happiness on my porch

i find a lot of rest and joy spending time on our porch. It's the simple pleasures, isn't it? Here are some pictures....

YAY!!! The goldfinches are back from their summer vacation!!!

And the sparrows are down below.

This is the view walking up the path to our apartment. Maybe next summer I can invest in some hanging baskets! :) The goldfinch feeder is around on the left where you cant' see here.

My pepper plant!!! If you enlarge the photo you can see more clearly that there are maybe 6-8 peppers waiting to turn red!! I just don't have enough stakes to keep it from falling over! :)

This is my favorite planter at it's best!

i love these flowers! SO pretty and they've lasted for months now!

And these are the hardiest flowers of them all! Some of these have lasted for over a year now! I just trimmed them back a couple weeks ago and put the trimmings in a vase inside where they also continue to thrive simply in water!

Some days this little guy comes for a drink just about every 10-15 minutes!

I just wish he'd bring his girlfriend since the females are SUPER pretty!

And our latest visitor is this little cutie!!! We think that someone must have moved out and left her here. We and the neighbors have been taking care of her, but we've GOT to find her a home since i'm already quite attached.

COME VISIT MY PORCH!!! :)

We'll sit, talk and enjoy life together!!

Those of you from PDX can escape the rain...we even had 80 degree weather just a week ago and have only had bits of rain! REALLY!!! Come and see for yourselves!!

a fun date

Why haven't i posted in so long? Life...you know how that is...and i've been taking some online classes for work, which have taken most of my free time. I have a break for a month so i think i'll try to catch up a bit.

How about some pictures of a fun date a month or so ago?

One thing that I've quickly learned about California is that there was GOLD here! The grade schoolers that I work with often go on field trips to the nearby historic town of Coloma, which was the first gold mining town in this area. Matt and I decided to venture out to see it for ourselves.

The town was tiny and pretty run down, but was still fun to see. We came across what looked like some abandoned gold panning troughs and decided to look through the tiny rocks for gold...and we found some!!! I figured it was just fools gold, but we later found out that it's real and that the troughs are still used today for events and field trips for kids.
Since we finished exploring Coloma pretty quickly, we decided to drive a little further and visit the small town of Placerville, a.k.a. "Hangtown." The name gives it's history, but this town is actually lived in and more than just a historical site.
I found my new favorite shop!!! Mom, i have to take you here when you come again! My favorite thing about it is all the tiny little birds of different varieties!
We also enjoyed trying some vintage and some strange types of SODA!! (i can hardly say "pop" anymore...i've just gotten too many strange looks and comments. it almost sounds funny to ME now. NO, I WILL NOT LET GO OF MY OREGON ROOTS...it's POP!!! anyone with me?). Almost every tourist shop had at least a few varieties.
We ended the day at a great little cafe with some Gelato! YUM!

Big Red

At long last we decided to cut our one big red pepper from the plant! It was a momentous occasion! It was the first pepper I'd ever grown and the first one I've ever SEEN grown!

It was a wonderful deep red and tasted just okay.

As soon as we cut it off, the plant started growing more than ever before. Flowers started showing up and now there are several tiny peppers showing their bottoms. :) Hmm, I wonder if they will all grow large and red or if we'll just end up with lots of baby peppers.....just wait....I'll let you know The REST Of The Story as soon as it happens! :)

Sly Park Adventures!

Last weekend we got to go camping for the SECOND time in one year!!! That's a first for us! AND we were so excited to get to go WITH some friends- the Searles. We've gotten to know them through our church and they are quickly becoming great friends.

Here's our campsite (i don't know why this is blue and underlined). The campground is less than an hour from Folsom and well known around this area. It was the craziest set-up I've ever seen in a campground. Each site was crammed right up next to the ones around it. We were pretty much camping with the two sites next to us. It actually didn't end up bothering as like we thought it would.

This is Gabe- husband and dad! He and Matt enjoy playing around on guitar and have lead worship together at church.
And this is Jaime. God has definitely directed our paths together as we were both in need of a good friend. We enjoy getting together to just talk about life every few weeks.

And here's the kids!!! Can you tell that they are full of fun!

They are helping to get the corn ready to cook in the fire!

This is London. I think he's in 2nd grade this year. It was especially fun to watch him discover all kinds of new things on his first ever camping trip! Playing with sticks in the fire was the most exciting....and of course giant s'mores!
This is Adalaide (spelling is off I'm sure), or Addie, who is just as adventurous as her brothers! She's in kindergarten this year and is very social and full of love.
Porter is the youngest and quite the spitfire! We really enjoyed getting to know and spend time with the whole family! Lots of fun and far more entertaining than when we camp alone! :)The first day I was REALLY grumpy since the weather went from being 104 degrees on Wednesday to about 68 on Saturday! BLA!!! As you most likely know, I get pretty miserable when I'm cold, so I spent lots of time by the fire, took a nap in warm blankets or tried to be a bit active...skipping rocks is always fun! Again, this was a first for London and he LOVED it!
Gabe found some wood on a trail and Matt enjoyed chopping it up to use for the fire! The group and their finds!

And I fully enjoyed the results with Addie!

Gabe brought along some harmonicas and Porter joined in with his dad!

They were all quite entertaining!

We all went on a hike before they had to leave on Sunday!

One last pose for the road...all with their "staffs"!

Matt and I had the afternoon left, so drove around the lake to check out the other campgrounds. Here's a view from the end of the lake.
Havin' some fun campfire time doing some Mad Libs! The campground was pretty eerie since it was almost totally empty Sunday night. Hmm, not sure we like that feeling, especially in bear country.
I was SO glad that we had one more day, since camping just doesn't feel complete without sun and swimming! We spent the afternoon on the beach with just the sun, water, a bit of wind, and the ducks!!!
and MORE ducks! They weren't shy at all. Here's mama with her teenage ducklings!

And some good time to worship and get our perspective on track.

Even though the sun and heat was absent for the most part, we're glad we went and are thankful for a break from normal life. We hope that next time we'll get to go with some family!!:)

Camping at Ice House

A few weeks ago we finally got to go camping!!! Matt was amazing and found a place called Ice House Reservoir about an hour away toward Tahoe. We didn't have a reservation so Matt and his dad went up Thursday night and claimed one of the last spots available!

They had some good dad/son time. Matt figured out how to use some camera settings to take pictures at night. :)

We like this one. It's the edge of the fire pit glowing with hot embers, and the swirling color is the end of a burning stick that he's moving around.

Chuck went home Friday and Matt came and picked me up after work.

The next day we found this perfect spot by the water!!!

Here it is again from a different view. You can kind of see me behind the tree that's behind the stump. Matt's taking the picture from a rock that quickly became our jumping rock!

Oh yes!!! The joy of a rock and water!!! I love this picture!!!

More fun but I'm not quite as interesting as Matt! :) We think this one looks like I'm doing a WWF move or something! :)

A view of our campsite and Matt keeping the fire alive. We were at the very edge of the campground...available to any bear that felt like joining our company. Actually, some said that bears had been visiting at night while we were there. Our last night we stopped cold a few times from noises in the woods. Hmm, I think I'll stick to the middle of the campgrounds from now on here in bear infested California.

Once again, Matt keeping me smiling and entertained while taking the tent down. He's getting the air out of the tent while folding it up...in case you were wondering. :)

We really had a great time together. It was perfect weather, even at night, and surprisingly not too crowded. We basically just relaxed....matt drew and read, I soaked in the fabulous sun, we both swam, roasted our first GIANT marshmallows, did a few Mad-Libs, worshiped, ate, slept, soaked up some campfire smoke, and all the great things that come with camping!