It's January again...

I really should start posting more often, otherwise, why have a blog? 

Most of you probably already know that I finished the fall semester at college with straight As, something I've never done before--yay me!  Spring semester started last Wednesday--I'm taking Intro to Sociology, Intro to Language, Intro to Astronomy (plus the lab), Geography of World Regions, and British Lit. I.  Most of them seem pretty interesting, though my geography professor might drive me insane--her political views are completely opposite of mine.

As far as resolutions...obviously I didn't fulfill mine about posting here more often, so I'm at least going to try for one a week, since I made a whopping TEN posts last year.  *sigh*  I didn't manage to lose the 20 pounds I wanted to, but I think I did manage to lose a few.  At least I didn't gain any, which is good.  :-)  One thing I've decided is that I'm going to cut waaaaaaaaaay back on the Mountain Dew--I was drinking a liter of the stuff almost every day, so I've decided to just drink one can of it a day, which gets rid of 3/4 of the calories (roughly).  So far, I've done really well with that. :-)  I'm also planning on taking Tex for walks again--I don't think I've done that since we moved here, because we've got a fenced yard, and we can just turn him loose out there.  I may wait until it warms up again, or at least until I get my coat fixed (walking in the cold wind with a coat that doesn't zip is NOT my idea of a good time).  Another thing I may do is take advantage of the fact that I'm paying to access all of the buildings at the college, and *actually* access the gym...lol  They have a pool there, too, but if I go there, it will probably be during the least busy times, at least until I get in better shape (wouldn't want to scare anyone off! lol)

I told Dave that this year I want to go driving to parts of Montana that we haven't been to before, and take pictures.  I keep seeing the beautiful pictures that Flora, Rowenna, Nettie, Sarah, and Acci post, and I realize that mine are kind of boring since there's nothing new to share.

I think that's all for my rambly post today.  I'll try to come up with something better next time!  :-)

Camping photodump!

Okay, so I know I'm a day or two late, but at least I'm not months late this time! ;-)  These are some of my favorite photos from my trip to the mountains.  (In no particular order.)

I just can't get over how much bluer the sky is there than here.  I love it!

I had a lot of fun playing with the black and white setting on the camera.  :)

Isabel enjoyed making s'mores for the first time!

We saw this momma sage grouse several times, and she always acted like she owned the road! lol

We had an elephant stampede through our camp...

and we were stalked by a panther!

Back from a trip to the creek for some water.

Tex spent a lot of time laying in the sun.  I sometimes think he's part cat! lol

Dave made a peach cobbler--it was yummy!!

Daniel and Isabel.  Love this photo of them!

This was taken between storms one day.  It had rained for an hour or so, and stopped just before sunset, so these clouds had an amazing pink glow.  After the sun had gone completely and the clouds went back to gray, it started raining again--and rained most of the night.

 

Wild roses.

 

I don't know what these are, but they're all over the place!

 

  

Phoebe came camping with us, and spent a lot of time hanging around various areas of the trailer. :-)

 

We visited our waterfall again this year.  The haze effect was caused by all the spray hitting the camera lens.

 

Okay, I think that's probably enough for today.  I'll save some for another day when I don't have very much to say. ;-)

Home again...

I got home yesterday evening. I so wanted to stay up in the mountains! It's so peaceful up there, away from everything. I had a great relaxing nine days, but would have gladly stayed at least nine more... : )

I didn't go and do a whole lot, but I did take a lot of pictures. Somewhere between 800 and 1000, according to Dave. I promise I won't post all of them, and I won't put too many in any one post. This one has pictures of a hiking trip that Heather and I took on Thursday last week. It was just a short hike (1/2 mile or so), but there was a great little waterfall at the end of the trail.


This is Heather during the hike, about two-thirds of the way up the trail. She was pretty worn out, but decided to keep going. Good thing, too, because I wasn't going back until I found the waterfall! : )








This is one of the first glimpses of the stream that comes from the waterfall. Heather had said "For all we know, the waterfall might have dried up!" I told her that, no, if the waterfall had dried up, then the stream would have dried up, too. When we saw this stream, I said "See? That proves it's not dried up!" lol




And here's the waterfall! That's the first time I'd ever been up close to a fall. It was so beautiful! The mist from the fall felt really good after the hike. I can't describe adequately how neat I thought it was.





This is Heather pointing out the fall and saying how cool it looked. She was glad we didn't turn around and go back before we made it here. : )



And this is me. I thought Dave would like a picture of me up there, so I let Heather take a few. This was the best one, I thought.







This is a picture I took of the moss and other greenery growing on the rock wall to the left of the waterfall. If you look closely at roughly the center of the picture, you'll see what almost looks like an alien face in the stone. I thought it was really neat!

Anyhow, that's a few of my favorite pictures of that hike. There are quite a few more, but I may share them another time. I'll see what other fun things I can find for my next post. Have a good one, and I'll catch you later!

New pictures!

Okay, I have to post some pics of Keagan 2.0--he's sans oxygen cords now! Ain't he cute?
Oh, that's my youngest son Matt holding the baby--I don't have any real good pictures of him lately, so I'll have to get some.

And did I mention that we got a new camera? Better than half-price at Kmart, on clearance! (Man, I love sales!) Anyhow, we've been playing with it for the last couple of days. Got some pictures of our critters (the cat is Patches, the dog is Tex), plus some flowers that I saw while walking on Sunday. The two pictures of the rose are actually the same flower in different light.

And this is a picture of the end of a sunset. Didn't get all the awesome colors because I was out too late, but this was still pretty. I was standing on one corner and zoomed in towards the park across the street. I'm going to be trying to get some other sunsets pretty soon, plus fireworks this Friday should be cool too!

I can't wait to be able to take the camera camping! There's some really great views up there! Not to mention all the critters! :)

Anyhow, I'm off for today. Hope y'all have a good one!