Meet Cooper!

Last night we brought home our new puppy Cooper. He is so cute and the kids love him. We are slowly adjusting to the new addition. We had a rough night last night, at 4 a.m. he was wide awake and wanted to play. Miss P has decided she has to carry him everywhere and I have to remind her often that he can walk on his own. So far we have had no accidents in the house! I attribute this to Tina, our breeder and friend. She has done a great job training him and teaching me what to do. I am such a newbie at this whole pet thing. I really want my kids to have a good "pet experience".

I did not grown up with pets in our home. Oh, we had a dog or two, but they were outside dogs and were dirty and stinky. They were usually my brothers. They weren't trained or up to date on their shots. I wouldn't really call them pets. Perhaps, backyard houseguests, is more acurate.

Hopefully Cooper will be clean, trained, healthy and, not stinky. Hopefully.

Politics....my dirty little secret

Today Now!: How To Pretend You Care About The Election

I love this!

Okay, now before you go freaking out, I do care about the election and I am going to vote. But I am embarrassed to admit I really dislike talking about politics. I don't mind other people imposing their wisdom on me though. Case in point, Ryan's cousin is very interested in politics and she wrote up a great post about the economy and what not. She shares some excellent info so I am linking to it here.

Somewhat related, a while back I saw a great video called "The History of Stuff" It really got me thinking about my spending habits. Now I need to find a way to translate that to my actual spending. Anyway it is interesting and if you want to you can find it here.

Donner State Park

(Oh boy, am I behind here! This trip was in the begining of August right before school started.)

Four days after getting home from Van Damme, the kids and I packed our bags and car again and headed up I-80 to Donner Lake with some friends from our ward. It was a little warmer than I like, but we did have the lake to cool us down. It was a huge campground and the kids had lots of fun climbing on the big rock, riding their bikes, fishing, and swimming.

Miss P had a touch of the flu, but not too badly that we couldn't still enjoy ourselves. If it had been really bad I would have packed up and gone home.

Everyone was assigned a meal so we only had to cook once, which is the best way to camp with a group! I made pulled pork sandwiches, corn on the cob and dutch oven potatoes. I though it turned out good except that I started making it a little later than I wanted so we ended up eating later than expected. Sorry to those starving little children!

Here are some pictures from the trip:





If you look closely you can see O-Dog in the middle of the boat and Big D's face on the left side of the picture.


Miss P loves playing in the dirt.

The day after we got home O-Dog got the flu and it hit him hard! He threw up nearly all day and his already little body was skin and bones. I felt so bad for him!

The next Monday Big D started the 3rd grade. Thanks to Grandma Lewis he was able to do it in style. She and Aunt Carrie took him shopping for special Back to School clothes. Thanks guys!

Van Damme State Park

I finally finished my latest sewing project so I feel compelled to update the blog. Since I haven't posted anything from our last 3 camping trips, I thought I would start there.

Van Damme State Park

The Biennial Moses Family Camping Trip (aka BMFCT, try saying that five times) this time around was held at Van Damme State Park, the last week in July. Originally we were supposed to go to Big Sur, but since it was on fire at that time, we changed it to Van Damme. Unfortunately, not everyone could make it. (We missed you Allen, Dad, Matthew, and Silverstein family.) But were happy to have Heather all the way from Chicago, and Mom, Stuart and Kaytlyn from Utah.

We stayed up in the meadow loop, for those that have been there before. The older kids just had a ball with their bikes and scooters and climbing the tree in the meadow. The younger ones had lots of room in the meadow to wander and the flattened grass kept them relatively clean. (Notice the bandage on O-Dog's nose: The night before we left, he jumped off the bunk bed ladder and his face met the edge of the toy box. Ouch!)

We spent time doing some geocaching, thanks to Garrett. The great thing about geocaching is that it took us some places we would probably not have known about and we were able to go on some mini hikes for the kids. It really was a lot of fun finding the containers and seeing what "treasures" other people had left. I highly recommend this for a fun activity when you go camping. Then Paul took all the kids on a real buried treasure epedition. They were all in awe of the bounty they found buried in the beach across from the park entrance.

We had some excitement on night in our campsite. I had put Miss P and O-Dog to bed and was leaving the tent when I heard a crunching noise coming from near the car. The kids lantern I was carrying was useless, because when I held it up to see what was making the noise all I could see was fur. I went running the opposite way throught the trees and over to our main campsite where everyoneone else was sitting around the campfire. (I know, nice mom huh! Runs the opposite way from her children when a potentially vicious critter may rip through the tent and drag her babies off into the woods to live as feral children... what is wrong with me????) Anyhoo, my heart was beating so fast and I couldn't catch my breath, but I managed to blurt out that there was a critter in our campsite. Well Ryan and Garrett grabbed their flashlights and ran over ther in the dark with all the kids at their heels. The next thing I heard was "SKUUUUNK!" and people running and screaming. Still sitting safely by the fire, I hoped he didn't spray. Thankfully the skunk just threw up his tail and ran away. Can you imagine if he had sprayed our tent????? Apparently skunks like Fritos, who knew????? We had a good laugh about the whole thing!

Other highlights from the trip included:

*The Girls trip to Mendocino for ice cream and a little shopping.

*Heather finding an alligator lizard under a log.

*Burying all the kids in the sand, one at a time.

*Hanging out at the beach under the bridge.

*Finding and purchasing our new favorite game, in the game store in Mendocino: Ticket to Ride (thanks Matt and Em! We are playing it lots!)

*Seeing the Devil's Punchbowl and hiking through lots of poison oak before realizing what it was and only one person getting it.

*All the yummy food that everone made! (Dutch oven potatoes, cowboy breakfast, spaghetti, thumb pies, goat turds, s'mores and more)

Good Morning!

It's not every morning we look out and see a turkey hanging out on our porch, so I had to take a picture. After snapping a few, O-Dog and Miss P chased him away. Only then did I notice he left a little gift to remember him by.... if you know what I mean.

Thanks, Jerk.