Opening Day Beauty

The wildflowers are outstanding this year because of the Rim fire.  Grace and I got some good looks at them while hiking around waiting for the fisher people.

And we found one really cool burned tree that had the most beautiful wood.

Opening Dave - Stream Fishing - April 2015

All the fisher people (and Hops' hiney!)

Jawbone Creek

Lunch - before the rain hit.

We met Jim's family - Cousins Gary, Rudy, Karen and Lisa - up near Cherry for opening day of stream fishing for trout.  We have been planning this for months and were really looking forward to it!  We fished with them a couple years ago and really enjoyed it.  Cousin Gary has been fishing that area his whole life and teaches us all kinds of things when we get together.

We made a plan to meet at 9 am near Crane Creek.  We were making great time until we came upon a giant boulder in the middle of the road!  It actually only slowed us down long enough to take a pic.

What really slowed us down was the snow!  Up near Cherry there was 6 to 8 inches on the ground and when we got to Crane Creek there was about 8 to 10 inches.

Ahi got some good digging time in!

Weener in the backpack!

We were so excited to see snow!  We met up with the cousins and made a plan.  We fished the lower Crane while the "older folks" fished upper Crane.  Since the snow was so deep, Ahi couldn't walk in it so we put her in a backpack and carried her (see pic).  I can't believe she just calmly rides in a backpack for an hour of hiking.

Hops was so fired up to be in the snow for the first time.  She ran around like crazy!  And Daisy - at 11 and a half - kept up with us the whole time and was so happy.  (However, she was pooped out that evening.)

While fishing at Crane, we had rain, sleet and snow.  But NO fish!  Not even a bite.  The folks on upper Crane caught a few.

Note all three dogs in this pic!

A man and his Labrador

Grace - 15 1/2 years old

My two girlies in the snow.

Parked at Jawbone Creek

After Crane Creek we drove about 3 miles over to Jawbone Creek.  It is slightly lower in elevation so there was almost no snow.  Here we had quite a bit of rain.  Everyone else fished while Grace and I took the dogs and hiked thru some of the area totally devastated by the Rim fire.  Ahi liked it here better because she could hike.

After fishing we sat down and had some lunch.  About halfway thru lunch it started pouring!  Luckily we had packed the easy up so we stayed fairly dry.

It was our first adventure with the new Tahoe and boy did it get dirty - both inside and out.  Ahi got a wild hair and ran all over it with muddy feet.  And the two labs were sopping wet from playing in the snow.  It is quite stinky already.

No fish all day but lots of great adventures!

Jawbone Creek area

A boulder blocking the road.

Hops' first time in the snow.

Daisy Mae looking out the window as we start driving into the snow!

Beautiful Day

Grace had 5 more community service hours to get done by the end of hte school year so we did some over the weekend.  YES!  I said "WE".  No one in our family likes to miss out on an adventure so both Jim and I joined in.

The project was building a community garden for a school in Sunnyvale and was done thru beautifulday.org.  Jim was a huge help to them because most of what we did was set forms for the side walks.  The 3 of us were able to get a lot of work done in the 5 hours we volunteered.  Well....I didn't volunteer the whole time because my job was to run and walk the dogs so they could be tied up and not act like jerks while we worked.  See pic below of Hops.

The dogs got in an hour and a half of running around and track and walking around the neighborhood.

It always feels so awesome to help out and we met some really nice people!  Beautiful Day does really good work and is a great resource if you are looking for volunteer projects.

Hops waiting for us to finish our shift

Sam - State Cup Game

Sam was a giant compared to his team mates!

We went to watch Sam play in a State Cup game on Sunday up in San Ramon.  Grandpa Tom joined us.  As did Hops.  Unfortunately they lost but it was fun to see Sam play and fun to hang out with my Bro.

Such interested fans!

Breeze and Hops

Jim's friend Joey has a black lab pup named Breeze.  He goes to work with Joey on most days.  Jim is working with Joey this week and is taking Hops with him.  How fun is that for both of them!

Bless the Doggies

Our pack's blessing

We went up to the stables at my folks place today and had the doggies blessed.  They did some prayers and some songs followed by a group blessing for all the animals (and people) in attendance.

Then we asked for a special blessing of just our pack:

Murray, Pepper, Hops, Daisy Mae and Ahi

I said a special prayer for each of my dogs:

• I prayed for strength for Daisy Mae's old back!
• I prayed for Hops to learn to load up into the truck!
• I prayed for Ahi to be less snarly!

AMEN!

Group Blessing

Waiting for their blessing!

Stairs

We do a lot of laughing at Hops.  For many reasons!  Two of which are:

• She is TOTALLY happy ALL of the time
• She has what we describe as having some junk in her trunk - meaning she has quite the booty

This video of her going down the stairs shows both those things beautifully!

Also to note - she is not supposed to be upstairs and just started pushing the limit on that by running up the stairs and coming to find us - all while soooooo happy!

RAFT Project

Rocket Prototypes

Work makes it really easy to give back to the community by providing charity events right on campus.  Whenever they are offered I always volunteer some time.

Yesterday I helped make rocket kits for teachers thru the RAFT organization.  We built kits for teachers that contained all the supplies and directions to make 10 rockets.  We completed over a 1200 kits in less than an hour!

My job was quality control - I had to check each kit to make sure they were complete!

Packaged and ready to go

Kits

Phil Keaggy Concert

Me., Grace and Auntie Deb went to a Phil Keaggy concert at the kids school last nite.  Keaggy is a well known acoustic and electric guitarist in the Christian and mainstream markets.  I don't know much about guitar but this guy was amazing.  And it was something so different from the things I normally do that it was good for my brain!  He was really entertaining too - talking about his family and his childhood and doing Elvis songs!  Fun nite out!

What a mess!

 These dogs make a mess!  Stuffed animal guts and toy remnants are everywhere - all the time!  This is a pic of them wondering why they can't be inside while I vacuum up all their mess!

Tomato Time

It's tomato time! 

I wavered about whether to plant tomatoes because of the drought.  I didn't want to use the water.  But then I heard a guy on the radio talk about putting black plastic down and how it cut the water needed by a lot - he said you could cut water back to once every two weeks in some instances.  So we are trying it.

I chose plants that are specifically grown for planters or pots.  So with the right type of plants and the plastic, I am hoping for a great tomato haul!

Get Hard

Grace, Jim, Marty, Tina and I went to see the Movie "Get Hard" with Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell.  It was pretty funny - definitely worth renting or even a trip to the theater.  Marty and Jim were acting goofy in the lobby while waiting for us.

Happy 50th!

Saturday nite was Doug's 50th birthday party.   It was a wonderful celebration with dear friends who we have known for over 30 years.

Weekend in AZ

Drew had a fun weekend in AZ.  On Saturday nite, him, Amanda, Luke and Chad went up to Phoenix to watch a Diamondbacks - LA Dodgers game.  Then on Sunday he went to a carnival on campus.

Diamondbacks stadium

Crusty Bread for Me

Crusty Bread

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon Instant or Rapid-rise yeast
1 1/2 cups water

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, salt and yeast. Add water and mix until a shaggy mixture forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 12 - 18 hours. Overnight works great. Heat oven to 450 degrees. When the oven has reached 450 degrees place a cast iron pot with a lid in the oven and heat the pot for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, pour dough onto a heavily floured surface and shape into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let set while the pot is heating. Remove hot pot from the oven and drop in the dough. Cover and return to oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes remove the lid and bake an additional 15 minutes. Remove bread from oven and place on a cooling rack to cool.

New Rig

I got myself a fancy new rig, because the old rig is getting tired and unreliable for the paces we put it thru!

We designed just what we wanted and had it special ordered - which is totally the way to go - it saved us about $20k.

Although it is a beautiful rig, we do need to do some modifications to it to make it just what we need. 

Jim is working on getting it lifted so it will be better for our off road and towing activities.  And then to make it a little more bad ass, we will get new rims, tinted windows and get it blacked out - which means removing the chrome. 

So it will go from looking like a soccer mom rig to looking like a rugged bad ass adventure machine!

That pup...

Giant baby

Triple tug-o-war

Sound asleep in the backseat

At Tina's house - supposed to be playing but taking a nap instead

Am I too close?

Sleeping with her baby.

Looks like she is flying

We LOVE her!