground corn, braided their hair, and even how they positioned their legs so they could sit for long hours.



I can't remember what this structure is for, but I liked the look of it.



This is the view from the visitor's center. If you enlarge this, you will see a white car driving on the road off in the distance. You will get an idea of exactly how large the valley is and the structures that rise out of the ground. In this photo are the right and left mittens.



We drove way far in to see this beauty.



Now to get an idea of the size of the rock, look how small the people are in front of it!



Wide, open spaces interrupted by these huge rock sculptures. I almost felt like we were on Mars with all the red rock.



This is called the Three Sisters.



This is called The Big Hogan. I love the way the sun is shining through the hole in the top of the rock.



It's so easy to imagine Navajos from so long ago carving these into the stone, standing in the very same spot as I was that day. I was very overwhelmed.



If some of these sights look familiar to you, you might remember them from the movies. Many movies were filmed in Monument Valley such as My Darling Clementine, The Searchers, How the West Was Won, The Legend of the Lone Ranger, and Fort Apache. As a matter of fact, one night the local hotel was showing "The Searchers" with John Wayne, so Jim and I went over to watch it. It was cool to spot the landmarks in the film that we had seen that day on our tour.

Monument Valley is a wonderful place to visit, and a photographer's dream to photograph. I would recommend this place to everyone - it's not real touristy and there isn't a lot to do in the area, so a couple of days would suffice. But it's worth it for a chance to see these beautiful rock formations!