Adam Burns Band

We went to a small town concert last nite. The band, The Adam Burns Band, was one we had seen over the New Years Holiday at Badger Pass. I had purchased their CD back in January and was happy to get to see them again. The venue was a small garden center near the cabin. We brought our own lawn chairs and picnic dinner. We danced on the lawn and had a great time!

Crawdad Hunting

"On Alert"









Went crawdad hunting today down at Big Creek.

We ran into a family that had just seen a bear! So this is a pic of Ahi on bear alert! (not really - she was just hanging out in the grass oblivious to the danger that was lurking around her! remember...she is a dog of little brain!)

We caught one crawdad and put it in Tina's fancy water bottle! We brought him back to the cabin, made him a habitat and named him Bob.

Underwear Liason

Nothing but drama....Marty forgot his underwear and we will be on our trip for 10 days!

So, we start trying to problem solve....how do we find underwear for Marty without driving into Sonora. Here are some ideas:

1. Marty could wear Tina's underwear.

2. Jim said Marty could wear his....as soon as Jim was done with it.

3. Marty said he could just wear his bike shorts that he had with him....that lasted until our first walk when he got so hot he thought his crotch might catch on fire. Friction...you know!

4. Someone suggested going to the second hand/thrift store in town.

We finally settled on calling Grandma Kathy and having her stop at Costco on the way up to the cabin and purchasing Marty some new tightie whities! Here first response, when we asked, was....."this is above and beyond the call of duty"!

On her way to the cabin, Grandma called the cabin to check in and Marty answered the phone. Marty's question to her...."do you have your hands on my underwear yet?"....

That was only the beginning of the jokes related to Marty's underwear!

Rescue Rescue

It's our second day of vacation and we have already conducted TWO rescues!

The first one was on Friday nite.

After I got done working (I worked from the cabin that day), I met Jim, Drew, Gracie and Jeremy down on the boat. We were going out for a swim off the boat. On our way to the bouy we were going to tie up to, Jeremy saw a sail boat go over. That happens all the time on the lake so we didn't think much of it. But as we were watching, we didn't see any people surface. So we started motoring in their direction. As we approached, we saw an older woman and man (late 60's). The woman was having a hard time clinging to the hull of the overturned boat and the man was trying unsuccessfully to upright the boat.

We asked if they needed help and they said "YES"! So the woman swam to our boat and got in it while Jim dove in to help the man with the boat. The boat's sails were filled with water so there was NO way it was going to be turned over. So while Drew manuevered our boat and Jim held onto the keel, the man undid the sails. Once the sails were down, Jeremy stood inside our boat and pulled the mast up out of the water while the man and Jim pulled on the keel.

While this was all happening, the PML boat patrol was no where in sight! So I called the front gate on Jim's cell phone and asked them to call the marina and send help!

Once the sailboat was over, it kept wanting to tip because it was so filled with water! So Jim bailed it out while treading water. The boat patrol showed up and towed the sail boat in while we took the woman to the shore.

The woman was soooo grateful that she kept offering dessert, drinks, batteries....anything we needed! We said, "no need, we are just sorry that our capes are in SJ!" Then we told her we were going fishing that nite and she said she thought we would have really good luck fishing because of our good deed!




The second rescue occurred on Saturday nite.

We went out on the boat to watch the fireworks (it was an awesome show) and once the fireworks were over, boats were headed in all different directions trying to get home. We decided to just sit there for awhile to let the chaos settle down.

While waiting there, a boat close to us started drifting into us as they were trying to start their boat. Everytime they tried to start it, smoke billowed out of the engine.

Finally, as they were close to hitting us they said they had no power. So we grabbed hold of them (to keep us from crashing into them) and looked at their engine to help them. Turns out that there was a rope wrapped around their propeller! The people in their boat could not get to it as they were at the wrong angle. So we pulled up our boat to their engine and Jim untangled the rope for them!

Redneck Weiner

Got this pic from Marty - he sent it to my phone! Made me giggle.

BP Spills Coffee

Hilarious video of what happens when BP execs spill there coffee at a meeting.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM

Book Club Recap

I love our Book Club!

It's really hardly a book club but rather a chance to get together with a group of fabulous women who I like more and more each day that I spend with them. I was thinking, today, about how different each of them are and how much I love what each of them brings to my life.

Auntie Deb - She is sensitive yet wise and accepting of all.
Heather - She is our very own comedian who always keeps us rolling with laughter.
Jasmine - Her job is to add some class and style to the group.
Tina - She is our resident foodie....need I say more?
Lani - Her wit and frankness keep us giggling thru our get togethers...."grab hold of my arm....you ass!" is her latest one liner!
Lesley - Her job is to maintain a positive attitude and love EVERYONE unconditionally.
Tracy - Our newest member is a fine example of love and devotion to her family....even when they are 3 stinky boys (4 including her husband)!

I am truly blessed to call these quirky group of gals my friends!

New fishing gear

Here are pics of my newest fishing gear to try out at Cherry Lake. First is a pirate flag for the pontoon mama! And next is a cute little pink fishing pole that is small so that I can use it with ease on the kayak!

Life is good.....

Annie's Tan

This is a pic of my Aunt's dog tanning her tummy! You can't argue the fact that a girl always looks better with a little tan!

Video?

Testing adding videos to my blog....Did it work?

Lily and Otis

When we first arrived in Florida at our resort, we met these dogs, Lily and Otis! The next day, we saw them getting their baths - pic above! Of course, with my love of bulldogs, I LOVED them!

New pets from Florida

If I could have figured out a way to get these guys home from Florida, I would have had a few more pets!

Humid?

We had REALLY hot weather in Florida! Some of the days it was 100 degrees but with the humidity, it was closer to 110 degrees!

One of the tools to survive is the DE humidifier. That is what this is. It ran all the time and within 24 hours had removed a gallon of water from the air in our condo! Unbelievable!

Crab Shack.....Baby

After we left Savannah, we went out to Tybee Island, Georgia and ate lunch at the Crab Shack. This was a crazy outdoor place with a gator pond! The kids got some dog treats and fed them to the gators!

The place had live webcams, so I sent my coworkers instant messages and they checked it out and could see us on the web cams!

The Boardwalk

On our last nite of vacation, we had dinner at the Amelia Island Plantation's boardwalk. It was this great area that had live music, lots of families and great food. OH! And dollar beers, which is what got us there. Luckily Drew was able to drive the beer drinkers home in the golf cart! It was a great way to spend the last nite.

Fishing at the Plantation Amelia Island

One nite on Amelia Island we went out for a ride in the golf cart and met up with a family from Alabama who were fishing in the brackish ponds on the plantations. (Brackish is water that is fresh and salt mixed togehter) They were pulling in giant (in our eyes) blue gill! That is all we needed....off Jim went to Walmart to get some fishing poles! He got these awesome short poles (about 3 feet long) that will be great to use on the kayaks.

We set out to catch some fish with "slim jim" pepperoni sticks. We were not as good as the family from Alabama....all we caught were two turtles! The turtles put up quite a fight and were hard to get off the hooks. Check out the nails on the one with the yellow belly.

The great blue heron that spent the whole time watching us is named "Bob"! He is a semi tamed bird that the Amelia Island naturalists rescued from fishing line. He hangs around and begs for fish from the fisherman. Too bad for him, all we had were "slim jims".

Kayaking

Here are some pics of our kayak trip in Amelia Island. We paddled around in the marsh. We saw a couple dolphin, a shark, lots of birds and thousands of these crazy white clawed crab! The crabs had one giant white claw that they waved in the air trying to attract a mate. There were so many of them on the muddy shore that they looked like ribbons waving.

We also saw a bunch of oyster beds - see pic. They were all over the place. But they were not oysters for people because they were really small. They call them racoon oysters because the racoon hang out in the marsh and eat them up. I saw a racoon and it was the scrawniest looking racoon I ever saw.

It was so beautiful and peaceful.

Shark!

This is the second shark we saw in Florida. The first was on our kayak tour (pics to come later). This one is a bonnet shark and was caught by a guy on the beach....where we were swimming!

I wanted to bring him home for a pet. Marty said he would expand Hank's pond and we could name him Nabby!

Golf cart adventures

This condo comes with a golf cart that we use to get around the plantation or just go out for adventures. The first time we used it, we got hopelessly lost and wore out the battery! This is Drew and Gracie pushing us up a hill because there was not enough guts left in the battery!

A little investigation revealed that there was no water in the batteries, so we did a little repair job and fixed it up! The owners didn't know that they got repair people in the exchange.

Ghost tours

We did a ghost tour last nite. It had a lot of history mixed with dead people. It was really interesting and a different way to learn about a city. It is no wonder that these really old cities that are steeped in war and violence have ghosts!

Grace was really apprehensive to got on the tour but it wasn't that scary!

Birthday Dinner

Last nite we had my birthday dinner at a GREAT place called "The Pink House" in Savannah. It is an old haunted historical building. The server told us that last week one of the servers was upstairs closing up when "someone" left a cabinet door open that should have been closed and as soon as the server closed it, the fire alarm went off. The people who were downstairs got an alarm saying there was a fire on the floor he was on!

Jim had a giant flounder (see pic). It is a trade secret recipe that they won't give out. The food was outstanding!

While in Florida and Georgia, Ahi and Daisy are staying with Tina and Marty. You can see from these pics that they seem to have adjusted ok to us being gone.

But it was not without drama. On Sunday nite, Marty and his nephew, Jake, took the dogs to the school for a run. They let them off leash which is not a problem, unless Ahi has a chiweenie brainfart and suddenly realizes that Marty is not her mama! She would not come to Marty to be leashed back up. So he called Tina, who is Ahi's other mother.

Tina rushed over to help, only to have Ahi have a case of total amnesia! Ahi was thinking, "Who is this woman??"

Ahi ended up running all the way home! She jumped on her pillow and refused to look at anyone.

She really is a dope!

Amelia Island

Don't have much time to post but here are a few pics from Amelia Island. We are in a great two bedroom condo right on the beach. We literally walk out and are in the sand within 100 feet. You can see our view out to ocean in one of the pics.

New combo

We have a new offering at the gym and I tried it out this morning after my spin class. So after I did 1 hour of spin, I did one hour of power yoga. It was the toughest yoga class I have done and I think it was particulary hard after spin because my legs were already fatigued. I am going try it again next weds and see how it goes.

The only bad part is I am STARVING!

Happy Graduation

Instead of a normal graduation gift like a laptop or money, we got Drew a white water rafting trip down the Tuolomne River! He and Jim went together last week - Gracie and I would NEVER go!

The had fun but Drew said it was scary and he would probably never do it again. At one point, everyone but Drew and the guide were thrown out of the boat. That left Drew to pull everyone back in! Way to much pressure for him.

In this pic, Jim is in the front left and Drew is behind him.