Day Two

Tuesday was a nice, relaxing day.







We took a short trip into Fort Bragg to look at the shops.  We were sad to see that our favorite shop, For the Shell Of It was no longer there.  I guess that's a good thing because that's probably where I would have been most tempted to spend money. ;)

Checking out the kids section of a bookstore:


Esther getting comfy with a good book.


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Back at camp, we went back to relaxing and just hanging around.




At one point, we realized that Tom was missing.  Where had he gone?  One trip to the bathroooms answered that question.  He'll probably kill me for posting this, but I'm gonna risk it since I'm currently 600 miles away from him and won't be seeing him again for another 3 months. :P  He took an extension cord, his laptop, and a camping chair to the bathrooms so he could use the electrical outlet to charge his laptop.  My undercover spy (ie. Joseph) snagged this photo:



Debi's dog, Chloe really wasn't loving the whole camping scene.  She would have enjoyed it more if she didn't have to be tied up the whole time.  It bothered her so much that she actually preferred being kept in the back of the car most of the time.  While we were just hanging out, Debi would open the back so Chloe could still watch everyone.  The kids LOVED climbing up and sitting with her!  Despite her HUGE size (Chloe is a great dane.), Rori just loved her!  By the end of the week, she was saying her name.  Well, almost.  Rori would try to say "Chlo Chlo", but it came out more like "Cocoa". lol



Tuesday night's campfire was especially enjoyable as David and Teresa shared a Southern California specialty.  Wiifms.  We don't know if that's how it's spelled, but Tom came up with the term "What's in it for me" as the full name, so that would make the spelling "wiifm"s.  We afterwards dubbed them "Teresa's Treats" or "Campfire Creampuffs".  Here's how it works...  You take biscuit dough and mold it around a wooden dowell, then carefully evenly cook it over the hot coals in a campfire. 







Once it's golden brown, you pop the sucker off and fill it with any combination of a variety of yummy treats.  There were: a marshmellow/cream cheese mixture, different kinds of chocolate pieces, m&ms, chopped strawberries, a raspberry sauce, and whipped cream.  I might be forgetting an item or two. 



My favorite way of filling a Wiifm was to fist add a few white chocolate chips (so they would melt), then marshmellow/creamcheese, followed by raspberry sauce and a couple more white chocolate chips on top.  Y-U-M-M-Y!!!



Thank you David and Teresa for introducing us to these super yummy treats! :)

Insert Sunset Photos Here

I'm a dork.  I forgot to post the gorgeous pictures we took of the sunset on that first day.  Oops.  Well, better late than never, right?  At least I remembered before I started on Day Two. ;)

The sunset was just beautiful!  A few of us walked down the little path to the beach to watch the sunset over the ocean. 

Our Camping Trip

The Preface:

Awhile back, my siblings and I thought it would be great fun to get together for a camping trip.  Our destination: the campground we used to go to every year growing up: MacKerricker State Park in Cleone, CA (just a couple miles north of Fort Bragg, CA). 

Life was simpler back then; none of us had the responsibilities that we have now, we were just kids and we didn't really have many cares to worry about.  We loved going camping at MacKerricker.  We even had a favorite campsite with a little path down to the beach.  We have so many fun memories of our camping trips there.

We've all missed camping there and I think we were all at a point in our lives where we really wanted to have that escape, to go to a place where we could feel carefree and just relax.  So we all ran away to the coast, to our old stomping grounds, to MacKerricker.

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Day One: Family and Friends

Many of my siblings arrived on Sunday.  We planned on leaving Monday morning, arriving by dinner that evening.  But just days before our trip, we found out that my best friend in Sacramento and her family were going to be camping in Ft. Bragg the weekend right before we were to arrive.  They were heading back on Monday but if we could get there earlier in the day, they'd wait to drive back until we got there so we could spend a few hours together.  So, we left Sunday night, drove straight through the night, and arrived in Fort Bragg around 7:30am.  We didn't want to disturb anyone who might still be sleeping so we took the girls to breakfast first and didn't pull into the campsite until about 8:30.   We were able to make our reservations early and got our favorite campsites. :)

The kids didn't waste anytime playing together while Ryan and I set up our tent and got all of our stuff out. 






A couple of hours later, we talked to Heather and arranged to meet at 10 mile beach to play and picnic.  We arrived just before they did.  It was a beautiful day!  It was warmer than we expected so Acadia had fun playing in the water.  Rori loved playing in the sand. 















Heather's twins both like to be held A LOT.  I think this is Becca on Ryan's lap.  (I still have a hard time telling them apart.)



Steve playing with Tony, Audrey, Becca, and I can't see who else, probably Timmy.



Ryan and the girls playing with Sarah.



Drop and give me twenty! lol



Jason taking off down the beach!



Tink burying her friend, Alex.



Acadia got buried, too!



When she got up to rinse off, she was so brown she looked like she was one of Heather's kids! lol



After having fun in the sun, we said our good-byes.  Heather and her family headed home to Sacramento and we went back to camp. 



You don't mind if I drive my truck on your back, do you?  Thanks.









Wow.  I really don't remember what was going on here. lol 



Rori helping David and Teresa set up their tent.



Esther and I were talking together and she told me that she loves strawberries.  I told her that I did too and that I had brought a surprise, strawberry marshmellows to try at our campfire that night!   She was happy to try them and she totally approved. :)













I love campfires.  I like staying up late talking and laughing.  This week there were meteor showers and as we talked, we watched the occasional meteor shoot across the sky.  That was really cool.  Some of those suckers were big and bright!  It was beautiful! 

From Sea to Shining Sea

We're back!

Whew! This has been one fun-filled summer for us! I guess we were making up for not doing anything last summer. ;) Last month we had a great time in North and South Carolina and experienced the wonderfully warm waters at Myrtle Beach. Last week we had a great time in Northern California and experienced the less than warm waters at the Fort Bragg beaches. It was all great fun and I'm sad that our trips are over. Don't get me wrong, it's GREAT to be home! We were so excited to take our showers and NOT feel dirty again 5 minutes later. And it was so nice to sleep in our own beds! But now it's also time to get back to the real world. Ryan is back to work, Cadi is getting ready to go back to school (2 weeks away!), and I have a mountain of dirty clothes to wash! lol

I have close to 1,000 pictures that I'm uploading. Some are from Ruth's camera but most are mine. I'd sure love to get a copy of David and Debi's pics, too. I think they were the only other ones with cameras there. And I especially want one particular video that Teresa took! lol But that story will have to come later... I'll try to post a bunch of pics and info about our trip as soon as I can make the time to do it somewhat properly.

Stay tuned!