Pig Out Food.....

 When we went camping a couple of weeks ago we were talking about the foods that we can't stop eating and Cassie mentioned chips and dip. Of course then it was in my head. So of course the next time I went to the store I had to get some. There is nothing better then the boxed Old Dutch Rip-L chips and french onion dip. I pretended that by buying the dip that is made with Greek yogurt that it would be better for me. It is so hard to stop eating them once you start. Rick and I managed to eat a whole bag of chips right off the bat. Since then I have learned to put just a small amount of chips in a bowl and limit myself. Thank goodness it is almost all gone now so I can stop thinking about it every night. Now to stop myself from getting more....

 I am very pissed off at Mother Nature! Oak trees are suppose to have a big crop of acorns every other year. Since last year we had a bumper crop I was really looking forward to not having many this year. Well I guess Mother Nature decided it would be good to have two years of millions and millions of acorns falling into our house, deck and yard. We must have 10,000 little oak trees growing in our yard. I have sprayed and sprayed them with weed killer and they just keep coming back.  THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!

Poor Dexter is not a very happy puppy. His allergies are so bad that if he is not sleeping his is itching and licking. Then on top of that we finally started to paint the office. He hates it when we are doing any kind of remodeling. I'm sure his hate comes from when we moved in  years ago and completely gutted the house room by room. He would get use to the house being one way only to have it ripped up the next day. He was the saddest puppy around on Sunday.

Monday I took him to a different vet. I have been speaking with his vet trying to get him on a different medicine for his allergies and the medicine I want to put him on they cannot get. I guess this medicine, called Apoquel,  just came out this spring and they are having really good luck with it. They is such a demand for it that there is a shortage that they think will last until 2015. My vet clinic told me they could only get it for dogs that are already on it. Thanks to my sister I was able to get into a different clinic that had just gotten some of it in and they were willing to see me and put Dexter on it.
So now we have to ween him off of his other medicine because it is a steroid before he can start the new stuff. That is a whole lot of no fun because he is itching and licking like crazy. Once he is off the old stuff we will be able to start the Apoquel. I really hope it works. We don't know what we will do it if does not. Dexter is just so sad, he is driving himself nuts with all the itching. His quality of life had not been very good. It is hard to be happy when you never feel good . Poor poor puppy :(

As a mentioned above we finally started to fix the office up. I will hopefully have some pictures to post by the end of the week.

Sharon

Family Time......

This weekend we had our annual camping trip with the kids. We went to White Water State Park again this year. We had perfect weather all 4 days and had tons of fun. We had lots of beach time, hiking, biking and just relaxing. 

 The water is super cold since it is in the river but that did not stop us from enjoying it. Liam was  the first to jump in.

                              Eli and Oliver like to take is slow going in.

                                    Liam and Christa playing in the sand.

                                                  Josie just being cute!

            My favorite picture of the trip. Jese was putting lotion on Oliver and he was laughing.

              Rick took this from down by the river as we watched him bike on a very little path.

                            Christa and I after we finally made it to the top on our hike.

                                              Hiking back down.

           Rick made pancakes for us for breakfast and Cassie provided the Adult beverages

       We took the kids on a hike and Christa was our guide so we did not get lost this year!

 Almost to the top of our hike with the kids. It was only a mile but that is a long way for the short little legs of the kids. And it was up up up!

 Oliver and Eli checking out the cave. Don't worry Cassie was blocking the edge so they would not go over.

                        Uncle Nick showing the kids how to climb a tree.

             Finally made it back to the campgrounds with some tired kids.

                                                                             Pretty

 Jese and Rick went on a father son hike. They had a good time hiking for 2 hours with no kids and no women :)

                 On Saturday night we were hot so we went down the river and waded in.

                                                    Cute picture of Christa

          Nick decided wading was not good enough and jumped in the freezing cold water.

                                                            Cute picture of Cassie

                      We were waving at Amy and the kids, they were on the bridge watching us.

 We tried to make orange cake on the fire. It was a fun project but they did not turn out very good. I did not scoop out enough of the orange so the cake stayed too moist.

                       The kids had fun making it so that is all that matters. 

 On Saturday night it was a Super Moon. It was so bright that Rick was able to get some great pictures of it.

                              Oliver found some spider webs on the bridge.

                                    Uncle Nick and Oliver enjoying the fire.

                    I cannot have a blog about camping without picture of the campfire.

We love White Water State park and hope to get back there again soon. They have so many trails to hike on and a nice beach for the kids. Area to bike, Liam and Rick had a great time biking around the campgrounds. And trout fishing right in the park.  It is less then 3 hours for all of us to get there and that is a big plus.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.
Sharon

Chief White Crane Recreation Area......

                              Rick practicing for the NFAA National Field Tournament.

Thursday we took off for Yankton SD so Rick could shoot the National Field Tournament. We decided to make it a camping trip so I booked us a site at the Chief White Crane Recreation Area. It is always hard to book a site when you never been there before. I did a little research and then just picked a site and hope for the best.
I am very happy to say that the campgrounds was great! The camp sites were huge. We were right next to the lake so we had a wonderful view. I was a little worried about how noisy it would be because it is a huge campgrounds but it was not noisy at all. Everything was so clean and the campground host and state workers came around often.
We were sorry that we did not bring our bikes because they had a very good tail system.

   This was the view from our campsite. The lake has no motors on it rule so it was very quite.

We took the dogs for a walk down to the Missouri River and Dexter jumped right in. He was hot so he decided he was just going lie in it. I need to take him swimming more!

On our way to the campgrounds we saw all these boats right below the dam. I guess they were bow fishing for paddle fish. I hear it is big deal in SD

                                                       Another view of our site

We had perfect weather all weekend. We had just a few sprinkles on Saturday night but by Sunday morning the clouds moved out and and sun returned. 

On Saturday evening the clouds were coming in at sunset when the beam of light broke though the clouds. It made for a beautiful picture.

Rick had lots of fun shooting. They do not have the scores up yet so I cannot tell you  how he did but he figures he is in about 7th-8th place.

I had a wonderful relaxing trip. I did some reading, walked the dogs, and even went for a 4 mile run. Well more like a run/walk. It was hard to leave on Sunday.

Good thing we are going camping again this weekend!

Later Sharon