Dannells Camping Trip #2

(Blogger is only letting me put a few pictures per post, so I will be writing about our camping trip in stages)



My parents let us borrow their little portable kitchen. I call it "kitchen-in-a-box". It came in very handy!







They also let me borrow their percolator for making coffee. I had never used one before. I made myself decaf coffee in the mornings. It made some really good coffee. I had a lot of fun making coffee over the fire.




Here are George and Bonita enjoying morning coffee. Bonita brought foam cups that kept coffee hot for a long time.

Dannells Camping Trip

This last weekend was so much fun. My in-laws, Rue, Daisy and I all went camping in the Olympic National Rainforest. We stayed at the Lena Creek campground. George was so great and he went and stayed there the night before to make sure we got a good spot. We had a great site that had a little trail down to the river. George set up a canopy over the picnic table. On Friday the rest of us went up there. It is about an hour and a half drive from our house. It was a beautiful ride along the Hood Canal. A lot of the houses were so beautiful, and they were very unique as well. I told Rue I felt like I was reading a magazine.

Once we all got there we started to set up our stuff. It was raining lightly so we put on our rain gear. My consisted of a big black poncho. It worked wonderfully. Bonita made a poncho out of a big black plastic garbage bag. Rue told her that she better be carefull because bears like to go through the garbage and they might mistake her for a garbage bag. :) Rue and I found a nice little place in the bushes to set up our tent. It had a big branch right over our tent which we put a tarp over. Out tent stayed dry the whole time.

Daisy had her own little tent all to herself. George put it next to his and Bonita's tent. They had another canopy over their tent which was a great idea. Daisy did not get scared once sleeping all by herself. She is a great little camper!

Here is the Happy Camper on our way to the campsite.

Here is Bonita in her rain gear. I told her she looked like a vulcanologist who likes to get up close to an errupting volvano. :)

George was the King of the Fire while we were camping. He was able to get a large fire going in no time at all!

Work in Progress

Okay everyone, I have found out what the problem is with uploading pictures. I went into the blogger Help Group and found more people with the same problem. The good news is Blogger is working on it. Except I have no clue when they will have it fixed. I promise though that when it is fixed I will have lots of pictures to post!! :)

Sorry!

Sorry everyone! I have been trying to put my camping pictures onto a post and it just is not working. I think it might be blogger but I am not sure! I promise though that as soon as everything is back to normal I will put up the pictures of our camping trip. :)

We're off!!

Woohoo! We're going camping!! Today we leave to go camping for the memorial day weekend! I will have tons of pictures to share!

Have a great Memorial Day!!

Rosie's Hiding Place

A couple days ago my kitty Rosie just all of a sudden disappeared. I had the back door open out the balcony. I looked in both bedrooms, under beds, behind chairs and in all the closets, but no Rosie. I feared that maybe she had gotten onto the balcony railing and jumped off. One side of the balcony is just about 4 feet above a rock wall that she could easily jump too. I was heading to get my shoes on and go outside and look for her when I thought of one more place to look for her. I thought there was no way she would be there but I thought I better give it a chance. I went to the bathroom and the cupboard doors were closed under the sink. I opened them anyway. Dangling down in the cupboard was a grey tail! I crouched down and stuck my head inside under the sink. There was Rosie curled up in one of the drawers. The drawer wasn't even open! I was shocked that she could even fit in there! I started laughing and asked her what she was doing in there. She just looked at me like "Please close the doors, I am sleeping." So I snapped a picture. Now I know where to look if she ever goes missing again. And now I know why there was tons of cat hair in my make-up drawer! :)

Meet Squirt!

Daisy brought Squirt the Crawfish home from school yesturday. They had been using them in their science lessons at school. (I am not sure what they used them for.) The teacher said that anyone was free to take one home as long as they had a note from their parents. We decided to let her have one. We put him in the fish tank I had gotten her for Christmas. We now have a new member of the family! :)

Mopeding on the Beach

On Tuesday evening Rue said to me, "Let's go to the beach tomorrow and rent some mopeds!" It was a very spur of the moment trip. We left at about 8:30am, after Daisy had gone to school, and it took us 2 hours to get to the coast. We went to Ocean Shores. We found the rental place and got 2 mopeds for an hour and a half. I was a little wobbly at first but got the hang of it real quick. We drove them out to the beach. We had a blast!! We zoomed down the beach. I have never done anything like that before. Rue had such a great time. He has had major spring fever and has wanted to go out and do something exciting. I know he had tons of fun. At one point I got up to 35 miles an hour. After we got back we went to a little seafood restaurant and Rue got a big bowl of clam chowder and I got some seafood pasta. We then went and bought some Salt Water Taffy as a little treat and to take some home to Daisy. Then we headed home. I love doing fun things with my sweety! I hope we do something like that again soon! :)

Mother's Day Picnic

On Mother's Day my mom and dad, me, Rue and Daisy and my brother went to Subway and picked up some yummy subs and went to a local park in Gig Harbor. We enjoyed the beautiful sunshine and the sounds of summer. (Even though it is not quite summer yet!) Running on one side of the park is a cute little estuary. While we were there the tide was out so there was only a little fresh water creek running toward the harbor. This little creek runs from Crescent Lake out to the Harbor. There were some cute little Mallards enjoying some bread being tossed to them by excited children. We had a very nice time visiting. Later on that afternoon my mom came over to my house and we watched Pride and Prejudice! I love that movie! Then later on that night we watched the finale of Survivor. It was such a nice relaxing day. Even though I had vowed that I would not touch the dishes since it was Mother's Day, I eventually couldn't stand it and did them before I went to bed. Maybe next year someone will do them for me so I will be able to keep my vow! :)

Mother's Day Poem by Dorothy Gold Wallace

When Grammy, my great gramma, was a teenager she wrote her mother this Mother's Day Poem around 1920.

My Mother

The rose is so sweet and beautiful

Tis the rose that is always worn

Its smell is so delicious

But where is the rose without a thorn?

The violet is tiny and wild and shy

The most delicate flower made

Its color is the rich and royal purple

But where is the violet that will not fade?

The dandelion is like the sun

It scatters afar its seed

It is the first to come in Spring

But where is the dandelion that is not a weed?

The pansy stands always for joy

It holds its head up high

It far surpasses all the flowers

But where is the pansy that cannot die?

Ah! I know a rose and a violet,

A dandelion and pansy too

That has no thorns and always is

True, ah oh! so true.

She has the roses' loveliness

She has the violet's grace

She has the dandelion's heart of gold

And the pansy's smiling face.

She has no thorns to prick us

Nor has she any weed

She scatters afar her kindness

As the dandelion scatters its seed.

Do not ask me who she is

You must know I'm very sure?

She is my Mother darling

So sweet, so kind, and so pure.

Written by Dorothy Gold Wallace, circa 1920

This is the Sundin Family. My great gramma and great grampa are in the middle. This is a picture of their 50th wedding anniversary. The second row is their children with their spouses and the the back row is their grand children and their spouses. This was a little while before any great grandchildren were born, including me. :) So as you can imagine our whole family is even larger now!

Happy Mother's Day to all you great mothers out there!!

Narrows Park

Today was a beautiful sunny warm day. Rue and I both had the day off. He usually works in Saturday so we took advantage of the beautiful weather. We packed a small picnic lunch of roast beef sandwiches and fresh strawberries and headed down to Narrows Park. It is a little park that was created so you could see the Narrows Bridge. Now it is also a good place to go to see the Narrows Bridge and the construction of the new bridge. It is funny, I was just thinking that we will probably never refer to the new bridge as the Narrows Bridge. Technically it is but I am sure that we will call the old bridge the Narrows bridge and the new bridge the new bridge. It's funny how things like that work. I bet though that all the kids who are born after the new bridge is built will call it something else. I bet they will call then the Narrows Bridges or the West Bridge and the East Bridge, since one bridge will be for west bound traffic and one will be for east bound traffic.
But anyways, now I am rambling. I walked down a little pathway to the beach and laid out a blanket. We ate our lunches and then Rue and Daisy wanted to play some cards and I decided to walk down towards the bridges. It looks like they are a lot closer than they really are. It took me about 15 minutes to walk to them. I guess it's because they are so big you think they are closer than they actually are. I walked right under both of them. I was the only person their. It was really cool to see them from that angle. I had never been under the bridge before. I took some pictures and headed back. I met Rue and Daisy about halfway back. They had a hard time playing cards because the wind kept blowing the cards away! We then walked back to the car. It was a nice little relaxing time of just being outside and being somewhere I had never been before even though I drive across that area almost every single day.

BONITA!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUHIYYIH!!

Swingin' Boys

We had great fun yesturday playing outside. It was nice and sunny but it actually was pretty chilly and breezy. But still if the sun is shining then we just had to take advantage of it.
Isaac and Gabe (the 2 boys I nanny) love to swing! Isaac has his own "big" boy swing and Gabe has his. Isaac even enjoyed pushing Gabe. It seemed like he almost wanted to do that even more than he wanted to swing on his swing. He is such a nice big brother! :)

Taco Beef Soup

Taco Beef Soup is one of my favorite soups to eat. It is not a very fancy soup, but it is very easy to make and very yummy. It can be made in either a crock-pot or on the stove. I make it about once every two weeks and freeze some of it for lunches later on.

Taco Beef Soup

1 pound lean ground beef
1 onion finely chopped
1 package taco seasoning
1 can tomato sauce
1 can kidney beans (undrained)
1 can diced tomatoes (undrained)
1 can of water

Cook the ground beef and the onion in a large skillet. While they are cooking put tomato sauce, kidney beans, diced tomatos and taco seasoning dutch oven or crockpot. Add the ground beef and onion when beef is no longer pink. In dutch oven cook over medium heat until nice and hot. If using a crock-pot cook on LOW for 4 hours. Serve hot. Serve with cheddar cheese and tortilla chips if you like! :)
Recipe from my cousin Becky.

Forget-Me-Knots

Here is a picture of my forget-me-knots that I have grown this year. Forget-me-knots are my favorite flower after hydrangas. When I was little I used to say that my whole wedding was going to be done in forget-me-knots. Once it came time for my wedding though I realized it would be a bit hard to do an entire wedding in forget-me-knots so I decided upon purple hydrangas. But still I love these little happy flowers. There are also pink forget-me-knots. I am hoping to find some and start growing them as well. One thing is for sure, once you see this sweet little flower it is definitely hard to forget. :)

Longing for the Outdoors

Here is a picture of my kitty longing to be outside. This is a small window very close to the floor. She loves to sit there whenever the window is open. I put some small knick-knacks on the sill the other day and she kept trying to get up there. I decided that I couldn't take away her little spot so I put the knick-knacks elsewhere. I wish we could let her outside but she is not fixed yet and there are lots of other cats in our apartment complex. I am hoping that once we get a house and get her fixed then she will be able to go outside. We are trying to invent a way that she can be out on the balcony this summer without jumping up on the ledge. :)

Next Stop....Mt. Ranier

This last Saturday my brother and 3 other guys from church went on a hike. When Ben came to church on Sunday and said he had gone on a hike I asked why he didn't invite me. He then showed me the pictures of their "hike". They climbed Pinnacle Peak in the Cascades. I was then okay with the fact that I was not invited. The first picture is my brother Ben. The second picture is he and his best friend Vince on the top of the peak. You can see Mt. Ranier in the distance. My brother hopes to summit Mt. Ranier. I am cheering him on! :)

A Hammock Kind of Day

Yesturday was the weather was absolutely gorgeous! The temperature was into the 70's and the sun was shining. It even began to smell like summer. At work they have a hammock in their back yard. So while the boys were taking a nap I went outside and climbed into it. It was the most wonderful feeling. I could hear the birds, feel the breeze and see the apple blossoms on their fruit trees. I even heard a lawn mower going, which in the summer time is not a bad sound at all! I read in the hammack, snoozed a little and just laid there enjoying the warmth and sunshine. Summer is coming! These pictures are of my view from the hammock.