Brrr

Jim is hunting in Northern AZ - he has been there for 9 days.  This was today.  Not only is it freezing cold and snowing but they were out in it all day looking for deer.   Fun???

Science

G is doing a science experiment for one of her classes.   She has to put an egg in water and an egg in vinegar and then watch it for 7 days.  Because we are over achievers, we added one in fizzy water, one in beer and one in a coke!  Stay tuned!

Dog Day at Work

Hops comes to work with me pretty regularly.   Everyone loves her and we have visitors all day to pet and snuggle with her.

Oprah and Hops

She has a CCI puppy in training friend at work named Oprah.   Since our last visit with Oprah, Bernie, a new CCI pup has joined the company.   So during this visit, we all met at the work dog park for a fun play date.  They all enjoyed the break in the day.

Oprah, Hops and Bernie

Thanksgiving 2019

It was a pretty quiet Thanksgiving.  Jim was hunting in Northern AZ so it was me and the kids for the first half of the day until we went to G Kathy and G Tom's for dinner. G Anna and G Roy joined us!

We took a hike to Calero in the morning and let the dogs run themselves silly!

We played rummikub and a new card game called 3 to 13 while waiting for dinner to be made.  It was an enjoyable evening of good company and good food.

2 BIG Dudes and a Pixie

Kim, who does the whole family's hair, sent me this pic of her, Jeremy and Drew following a haircut for Drew.   I have known Kim since the 4th grade and she is like a member of the family.   We all love to go see her and catch up.  She has literally been cutting the kids hair their whole lives.   We sure will miss her when she moves to AZ.

Bad Ass Ladies California Tour - Day 2

Day 2 was a trip to the Yosemite high country and Mono Lake.  Our first stop (above) was a quick stop so Linda could see Half Dome (on the pic on the left).

Then we set off on a hike to Dog Lake and a hike around Lembert Dome.   We started at about 8250 feet and went up.  It was a rough mile with stops every 400 feet to let our hearts catch up.

We hiked through a lodge pole pine forest which was quite cool and included an icy creek.

Dog Lake

As people who love trails, we were happy to cross John Muir Trail

After our hike, Linda headed home to get ready for a trip to Japan and we had a picnic at the Dog Lake trailhead. And then we headed over Tioga Pass to Mono Lake.

Again, the weather was amazing and we were in short sleeves checking out the beautiful tufas.

Bad Ass Ladies are Crafty

These Bad Ass Ladies are not just pretty faces and fit bodies - they are crafty.   Above are the chocolate truffles that Shannon made and below are the soaps that Susan made (under the direction of Shannon!).

And this pic was colored by all the Bad Ass Ladies while sitting around the table chatting.

Bad Ass Ladies Tour 2019

Susan and Shannon came down to CA for this years Bad Ass Ladies Tour.  We decided that we were all too busy to do a backpacking trip so we stayed at the cabin and did day trips.  Liz and I were the Reps from CA!  We got lucky with summer like weather.

On our first day, Linda joined us for a hike at Hetch Hetchy.  It was a warm November day and we hiked about 6 miles to a little past Wamapa Falls.

There was a bunch of work being done around Wapama Falls and the rangers had all their gear stashed for the next day of work.

Bridges at Wapama

We had a delicious picnic lunch on a rock halfway through the hike.

Bad ass ladies!

We came from our hike and had sweet potato, lentil, kale stew that Susan had dehydrated in WA and re-constituted in CA.  It was delicious.    We had fun after dinner chatting, eating truffles that Shannon brought and coloring.

Fish Counting

While I was away last week for a business trip, Jim and G went to a meeting about volunteer fishing counting.  And they came home with 4 different zones to be in charge of!

We went out yesterday morning and checked out 2 of the zones and hung up no fishing signs.

This is our fish counting backpack

There are no signs of salmon yet.  We need some big storms before the scent works its way out into the bay and leads them up the stream.

Stay tuned for reports.

Wallaby

Stuff crab hat!

Wallaby went home after 3 days with us that we all thoroughly enjoyed.  She was a sweet, smart, happy girl.  And as we had her we started to discover that it was likely she was well through her professional training experience.  Our first clue being when she tried to help me pull clothes out of the dryer.   The next clue was when she picked up a credit card off the ground!

At work with me

Oprah and Wallaby

She came to work with me on Wednesday because G had a long day at school.  While at work, we met up with Oprah a CCI pup being raised by a coworker.  We hung out for a while in the dog park at work - yes, you read that right....we have a dog park at work!

Wallaby sharing a bed with Hops....not sure why the bed is sideways!

The day after she returned to HQ's we got this picture --- she was set to go into Team Training the next week!  That means she gets placed with her person and they spend two weeks of extensive training together to make sure they are a good match.   Go Wallaby!  As we told her the whole time we had her.....you have great work to do!