Our subdivision has a breakfast with Santa every year. Here are some pictures of the kids
Monday, December 17, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Avery
Here are some pictures that Avery insisted I take of her tonight. She was doing her modeling poses.
I HATE COMPUTERS
Our computer's been acting up lately, freezing, randomly shutting off, and anything else that can annoy me. The only thing that saved me from throwing it out the window tonight was the fact that it was frozen on my desktop wallpaper. A picture is worth a thousand words so I say no more...
Bear Grylls I Am Not
So I decided to go out on a real hiking adventure where all you take with you is what you can carry on your back. A friend and I decided to do a 3 day hike up at the Ouachita National Forest in Oklahoma and Arkansas (its pronounced Wah shuh tah by the way). We extensively and meticulously planned for a couple of hours before we had everything loaded up and ready to go. Our first indication that we weren't ready should have been that our packs weighed slightly less than a Volkswagen. But both of us being Eagle Scouts figured its better to carry a couple extra pounds than be stuck in the woods without something.
Its about a 4 hour drive and when we reached the park, it was obvious we were the only ones that were crazy enough to hit the trail in the middle of December. Some bad weather was predicted (little did we know http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316271,00.html), but we figured we'd be alright, we packed plenty of hot chocolate and cold weather gear.
There was a Park Ranger who lived in his RV at the park (picture Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation) who was happy to give us maps and a good once over with his eyes. Suddenly trail names such as "Deliverance II", "Squeal Like a Pig", and "Even Burt Reynolds Thinks You're Crazy" started to worry us. He also gave us a warning I didn't expect, watch out for bears.
We started to get our packs on and once we did, we realized we needed to lighten the load a bit. The trail portion we were going to cover the first day had an elevation rise of over 1200 feet. That doesn't sound like much on paper but seeing the mountain in front of us, we had to re-evaluate our packing preparations. We ended up leaving about half our water because we figured we would cross some creeks along the way and I had a water purifier with me. I left some cloths behind because my water bottle leaked in my pack on the way up and soaked them, so that was an easy decision.
We started off about 1:30 in the afternoon and planned to get to our campout 8 miles away about 5 o'clock. About 500 yards from the car, I was finally brave enough to say that my legs were already on fire and my back was killing me. My friend, Jeremy, admittedthat he too was in excrutiating pain already. Suddenly our planned 8 mile first day was looking very far. By the way, it was around 75 degrees and the humidity had to be in the upper 60's. We were sweating like crazy and slowly making our way up the trail. After about an hour and a half, we were so exhausted and wore out we decided to take a break at the top of the hill. When we reached the top of the hill we were greeted with some disheartening information when we saw a sign that said "1 Mile". Plus, we had only climbed 300 feet in elevation and had over 900 to go in the next 2 miles. We were sweating so profusely that we had drank half of our water, but we still weren't worried about that because the map showed we would be crossing some streams.
Fast forward to about 5 o'clock. We were able to pick up the pace and make it about 5 miles, but it was getting dark and we were soaked in sweat, and it was starting to cool down. We quickly made camp, got a fire started and ate our dinner. By 5:45, it was pitch black so we sat around the fire for a few hours and then went to bed. We awoke at about midnight as the rain began pouring down. It would come in waves, slowly raining and then all of a sudden it would come down in massive sheets that were deafening in the tent. We tried to sleep but everytime we would fall asleep another wave would hit.
During one of the quiet moments, Jeremy and I both awoke to the distinct sound of something slowly walking toward us in the leaves outside our tent. We were both freaked out pretty good because we had been fairly careless with storing our food, or at least keeping it away from bears: it was right next to us in our tents. We whistled and clapped and made all sorts of noises but it was clear whatever it wasn't scared away, we could still hear it creaping around our tent. I finally decided to try and sleep because whatever it was, I wasn't going to peak my head out to see what it was so in my mind it was a furry little squirrel out looking for nuts, not a hungry bear looking for human blood or Cousin Eddie looking for human affection.
We both went to sleep finally only to be awaken by what was stalking us; the unmistakable sounds of wolves howling very close to our tent. Not only that but it was now 35 degrees and raining close to an inch an hour. Amazingly enough we were dry in the tent. Oh, and we were out of water. The decesion was unanimous to cut our losses and head home.
Here are a couple of pictures. Most of the pictures were ruined by the rain because the camera got wet.
Its about a 4 hour drive and when we reached the park, it was obvious we were the only ones that were crazy enough to hit the trail in the middle of December. Some bad weather was predicted (little did we know http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316271,00.html), but we figured we'd be alright, we packed plenty of hot chocolate and cold weather gear.
There was a Park Ranger who lived in his RV at the park (picture Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation) who was happy to give us maps and a good once over with his eyes. Suddenly trail names such as "Deliverance II", "Squeal Like a Pig", and "Even Burt Reynolds Thinks You're Crazy" started to worry us. He also gave us a warning I didn't expect, watch out for bears.
We started to get our packs on and once we did, we realized we needed to lighten the load a bit. The trail portion we were going to cover the first day had an elevation rise of over 1200 feet. That doesn't sound like much on paper but seeing the mountain in front of us, we had to re-evaluate our packing preparations. We ended up leaving about half our water because we figured we would cross some creeks along the way and I had a water purifier with me. I left some cloths behind because my water bottle leaked in my pack on the way up and soaked them, so that was an easy decision.
We started off about 1:30 in the afternoon and planned to get to our campout 8 miles away about 5 o'clock. About 500 yards from the car, I was finally brave enough to say that my legs were already on fire and my back was killing me. My friend, Jeremy, admittedthat he too was in excrutiating pain already. Suddenly our planned 8 mile first day was looking very far. By the way, it was around 75 degrees and the humidity had to be in the upper 60's. We were sweating like crazy and slowly making our way up the trail. After about an hour and a half, we were so exhausted and wore out we decided to take a break at the top of the hill. When we reached the top of the hill we were greeted with some disheartening information when we saw a sign that said "1 Mile". Plus, we had only climbed 300 feet in elevation and had over 900 to go in the next 2 miles. We were sweating so profusely that we had drank half of our water, but we still weren't worried about that because the map showed we would be crossing some streams.
Fast forward to about 5 o'clock. We were able to pick up the pace and make it about 5 miles, but it was getting dark and we were soaked in sweat, and it was starting to cool down. We quickly made camp, got a fire started and ate our dinner. By 5:45, it was pitch black so we sat around the fire for a few hours and then went to bed. We awoke at about midnight as the rain began pouring down. It would come in waves, slowly raining and then all of a sudden it would come down in massive sheets that were deafening in the tent. We tried to sleep but everytime we would fall asleep another wave would hit.
During one of the quiet moments, Jeremy and I both awoke to the distinct sound of something slowly walking toward us in the leaves outside our tent. We were both freaked out pretty good because we had been fairly careless with storing our food, or at least keeping it away from bears: it was right next to us in our tents. We whistled and clapped and made all sorts of noises but it was clear whatever it wasn't scared away, we could still hear it creaping around our tent. I finally decided to try and sleep because whatever it was, I wasn't going to peak my head out to see what it was so in my mind it was a furry little squirrel out looking for nuts, not a hungry bear looking for human blood or Cousin Eddie looking for human affection.
We both went to sleep finally only to be awaken by what was stalking us; the unmistakable sounds of wolves howling very close to our tent. Not only that but it was now 35 degrees and raining close to an inch an hour. Amazingly enough we were dry in the tent. Oh, and we were out of water. The decesion was unanimous to cut our losses and head home.
Here are a couple of pictures. Most of the pictures were ruined by the rain because the camera got wet.
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