Solar Eclispe

Last week, my coworker's were all excited to see the solar eclipse. At the peak time, we went outside with two pieces of paper. We put a pinhole in the center of the first one and held it up. We held the second one below it and were able to see the silhouette of the moon. It was pretty cool.

After we went back inside, I realized I knew where I could find a welder's hood. I went out to the warehouse and borrowed one of theirs. It was even cooler thru the hood.

I also have to share this gorgeous dahlia flower that Susan gave me.  

Camping at YellowPine...Again

The other day I was thinking and I thought, darn, we haven't gone anywhere fun this summer. But then I realized..it has been a summer of camping. Which to us, makes it near perfect. I like to see new places, but I also really enjoy the relaxation that comes with camping.

Over Labor Day weekend, we decided to go camping once again. I took Thursday off so I could head up early and get us a good spot. It worked perfectly because I was able to get the same spot we had last time. It has become our new favorite location. 

We were a little nervous because it had been rainy ALL WEEK LONG, but it slowed down for the weekend. We still got some rain, but by the time we packed up on Sunday, everything was dry. 

This time, my favorite thing was all the squirrels and chipmunks. They must be getting ready for winter. Sometimes, I felt like we were surrounded by an army of squirrels, there were so many.

In this picture, there is a squirrel sitting on the top rail of the fence.

This picture is a deer behind the fence.

Once again, we tried a few new dutch oven recipes. We always try to make the first night something simple, since its dark by the time we get the tent set up and dinner cooked. This time we made Stuffed Potato Boats. It was dark, so I didn't get a picture. They were ok, but I think I'd rather just do roasted hotdogs.  

The second night we made Southwestern Chicken.

We also decided to make a new dessert in the dutch oven the 2nd night. Part of the recipe calls for the butter to be melted. I wasn't quite sure how to best do that, but then I remember the accessories pack that came with our Kelly Kettle. It worked perfectly!

Seven Layer Brownie

I could have chopped the pretzels smaller, but found it easier to just break them in thirds. Josh's only complaint was that it needed an 8th layer, of ice cream.

More chipmunk and squirrel pictures. I only took like a tenth of what we actually saw. They really were everywhere.

On Friday, it rained off and on a little through the day. As it got close to bed time, I started to feel bad for Sage. We didn't want her in the tent with us because she would ruin the air mattress, but I felt like I was leaving her out in the cold. The trees were big enough to keep her dry, but I still wished I had thought to bring her blanket from home. Just before bed, I remembered I had picnic throw blanket in my car. I've never used it, so I decided it would be the perfect camping blanket for her.

If the weather will cooperate, we plan to go camping one last time this summer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Camping at Yellowpine

After the craziness of UBIC and the Fair, we decided the perfect way to relax was to go camping. We've already been twice this summer and hope to go at least two more times. 

Thursday afternoon, we were both given the opportunity to work over time on Friday. But we both decided we would rather go camping and told our employers no thank you.  By the time we got backed and headed up the mountain, the sun was quickly setting. 

 The original plan had been to go to the same spot we were at the last time, at the Rock Creek Dam campsite. Josh had to stop and get a few things, so I went ahead of him. When I got there, someone was already in our favorite spot. I looked at the other spots, but didn't love any of them; so I drove back down to the Yellowpine campground. 

The last time we were there, the campground was pretty full. We did end up in a spot we didn't mind, but this time it was pretty empty, so I stopped and looked at several. The one I choose ended up being our new favorite spot, between both of the campgrounds. The table sits back off the road a bit and the tent spot was shady.

Josh always wants to try using the dutch oven, so I had found a few new recipes to try. The first night we had Dutch Oven Enchilada Casserole.

In the past, we've usually gone fishing for part of the time. But this weekend, we just wanted to sit around and be lazy. We even moved Sage closer to us so she could relax with us. (She can't be trusted around the table when food it out.)

The second night we cooked pizza in the dutch oven. Josh did an all combo type pizza and I made a Hawaiian pizza.

We also decided to try a breakfast in the dutch oven one morning. We made Lemon Blueberry Biscuits.

Hopefully we'll be back up there again in two weeks.

Camping at Upper Stillwater

Last weekend, we decided to head out of town and go camping again. I had Thursday off, but since Josh works for a Colorado based company, he had to work on the 24th. Since we were worried it would be crowded for the holiday weekend, we decided that I would head up that morning and get us a good spot. 

Sage was so excited to go, she didn't even seem to know that Josh wasn't with us. I had tried to leave her a spot in the backseat, but when I took a turn, the stuff fell on her. I decided she would have to just ride on the floor. I had to make a quick stop at the store, and when I came out, she was seating in the driver's seat! So I quickly rearranged some stuff and let her ride in the passenger seat up front.

I found us an awesome spot! It sat off of the road a bit and had a nice shady spot for the tent. Going early worked well. By the time Josh got there that night, the campground was pretty much full. I had taken up the food and other supplies, but Josh brought the tent and canopy with him. However, he forgot to leave me one of the chairs that were in the back of the truck, so I had nothing to sit on up there once the table wasn't in the shade. I sat on a rock for a while, but it wasn't that comfortable. Finally, I got out the sleeping bags, laid them in the shade and read a book until Josh got there that night.

On Friday, Melanie, Matt and the boys came up to go fishing with us. Unfortunately, the fish weren't biting. We only caught one, but he got himself off of the hook right before we got him in. But we still had fun. We saw a few water snakes and the boys had fun watching them.

On Saturday, Josh wanted to run the Longhorn Days 8 mile run. They start at the Bluebell park and then run some back roads and end at the Altamont Park. Oh, and its pretty much uphill the entire way! We had to set an alarm on my phone and get up pretty early, but he had fun.

We were disappointed to find out they weren't serving breakfast that year. We had planned on eating there, so I didn't have any extra food at camp. So we had to make a quick trip to the store before heading back to camp. Josh ran it in 1 hour and 13 minutes, which was 2 minutes quicker than last year.

Sage LOVES camping. One of her favorite parts is eating the "human" food that is left over.

We didn't have any chipmunks in our camp, but we did have a few squirrels.

Sage always digs a few holes in the ground when we go camping in that she "nests" in.

And she always buries some of her food.

She was filthy by the time we came home. She was covered in tree sap and her nose was black from all the food burying.

Our last night there, we had a moose run through camp. It wasn't actually that dark, but my camera thought it was. You can just see her to the left of our tent.

I think Sage was drained from camping. We had been home for a few hours and I looked outside to see her laying on her back.

We had a lot of fun and can't wait to go again in three weeks.