Pokey Pastures

Snow!

2011-01-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, we were blessed with a good snowfall. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment. Samantha was our photographer for the day.

They don't look so white now, do they?

Front path

The gnome is still smiling!


Snow Angel!

The dogs had a blast too!

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T17:19:00.000-08:00

Dorothy got a new camera for Christmas, so she will be able to keep the blog updated with pictures more often.

Jarrett started working on a short brick planter that will go around our patio and garden box area. Here are a couple of pictures of the work in progress.

Norman & Oscar

2010-08-25T17:01:00.000-07:00

We've added a new addition to our family - Oscar the lamb. He was given to us because we needed a friend for Norman, our first pet lamb. Why do we have a pet lamb in the first place, you ask? He was going to be Samantha's project lamb for 4-H, but we didn't turn in the DNA samples in time. So he is now our pet. Here are pictures of each of them:


Oscar

Norman

There was a light sprinkling today. Rain in the summer is always a nice surprise.

Corn Harvest

2010-08-03T07:56:00.000-07:00

Sunday we harvested the corn. We ended up with a total of 150 ears. We shucked, blanched, cooled off in ice water, then vacuum packed them for the freezer.


Pile o' corn

Close-up of Peaches and Cream Variety

In the freezer

One watermelon, too!

Grape Jelly

2010-07-31T19:18:00.000-07:00

It was time to pick the grapes, so of course that means Grape Jelly! This is our third year making it. Last year it won a "Best of Division" at the AV Fair. Here are some pictures of the process...


The neighbors' goat, Jack, watching us picking grapes.


Simmering the grape "puree".


The mixture was then strained to become pure grape juice.

The canning process went pretty fast, so we weren't able to get any photos. Here's a simplified version of the rest of the process:

-Mix the pectin into the juice, bring to a boil, and add the sugar.

-Bring to a rolling boil for one minute, then skim out whatever got through the strainer.

-Pour the juice into the jars, put the lids on, and seal them in boiling water for ten minutes, bringing us to the finished product:

Descanso Gardens

2010-07-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

We took a quick trip to the Descanso Gardens located in La Canada today. Here are a few pictures taken by Samantha.

Disney World

2010-02-01T21:20:00.000-08:00

We spent the last week in Orlando FL. We decided to do something the kids would really enjoy this year for vacation and exchanged our time share condo for a week in Orlando. We stayed at the Hilton Grand Vacation Club, which was located about 10 miles from Disney World. The first picture is of the Hilton grounds, and the second is the building that our unit was in.

We arrived late on Friday evening and checked into our room at about midnight. On Saturday we slept in and then took a drive to Cocoa Beach, so that we could put our feet in the Atlantic Ocean. The water was colder than I expected.

I took this picture of the pier on the way back to the car.

Here is a picture of the kids catching a wave. They make it look so easy!!

On Sunday we started the 5 day Disney World marathon. The first day was spent at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

Lunch was probably one of the best meals that the kids and I had all week...the smoked turkey legs were awesome, and I highly recommend them.

The ride "Star Tours" was actually at this park and not the Magic Kingdom. Seth took this photo opportunity on one of the props.

On Monday we spent the day at Disney's Magic Kingdom. Since we were visiting during the off season, most of the rides only had a 10 minute wait. As a result, our typical day was to arrive around 10:00 am and leave around 5:00 pm (or earlier) having seen everything we wanted to see and ride all of the rides that we wanted to ride.

On Tuesday we visited Disney's Animal Kingdom. This was a cross between an amusement park and the zoo. In the center of the park is the tree of life that contains numerous animals within the form.

One of my favorite areas of the park was Asia. When you walked into this area, you felt as if you were walking into Tibet, and about to start a great expedition in the Himalayas.

Seth, Hannah, and myself went on the Everest ride and it was great. The roller coaster went both forward and backward.

On Wednesday and Thursday we went to Epcot.

We rode a few rides and then spent the rest of the time walking around the various parts of the world that were re-created. My favorites were Norway, France, and England. The next pictures are from...

Norway

Germany

Japan

France

and England

Seth spent several house playing an interactive spy themed scavenger hunt, where they gave the kids a cell phone like device that has a small video screen and tells them what to do next. They then have to find that location and activate whatever is there. He had alot of fun.

Our flight home was delayed by two hours in FL due to bad weather the night before in Dallas, so we ended up getting back to LA later than we had planned. As such, we fought Friday rush hour traffic most of the way home.

We had a good time in FL, but I think we can all say that after 5 days we are "Disney'd Out". We were all happy to be home and spent Saturday and Sunday working in the yard.

Tile, Floors, Taekwondo and RC Car Track...

2009-12-14T18:27:00.000-08:00

There were a lot of things happening this weekend.

Friday afternoon Dorothy and I grouted the tile back splash in the kitchen. It turned out real nice. Before the grout was applied I placed a 1/8" cord between the bottom row of tiles and the counter top. After we were finished applying the grout, I removed the cord and grout that had filled in this space was removed. This allowed me to fill this gap with caulk. The caulk should help prevent cracking if the counter top and wall do not move together.

I also put tile over the window above the sink. It looks nice.

Later this week I will seal the tiles to complete the project.

On Saturday I tested for my next belt in Taekwondo. I passed the testing and am now a yellow belt (3rd belt). Sparring starts on the next belt.

In the afternoon on Saturday I finished the floor in the entry. It looks real nice.

In the evening we went out for sushi with our friends the Green's.

On Sunday, Seth and I spent the afternoon building a track out back for our remote control cars. The centerpiece of the track is an over/underpass.

Starting to Feel Like Christmas

2009-11-29T20:42:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful couple of days in Bakersfield over the Thanksgiving Holiday. We had Thanksgiving Dinner at Dorothy's parents house. Then we spent Thursday evening and Friday at my Mom's house. On Friday I hung up two ceiling fans that we gave to her for her new sun room. They look real good. We came home on Saturday evening this year so that we could pick up the dogs from the kennel and get them cleaned up before school started on Monday.

We spent part of today getting the Christmas decorations out and tree set up. I put up the lights on the house and decorated the fence at the front of the yard. This year I also put up icicle lights along the courtyard wall in the front yard. They look nice.

We are waiting for Hannah to get home so that the kids can all decorate the tree together.

Here are a couple of pictures of the house and one of the tree.

Tile

2009-11-24T20:18:00.000-08:00

Well, as the title says, we are one step closer to finishing the kitchen remodel. Unfortunately the backsplash tile is not installed, but we did order it on Saturday. It should be here some time next week. We went with a 2"x4" tumbled marble tile that will be installed in a brick pattern. It will look real nice.

Dorothy bought a chair and ottoman at a garage sale on Saturday that she is going to re-upholster. The chair has a nice shape and should look good when she is done.

Yosemite

2009-11-09T21:03:00.000-08:00

We spent last weekend in Yosemite. This was our first time to Yosemite, and it was beautiful. We arrived on Friday evening around 8:00 pm. I was hoping to get there before it got dark, but with the time change and leaving Lancaster at 1:30 pm, it didn't happen.

This is the view of the Yosemite valley that we would have seen if it was light out when we drove in. We actually stopped to see it on the way out of the valley on Sunday morning.

We stayed in an unheated tent cabin in Curry Village. It was cold (39 degrees Saturday morning and 36 degrees Sunday morning), but we brought our backpacking down sleeping bags. So, as long as we stayed in the bags, we were fine.

This was our first view of Yosemite on Saturday morning as we opened the door of our tent cabin.

There is a bear box in front of each cabin to store all of your food and scented items. The bears were pretty active both nights. You could hear the bears trying to get into the trash cans and we could even hear them grunting.

We went on several hikes on Saturday...Vernal Falls, Mirror Lake, and Lower Yosemite Falls.

We found out that riding your bike is the way to get around the valley, so those will be going with next year. And we will be making our reservations early so that we can get a room in the Yosemite Lodge!!

Harvest Party

2009-11-03T16:08:00.000-08:00

The kids made their own halloween costumes this year. Seth was a spy, which consisted of all black clothes, a block hat, night vision goggles, and a black candy bag. Samantha was "Duct Tape Girl" She made a mask and cape out of duct tape. Her slogan was "Fighting crime, one roll at a time". Both costumes turned out real nice. Madison (next door neighbor), was a bee (black and yellow duct tape costume).

We ended up going to the church on Friday night for the harvest party. Our friends the Green's stopped by for a few minutes before they headed off to another party. The kids had a good time, and we even got to go on a hay ride.

On Saturday evening, we went over to the Green's for dinner and walked around the neighborhood. We then went over to the 4 Square church and took in their harvest party. They had a cake walk and Seth won a cake.

Weekend Activities

2009-10-25T16:25:00.000-07:00

Friday night we cleaned out the garage by loading everything that we wanted to sell at our friends garage sale on a trailer. Saturday morning we set out our "junk" at the Green's house and hoped for the best. I told Dorothy that I wanted to just drive to the dump on Friday night so that we could sleep in on Saturday. All and all things turned out good. We sold all of the big stuff...dishwasher, trash compactor, microwave hood, dresser, and hutch. We sold it for pennies on the dollar, but I didn't have to load it back up and take it to the land fill!! We used the hard earned money for a nice dinner out at our favorite sushi restaurant (Goldfish).

I competed in my first Taekwondo tournament Saturday. It was a tournament within our school only, so no other schools could compete. It was a lot of fun and I placed second in one step sparring and fifth in form. I am considering entering regional and state tournaments next year.

Pumpkin Patch

2009-10-18T19:17:00.000-07:00

After church today we went to Lombardi Ranch in Saugus (about 30 minutes from our house). We went with our friends the Green's. Lots of pumpkins and corn. We bought some sweet corn and tomatoes. When we go home we had BLT's and BBQ'd corn.

Taekwondo

2009-10-17T19:43:00.000-07:00

Seth and I tested for our next belts today. Seth was promoted to green belt and I received my orange belt.

Camping

2009-10-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

We went to Morro Bay the second weekend in September with our friends the Green's. This was our third annual trip and as always we had a great time. This year, the weather was foggy the whole time we were there, but coming from the desert it was welcomed. The sun did finally come out after we finished packing up our wet tents!!

Antelope Valley Fair

2009-10-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

It has been a couple of months since the fair, and I am finally getting around to posting pictures. Sam and Seth both showed their lambs that they raised in 4-H. They both had a great time and did a good job with all of the chores required to take care of the lambs during the week. In addition, to showing their lambs, they entered several projects in the 4-H arts and crafts division. They both took first place on all of their entries. Samantha and Hannah also entered items in the open division. Samantha took best of division for her grape jelly, and both her and Hannah took first place for their photography entries.

Ansel Adams Wilderness - Garnet Lake

2009-09-07T19:36:00.000-07:00

My friend Eric and I made plans to go back packing this weekend. Our original plans were to leave early Saturday morning and get a "walk in" permit for the Big Pine Lakes area. We were going to spend Saturday and Sunday night in the back country, hiking, camping and fishing at 5 un-named lakes. When I arrived at the ranger station, the trail head quota was met, and there were no permits left to issue. My second choice was also unavailable. The ranger checked a popular trail head, and by luck, there were still two back country permits available, so I grabbed them. It was about an hour further north on the John Muir Trail in the Ansel Adams Wilderness.

We got to the River Trail trail head a little after 2 pm and started hiking. The first part of the trail is flat or slightly down hill as we make our way to the river, so we made good time.

We passed by a meadow with the river meandering through it.

Eventually, we made it to the outlet of Garnet lake, the only problem was that the lake was about 500 feet above us. So, up we went along the water fall.

After a strenuous climb, with packs on, we made it to our destination for the day...Garnet Lake.

After we found a camp site, we set up our tents, and I went down to the lake to filter some water.

My dinner was chicken and mashed potatoes. It was good and filling.

This was the view that I had while I ate dinner. I am thinking about a MasterCard commercial right now...backpack $149; gas to drive to trail head $49; dehydrated hiking food $5; view while eating dinner - priceless.

In the morning, the sun was illuminating the glaciers.

We got an early start and were on the trail by 8:30 am. We passed two lakes on the way to 1000 Island Lake. Here we are above Ruby Lake.

From the shoreline of Ruby Lake.

The next lake that we passed was Emerald Lake. Another beautiful lake.

Eric on the trail descending to 1000 Island Lake.

We asked another hiker to take our picture in front of 1000 Island Lake.

It was cool and windy. We were going to spend the second night at this lake, but decided that it might not be that enjoyable with the strong winds. So, Plan B was to hike down the valley a ways and find another lake to spend the night at.

We couldn't pass up these small pools and had to throw our lines in. It was a bit late in the morning for fishing, and the fish were not biting.

We sat on that rock in the center of the picture for a bit, and decided to just hike out instead of spending a second night.

We didn't make it back to the car before lunch, so we stopped along the trail and heated up a couple of MRE's that Eric was packing. He was happy to lighten his load, since the MRE's are not dehydrated.

I couldn't resist this picture of my backpack. It was standing up on its own.

We ended up back at the trail head 25 hours after we left. We hiked for 17 miles, ranging in elevation between 8,300' and 10,200'. We had a great time.

A Lot of Things Have Been Going On...

2009-08-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I made a post. We have been pretty busy lately.

Samantha attended a horse day camp last week. She was there Monday-Thursday from 8:00-1:00 and Friday from 5:30-7:00 (I got to take her on Friday!!) The kids got assigned a horse for the week that they had to take care of and got to ride. Samantha got Sugar, a flea bitten grey Arabian. She had a lot of spunk, but the instructor said that Samantha's calm nature actually had a calming effect on the horse. It was about a 45 minute drive to the ranch, so after two days of driving back and forth, Dorothy and Seth stayed out there for the last two days. Seth got to help with chores, since she had 31 horses on the ranch. Seth even got to ride a horse one day. He wants to attend the camp next year with Samantha.

Seth continues taking Taekwondo. He is up to the camouflaged colored belt. This marks a big step in his journey to black belt...he is now sparring. They have full protective gear, so it is safe. He also started breaking boards last week. They used their forearms, feet, and hands (with sparring gloves on). I found out last week that if your child is enrolled in the academy, the parent can take lessons for free. You just have to pay for your gear and testing, so your guessed it...I signed up!! My first lesson is tomorrow night. In a couple of years you can all come and watch me test for black belt.

Hannah finishes summer school this week. It has been a lot of work and she will be glad when it is over. She took two classes on line. One was color and design, which involved a lot of painting (that took up most of her time), and the other was art history. She had to mail her painting projects to the school when she was done. She is still looking for a job. There are not a lot of seasonal jobs out there. She had an interview at Starbucks last week, and she thinks that will be promising. She has also decided the photography is not for her and is not going back to the Academy of Art in the fall. She decided to go to the community college here in Lancaster next year. After that, she is thinking about going to Cal State Long Beach.

We are a couple of weeks from the fair. Samantha made grape jelly again this year, and will be entering that. Hannah and Samantha are entering some photographs, and Samantha and Seth are entering some of their 4-H Arts and Crafts projects. Samantha and Seth are also entering their lambs in the fair. We are currently attending showmanship clinics once a week at the project leader's house. It is pretty interesting with about a dozen goats and two dozen lambs (along with all of the kids and parents). After the lamb show, they will be auctioning off the lambs. Hopefully they get a good price.

We have found time to take three day trips to the beach. The first was with friends that were visiting from Colorado, the second was just Seth, Dorothy and myself when Samantha was at church camp, and the third was with our friends the Green's. It is nice going to the beach when the temperatures get above 100 degrees.

We spent July 4th at our friends the Beuder's and then bought some sparklers to light off at home.

We finally made plans for our vacation. We are going to Disney World the end of January. We exchanged our timeshare across from Disney World, and I am using my frequent flier miles for the airline tickets. It is a good thing that the lodging and airfare is essentially free, since the tickets for Disney World are going to be ~$1100.

The re-modeling has slowed down a bit. I still need to texture a couple of walls, install baseboards, fix some old thresholds on a couple of doors, and install the back splash in the kitchen. Hopefully next weekend I will be able to take the construction debris to the landfill. That would make a big difference in the back yard.

From "A Garage Full of Cabinets" to "A Kitchen Full of Cabinets"

2009-06-07T19:15:00.000-07:00

Tacho and I had a long weekend installing cabinets. We started early Friday morning, and finished to the point of the photos below around 4:30 this afternoon. There is some finish work to complete this week and maybe a little next Saturday.

Tomorrow the company that is doing our counter tops is coming to template the kitchen. We picked a quartz solid surface by LG. The color is salano.

http://www.lghi-macs.com/LGViateraColors.html

It will take about two weeks to fabricate the counter tops, so besides the back splash and floor, the kitchen should be complete by the end of the month.

Sassafras

2009-05-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a big day for Samantha. At about 10:30 in the morning, we drove to Antelope Acres to purchase her lamb (her name is Sassafras). She is adorable. The rest of the day was spent "lamb proofing" the back yard. We had to put wire fencing on the outside of the coral and we leveled a large pile of bark that was up against the chain link fence. We were worried that if she got out she would climb the pile and jump the fence.

We also made a trip to the feed and tack store down the street. Two bales of alphalfa hay, one bag of show feed, a water tank, metal container for the feed, halter and lead, and two feed buckets (one for the hay and one for the grain).

The lamb was real jumpy the last two days, but has calmed down considerably. She now comes up to us, and if Samantha kneels down, she will nuzzle up against her neck!!

House Project Update

2009-05-03T21:02:00.000-07:00

For most of you this will come as a surprise, but we have decided to re-model the kitchen. So, this weekend we started the demolition.

As part of the re-model we are going to close off the door to the kitchen that is off of the entry to the house. This will allow us to swap walls for the fridge and the range. This new layout will make the kitchen "flow" a lot better.

I was so excited to get started that I forgot to take a picture on Friday afternoon before we ripped the cabinets out and started removing the drywall. The first picture is before I ripped the remainder of the drywall and soffits out. The second picture is after the dirty work was completed and the appliances are sitting in their new homes.

The Barn Is Finished

2009-05-03T20:56:00.000-07:00

I finally finished the barn on Friday. It took multiple times longer than I expected and I had a couple of set backs which required me to redo a couple of steps, but it was worth the extra time in the end.

The stall is on the right as you walk into the building.

Picture of the stall.

Picture of the trap door and ladder leading up to the second floor.

Upstairs.

San Francisco

2009-05-03T20:35:00.001-07:00

We went to San Francisco to visit Hannah three weeks ago. We drove up Thursday afternoon and came back on Sunday. It was a great weekend and it was good to see Hannah. It is nice to have a tour guide to show us around.

We saw all of the tourist sites and road the cable cars a couple of times. We got unlimited MUNI passes (mass transit system) for three days ($18 each). We ended up doing a lot of walkings, so we barely broke even. Next time we will probably just pay for the occasional bus or subway ride.

Here are some pictures.

Hannah can make even a hot dog look like a sophisticated meal!!!

Coit tower.

Trans-America building and down town.

The next few pictures were taken at the Japanese Tea Garden in the Golden Gate Park.

And finally the Golden Gate Bridge.

Yellow Belt

2009-05-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

Seth tested for his yellow belt two weeks ago. He did a real good job...the instructor said that it was the highest kicks he had seen yet from Seth. He is the orange belt in the middle of the first picture.

Pine Wood Derby

2009-05-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

Seth built a car for the pine wood derby this year. He did most of the work himself and did a real good job. In order to get the weight close to the maximum allowed, I hollowed out the front and back and then melted lead into the cavity to completely fill it. Seth enjoyed that part since his car was on fire at times (it was his job to blow out the flames). Here are a few pictures.

They have an open division after the official races are complete. The kids wanted me to bring my old car (the "J.D. Special"). So here are a couple of pictures. The car did not even cross the finish line!!!

Orange Belt

2009-03-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

Seth got his orange belt at Taekwondo last month. Here are a couple of pictures of him during and after the testing.

Hannah's Pictures

2009-03-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the pictures from Hannah's course work that she has been sharing with us.

Webelo

2009-02-02T18:13:00.000-08:00

Last week on Wednesday night, Seth received the rank of Webelo at cub scouts. Part of the ceremony is face painting, to include the final green stripe down the nose on both the cub scout and the parent.

Here are a couple of pictures.

Off to College

2009-02-02T18:02:00.000-08:00

It has been about two weeks since we took Hannah to college. Tuesday 1/20 we left early in the morning and drove to Pleasanton to catch BART. We rode the metro into downtown San Francisco, getting off at Powell St. This stop is a couple of blocks from union square, and a couple more blocks from Hannah's dorm room.

This is a picture looking up Sutter St. towards Hannah's dorm.

Here are a couple of pictures of her room. She is sharing it with three other girls.

We spent a couple of hours with her before leaving to return home.

Raising The Barn

2009-01-11T14:06:00.000-08:00

Friday morning I went to Lowes and placed an order for lumber. I inquired about delivery, and they said that they could drop it off in the afternoon. Having it delivered saved me from having to pull the lumber, load it on a trailer and then unload it at home.

The kids and I were able to cut the top and bottom plates to length and build the front wall before it got to dark that evening.

I got started again by 8:00 on Saturday morning and had the rest of the walls built by 10:00. The hardest wall was the left side which has a door on the second floor so that we can store hay and bedding up there.

I decided to build the barn with 12' walls, so that the kids could have a place to play upstairs, as well as use it for storage. In order to maximize the height of the upper floor, I set the floor at 7'.

12' walls are really tall. They look like 20' when you are standing on the ground and look up at the top.

Before I had to stop for the day, I was able to get the floor joists installed and two sheets of plywood attached.

Next weekend I will install the siding and the if time permits, the roof rafters.

Birch Bay, WA

2009-01-04T10:10:00.000-08:00

For vacation this winter, we traveled to Birch Bay, Washington. It is a small community about 6 miles from the US/Canadian border in NW Washington. We exchanged our time share condo and stayed at the World Mark at Birch Bay.

Day 1
We left Palmdale at 5:00 am for LAX to catch an 8:30 flight to Seattle. The flight was good, and we landed in the rain with snow on the ground. We prepared ourselves for a cold wet week.

After picking up the rental car, we headed for downtown Seattle on our way to Birch Bay. We stopped at Pike Place Market.

Since it was the weekend between Christmas and New Years, the place was jam packed with people. So, we didn't stay long and decided to walk down the street to get something to eat. Not knowing where to go, we stopped in a coffee shop and they directed us to Anthony's Fish Bar. In the summer it is a walk up fish bar, but during the winter they shut the doors and there are some tables inside. We had fish and chips and clam chowder. It was good.

We arrived at Birch Bay around 5:00 pm. It is about 2 hours north of Seattle, and with all of the snow they had received the week before, it was slow going. It also gets dark pretty early that far north (between 4:00 and 4:30).

It was a two bedroom unit with a murphy bed in the living room. The second bedroom (I didn't get a picture of it) had two twin beds that Hannah and Samantha slept in.

Day 2
We hit the ground running on the first real day of vacation. Since we were so close to Canada, we decided to go to Vancouver for the day. The city was only 30 miles from Birch Bay, so it was a quick trip. The concierge at the condo said we should see Granville Island, which is an old industrial park that has been converted to shops and a large farmers market. It is connected to Vancouver via the granville bridge.

We looked around and then had lunch at a pot pie shop. They had several types of pot pies, and we tried chicken, beef, and clam chowder. They were all delicious.

After lunch we drove to North Vancouver. Our destination was the Capilano Suspension Bridge. Due to all of the snow, we were not able to see the entire area, but received discount admission due to the closures. The area that we were not able to see was the treetop adventures, which is a serious of suspended walk ways in the canopy of the rain forest. The area was very beautiful with all of the snow that had fallen the week before.

After walking across the bridge a couple of times, we headed back into the city. Since it was still the middle of the afternoon, we decided to check out the IMAX theater, which is at the cruise ship terminal. We ended up not seeing a movie, but walked around the water front area. We found out that there was an old historic area called Gas Town a couple of blocks away and went there for dinner. One of the interesting sights on the street was a steam powered clock. Instead of chimes, steam whistles were blown.

Day 3
On this day, we visited a few towns that were close to the condo. The first stop was the town of Lynden. This town has a Dutch area with shops and restaurants.

Seth even tried on a pair of clogs.

We looked around the shops and then had lunch at the Dutch Mother. Dorothy and I shared perogies with european sausage, Hannah had beef croquettes, and Samantha had a Dutch pancake. Seth had a cheeseburger.

After lunch we stopped at a goat farm to try some of the goat's milk cheeses and look around. It was raining, so the time outside was short, but we did see the goats. We tasted goat cheese spreads and goat's milk truffles. They were all good. We ended up buying some goat's milk gouda, fresh eggs, and some goat's milk soap.

We then drove to the town of Ferndale to check out another local dairy that made artisan cheeses. We tasted many cheeses here and ended up getting some smoked gouda and black pepper cheddar.

Our last stop of the day was the historic town of Fairhaven. We walked around the town and then had dinner at a Thai restaurant. The food was good, and we ate too much.

Day 4
Dorothy wanted to stay at the condo this day, but I convinced her to drive for one more day, since the weather was still cooperating with us and they were forecasting rain and snow for the rest of the week. So, we all piled in the car and headed for the Keystone Ferry on Whidbey Island, which is connected to the mainland in the north by a bridge at deception pass.

The ultimate destination was Port Townsend on the NE coast of the Olympic Peninsula. The ferry ride took about 30 minutes and was fun for the kids.

We spent the day looking around the historic waterfront area.

We had lunch at the Nifty Fifty cafe. This was the only so so meal that we had. After lunch Dorothy and Hannah did some more shopping and the kids and I took a drive around the town. We stumbled upon the marina and stopped to look around.

One of my motives for going to Port Townsend was wooden kayaks. I wanted to see the workshop of the Redfish Kayak Company. We found the workshop early in the day, but no one was there. The rest of the day Seth and I looked for other shops, but had no luck...until we stumbled upon the marina. The kids and I were walking to the chandelry (boat hardware store) when I spotted Pygmy Kayaks. We spent some time inside looking at all of the kayaks. They are beautiful. This is now on my list of projects after I finish the barn and floors in the house.

We caught the 5:15 pm ferry back to Keystone and then drove back to the condo.

Day 5
This was New Year's Eve. We decided to stay close to the condo today. We went swimming and then played some pool. The swimming pool is both indoors and outdoors with roll up doors along the outdoor wall. Fortunately the doors were closed most of the times we were swimming.

After lunch we drove to Bellingham and watched a movie. We saw Bedtime Stories, which was really good.

On the way we took some back roads and stopped at a beach to look around.

We stopped and picked up some playing cards on the way home so that we would have something to do as we waited for the new year to arrive.

At 7:00 pm, people lined up around the bay and lit flares. It was pretty with red dots ringing the bay.

At the stroke of midnight, there was a nice display of fireworks in the parking lot below our balcony. Washington does not have safe and sane fireworks!!!

Day 6
We woke up on New Year's day to about an inch of fresh snow. This was the perfect backdrop for the polar bear plunge in the bay across the street from the condo. At high noon, about 100 people lined up on the beach and ran into the ocean. It was a mad rush in, and then a mad rush out for most of the people. Some hearty souls went quite a ways out and others went in multiple times.

Hannah woke up with a cold this morning, which stayed with her the rest of the trip.

After lunch we drove around the area and walked on the beach.

Day 7
In the morning the kids and I took a long walk along the beach. Believe it or not they wanted to stop for ice cream. Two cones later and we were on our way back to the condo.

After lunch we headed to the town of Blaine to visit the Peace Arch Park. This is a park that is on the US/Canadian border with a large arch to symbolize peace between our two countries.

The kids enjoyed being able to stand with one foot in each country.

When we got back to the condo, the tide was the lowest it had been all week, so we walked around on the beach until dark. I got some nice pictures of birds.

Day 8
We checked out in the morning and headed back to Seattle. We made our flight reservations for 9:00 pm to allow us time to do something in the city before we left.

We went back to the waterfront area around Pike Place Market. We ate lunch at a little cafe in Pike Place Market overlooking Puget Sound. After lunch, Dorothy and Hannah went to an outlet store and an art gallery, while the kids and I went to the Seattle Aquarium.

At about 3:00 pm we decided to head to the airport and see if we could catch an earlier flight since there wasn't much else to do. We were able to fly standby on the 7:00 flight, which got us back to LA 2 hours earlier then previously planned.

We had a great trip and had a good time even with the cold and sometimes wet weather.

Three Sided Corral

2009-01-04T10:04:00.000-08:00

On Christmas Eve morning I finished the corral. After I build the shed, I will add the gate and the fixed side.

SNOW!

2008-12-17T18:15:00.000-08:00

Every year or two it snows in the Antelope Valley. Today was one of those days. It snowed all day, and we ended up with 8-12" by night fall. The kids had a great time playing in it, and I built a snowman with them when I got home from work.

Barn

2008-12-13T20:18:00.000-08:00

We started on the barn yesterday. Well, barn is maybe a bit of an exaggeration. We are building a shelter for the sheep that the kids will be getting in the spring. They will be raising them for 4-H and will show them at the fair next fall.

The barn is going to be a simple 120 square foot shed. This was the largest I could build without getting a building permit.

We dug the trench for the footings yesterday, which are 4"x12".

Today we leveled the forms, poured the concrete, and installed the anchor bolts in the wet concrete.

Christmas Parade

2008-12-13T20:04:00.000-08:00

Seth's scout pack had a float in the Palmdale Christmas parade today. The Webelos were allowed to ride their bikes. They decorated them with Rudolf heads on the handlebars. It was windy, but the rain held off.

Happy "Wicked" Birthday Hannah

2008-11-02T19:48:00.000-08:00

For Hannah's birthday this year we took her and two of her friends to see the musical Wicked at the Pantages Theater. We went on Thursday night 10/30 at 8:00 in the evening. It was an excellent performance and we all enjoyed it. On the way home we stopped at In-and-Out for a little midnight snack.

First project complete!!

2008-11-02T19:29:00.000-08:00

The fireplace is the first project that we have completed. On Friday I took the top layer of bricks off of the hearth. On Saturday we went to the local stone and brick yard and purchased four 24x24 and two 18x24 inch hearth stones. They are cast from light weight concrete, but are still pretty heavy. I tried to cut them with my tile saw, but it was a very slow process. After cutting the first one, I tried my skill saw and a masonry blade on the second one. I didn't even get half way through and I wore out two blades. I still had twelve cuts to make. So I went to the equipment rental yard and rented a gas powered, water cooled, 15" diamond blade concrete saw. It was a handful, but I finished all twelve cuts in about 45 minutes. I installed them with mortar today.

Trick or Treat

2008-11-02T19:21:00.000-08:00

We went to the Green's house on Halloween night. We walked around their neighborhood, went to a local church, and then drove to another neighborhood and walked around there. The kids had a good time and it was a beautiful evening.

Skylar is Glinda (good witch of the north), Samantha is a fairy, Seth is Harry Potter, and Sydney is Elphaba (wicked witch of the west).

Bobcat Badge

2008-11-02T19:13:00.000-08:00

Seth received his Bobcat badge at scouts last month. He had to stand on his head (or the scout master had to stand on his head...boy was he relieved when Seth said he would) to get the pin, since they only pin them right side up and this is a special badge that is worn upside down. The scout must then do a good deed prior to taking off his uniform at which time the pin is turned right side up.

Floors, Ceiling, Walls & Molding...

2008-09-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

We have started remodeling our house. In order to get rid of the acoustic ceiling in the hallway and the kid's bedrooms, we installed a layer of drywall to cover.

Seth helped out with applying the joint compound.

After texturing the ceilings, we did alot of painting and then installed crown molding in the bedrooms and hallway.

It is nice having a van to get materials (crown molding and base boards).

Instead of computing both the bevel and miter angles like I have done in the past, I set up a guide on my miter saw so that I only had to set the miter angle. All I had to do was cut the molding as if it was installed on the wall.

With the crown molding complete it was time to install the floors. We bought 1600 s.f. of engineered oak floor. So we have 73 boxes of wood in our family room. This is one of the two stacks.

I was hoping to get both bedrooms and the hallway done last week, but the little things took longer than expected. So, the girl's room was all that got done. Here are a couple of pictures (before, during and after the floor installation).

Fun at the Fair

2008-09-09T17:37:00.000-07:00

This year both Hannah and Samantha entered items in the fair.

Hannah entered four photographs and took honorable mention on one.

Samantha entered grape jelly that took first place, a drawing that took 2nd place, a table setting that took 4th place and a photograph.

Happy Birthday Seth

2008-09-09T17:16:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Seth's birthday by going to Legoland.

We had cake (Cold Stone) on the night of his actual birthday. Madison (next door neighbor) came over to join in the celebration.

Vacation

2008-07-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

Day 1
The first day was spent driving to Zion National Park. We stopped at Bass Pro Shops in Las Vegas to stretch our legs and pick up some old fashioned candy. The kids always like to get the root beer drops. This time they also tried the wild cherry and lemon.

We continued on to St. George, UT and made a stop to pick up groceries for our stay at Zion. We also ate our last "real" meal at the Texas Roadhouse Grill. Seth likes this restaurant because they serve peanuts and you can throw the shells on the floor.

We arrived at Zion in the early evening and set up our camp. If rained for a little while before we went to bed.

Day 2
The kids went to the Jr. Ranger program in the morning, which allowed Dorothy and I to take a hike on our own (she even managed to take a picture of me).

It was a 2.7 mile round trip hike to a lookout over the valley of Zion with a view up the canyon. It was nice since it was on the east side of the canyon and in the shade.

After we picked up the kids, we went back to camp and had lunch. After lunch, we got on the tram (this is the only way you can see the park) and headed up to the top of the canyon. The road stops when the canyon becomes too narrow. From here we walked along the north fork of the virgin river on the "river walk trail".

This was a nice 1 mile paved trail. The trail stopped when the canyon once again becomes too narrow.

We then continued to hike up the canyon another 1 mile. Most of this was spent actually walking in the river. This was slow going, but was very beautiful. It was also nice to be in the water since the temperatures were in the low 100's.

After we got back to camp we had dinner and then drove into town. Since there were no showers in the camp ground, we were hoping to get a shower in town before they closed for the evening. We struck out, since there were 15 other people who had the same idea. Instead we took a walk through town. There is a small elk and buffalo rescue that we stopped at. We also got some ice cream and then stopped by the store for ice and baby wipes (in lieu of shower) at the grocery store.

Day 3
After breakfast we walked over to the visitor center to catch the next shuttle and go back up the canyon for more hiking. The shuttles run every 6-8 minutes, so it is very convenient. We went almost all the way to the top again and stopped at the weeping wall. This is a short (1/4 mile) trail to the face of the cliffs with exceptional views of the valley.

Water soaks through the sandstone until it reaches a rock layer and then flows horizontally until it exits at the face of the cliffs. Vegetation grows on the wall creating hanging gardens. The kids tried to catch some of the drops.

After we were finished looking at the weeping wall, we got on the shuttle and road it down to the Zion Park Lodge.

This is the trail head for the emerald pools. We hike up to the lower and then the middle emerald pools. One of the other hikers on the trail took our photo between these two large rocks.

There was a nice waterfall from the middle to the lower pool.

We then hiked back to the lodge and ate our desert (ice cream cones) before going back to camp to eat lunch.

After lunch, we drove over to Bryce Canyon National Park, a 2 hour drive to the north. You can't see the park from the road, as it is built along the top of the canyon. So, there are several locations to park and walk to the edge of the canyon to see the interesting and beautiful formations.

After spending a couple of hours looking at the canyon, we drove back to Zion to camp for the last night. We stopped for dinner outside the east gate of the park at a buffalo ranch and had buffalo for dinner.

Day 4
We woke up early after a sleepless night (hot and humid) and packed up our camp. We spent the day driving to New Castle, Colorado where we spent three days visiting friends. We had a surprise shortly after we arrived, with a phone call from Mrs. Green and girls who were passing through on their way home from vacation. They had dinner with us and spent the night with the Warren's as well.

Day 5
After seeing the Green's off, we headed out for our hike to Hanging Lake. It was a short, but steep hike with ~1200' of elevation gain in about 1.25 miles.

Seth was having trouble at the 3/4 mile mark, but pushed on to the end. The lake was beautiful with a couple of waterfalls filling it.

After looking around at the lake for a bit, we hiked up to spouting rock, which was a couple of hundred yards above the lake. In addition to a large waterfall, the water comes out of the face of the rock at a couple of locations.

Very cool and powerful. After we hiked down we ate lunch along the Colorado River.

In the evening we had dinner in Glenwood Springs and then walked around town for a bit and ate some ice cream before returning to the Warren's for the evening.

Day 6
We drove up to the town of Red Stone, which is located in the mountains south of New Castle.

It is a small town with a park and several shops. The girls walked around town, while Seth, Conner and I kept busy with a walk of our own.

We met back up with the girls for lunch in the park and then we all walked to the other end of town.

After seeing all of the business area of town we ate some ice cream (this is becoming a habit) and then headed back to New Castle.

Day 7
Today was a lazy day and we just went to the park, which was a couple of blocks away from their house. After Darrin got home from work we went bowling and then to the DQ for dinner.

After we returned from dinner we packed up since tomorrow morning we were back on the the road.

Day 8
We left New Castle about 9:30 and headed for Great Basin National Park. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop outside of Green River, UT.

We arrived at Great Basin about 5:30 and drove to the top of the mountain to find a camp site. Since it was a Thursday evening (and we were in the middle of nowhere) I figured that the camp ground would be empty. Boy was I wrong. We lucked out and got the second to the last camp site.

If we would have arived about 1/2 hour later, they would have been full. After we finished setting up camp we headed out for a hike.

I wanted to take the 2.7 mile out and back trail to the bristlecone pines.

We ended up turning back at about the 3/4 way point, since it was getting late and the kids were complaining about not feeling well (we were above 10,000').

Fortunately they started feeling better after we turned back for camp. After getting back to camp we cooked dinner, cleaned up the dishes and then played a game of life.

We finished the game of life around 10:00 pm and then went outside to view the stars. The night sky in the middle of nowhere is amazing!! The sky exploded with stars, and the Milky Way was very visible. It was a nice night sleeping, with cool temperatures (upper 40's) and the sound of the wind blowing through the trees.

Day 9
After breakfast, we packed up the tent, walked around the camp ground and then headed down the mountain for our 11:00 am cave tour reservations.

One of the main attractions at Great Basin is the Lehman Cave. We went on a 90 minute tour. It was amazing. I will let the pictures tell the story.

After the cave tour, we ate lunch at the picnic area and then went back to the cafe in the visitor center for one last ice cream cone. :) While there we looked at the sun through a solar telescope that was set up in the parking lot. It was neat, and we were able to see some prominences.

After leaving the park at 1:30 pm it was the long drive home. We stopped for dinner in Las Vegas and arrived back in Quartz Hill at about 11:00 pm.

Grape Jelly

2008-07-13T21:23:00.000-07:00

Today Samantha, Seth and I made grape jelly. This was the first time we have tried our skills at canning, and it was hard work, but fun.

It all started with sterilizing the jars and lids...

While that was happening, we went outside to pick grapes. Man are there a lot of grapes on our patio. This is just the start and when we finished we didn't even put a dent in the total number out there.

Since we were just learning, we made our first mistake. Instead of picking full clumps of grapes and then taking each grape off the clump, we just stripped the grapes off of the clumps as they were haning from the vine. This resulted in a lot of stems to remove.

This is where Seth stopped helping and went in to play video games. At least we got this much work out of him.

In the process of picking grapes I found a humming bird nest with two baby humming birds in it.

With the grapes washed, we are ready to juice them and start the process.

Samantha is finishing running the last batch of grapes through the food processor. In total we had 7 pounds 10 ounces of grapes.

We put the grapes on the stove and simmered them for 10 minutes to extract even more juice.

Now it is time to strain the mash (which ended up in the compost bin).

Now that we have pure grape juice, we added pectin and lots of sugar (organic :) ) and boiled for one minute. I put the hot jelly in the jars and Samantha added the lids.

Now into the boiling water for 10 minutes to complete the canning process.

And here is Samantha with the finished jelly. In all we had just under 9 pints (one was not quite full). All nine of them sealed properly!!! Samantha is going to enter some in the fair next month.

Not sure what we are going to do with the rest of the grapes. Probably leave them for the birds, since we are going on vacation next week. Next year I am going to get rid of the lattice on top of the patio cover, so that the grapes hang down and are easy to pick. We will make a couple of batches of jelly and then maybe try our hand at some wine.