Looking forward

For us, it's been a good year so far.

We started off with my wife's birthday.  I got her a 2013 Nexus 7, then that evening, I cooked steak!

My wife and I took a road trip to Bentonville AR just to eat at a restaurant we'd not heard of before that day, then we did a bit of shopping before taking back roads home.  We ate at The Flying Fish, and it was great!

Our son turned 15.  He started the day off with donuts, then that evening, we hit the Chinese buffet.

Last weekend, I got to go camping with the Boy Scouts.  We went up to Kansas and had a really good time.  The meals we adults ate were all cooked over the campfire.

And today, I got my Fitbit HR that I've been wanting.

So, like I said a good year so far.

I've been thinking about the year to come.  There's so much I want to do.  So many things I want to work on.  Many things I want to learn.  I'd love to blog more as well.  Blogging is easier when you have one topic you like to talk about.  But that's not me, I have many topics I want to talk about.  Backpacking and Camping, Gardening, Fishing, Chickens, and many other things.

So, while the year is going well, I'm not sure I know what it holds.

Guess I'll have to hang on and see.

Until next time.

Handy Camping Trick

We camp a lot, and over the years, we had problems where the soap from the scrub brush would leak out on everything in the camping box.  So several years ago, I came up with a solution, and thought I'd share.

First, I took a 32 ounce cup from my favorite convenience store, and then cut a hole in the lid big enough for the handle to go through.

Then we could slide the handle through the lid, and close the lid onto the cup.  Then, when it's put into the camping gear box, soap rarely leaks out now, and when it does, it's contained in the cup.

We've had to replace the cup ever so years as the plastic of the lid becomes brittle, but considering I'm taking something I already have on hand, and turn the trash into something useful, I think it can't really be beat!

Hello, Goodbye

Happy New Years!  I hope everyone has a great year!

For me, I'm glad 2013 is over, and I hope and pray 2014 is much, much better than 2013 was.

However, I did have some great points of last year

My son turned 13.  He had a small party and his cake was Minecraft Psy

I took some pictures of my son and grandson.  They were the first pictures I've every had printed.

Found a small sink hole in my backyard

I did my first ever 5K with me running the Warrior Dash!

I was able to take my grandson to his first ever soccer game when we went to watch the Tulsa Athletics.

My second grandson was born!

My wife, son and I took a cross country trip to AtlantaFest.

On one of my many Boy Scout campouts, I got to sleep in a cave!

My son started his last year of middle school!

I enjoyed going on a trout fishing trip with my dad, uncle and grandfather.

I did a lot of work on our pickup.  It's really cool to be able to do the work and know it's possible without having to pay someone else to do it.

Over Fall break, we went to Greenleaf State Park for our annual camp out.

My wife did a great job making an elf costume for our son for Halloween!

We got a new dog named Ziggy!

Our son was in All District Choir!

My son earned his Black Belt in Karate

Had a wonderful Christmas time with all my family!

We ended the year with me buying a new truck for my wife as an early birthday present.  We replaced our 93 GMC Sierra which we've had for around 12 years with a 2011 GMC Sierra

At the beginning of the year, I set a goal to read 36 books this year.  I managed to read 51!!!

Freshwater Jellyfish

Thursday, while we were at War Eagle Caverns, my wife and son were feeding the fish, and she hollered out to me and our cave guide, "Are these Jellyfish?" To which the man replied "No, Jellyfish are only in salt water." I tended to agree with the man, but my wife knows what a jelly fish is, so I left him to go see.

Sure enough, there were these things in the water that looked like Jellyfish. So I did my best to take pictures of them. I didn't expect them to come out, so I tried doing a rough sketch of what they looked like to try to find them online later.

When we got back to camp, I pulled out my phone and sure enough, freshwater jellyfish to exist and she had found some there in Beaver Lake.

I looked up this picture earlier to show you what they looked like with a good picture. This picture came from USGS.

I managed this shot. It's a bit blurry, but a good straight on shot

Another shot I got of a Freshwater Jellyfish in Beaver lake

You'll need to click my links to see it better.

Cub Scout Campout

This weekend was the Cub Scout camp out at Osage Hills State Park.

It was a blast.

We came home from our soccer game (which was ok) and we finished loading up the car and got on the road by 10:40. I had wanted to leave by 10:30, but that's not bad.

We got there and found a spot to set up our tent. We unloaded and set-up. After I finally found a place to park the car, we sat down for a sack lunch we packed. About the time we finished, most everyone was getting ready to go fishing, so I got our stuff ready. We ended up not going with everyone else and stayed behind to do some leather working. Both me and my boy made some cute pieces. His had a skull and crossbones at the top with a snake at the bottom. Between them was a shortened version of his name. Along the left was OHSP and 2006 on the right. We tied it around his walking stick, he was very proud. I had the Tiger Cub symbol and a fish. with 2006 and OHSP along the sides. I also beveled my edges a bit. I hung mine from the wrist strap on my walking stick.

Afterwards, we hiked to the fishing hole (lake) to do some fishing and take a look at the old CCC camp site. I was glad I paid attention a month ago when I went with my dad as I was able to tell the couple kids and parents with us the same stuff he told me. We fished for a bit, but didn't catch anything.

On the hike back, we saw some turkeys, armadillo, a hawk and some deer. We found some really good turkey feathers that we also put on our walking sticks. The kids were most impressed with those, as were the kids at camp.

We had dinner, burgers and hot dogs, and it was good. After dinner, we went to the water falls. But with the lack of rain, it wasn't a water fall, but it was very pretty.




Later, they had smores and boy scout cobblers made in the dutch overs. They had apple and cherry. They were GREAT! The kids continued to have a good time, but I heard several talk about being tired (as was I) around 8:30. My boy and I finally got to the shower and back to camp, played several games of UNO and then finally went to sleep around 10 to 10:30. I got up early this morning to help cook breakfast and left my boy to sleep but he finally got up and around before breakfast. I was amazed at how early some of the kids got up. We had biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs and pancakes. (again, it was good).

Since by the time I helped clean up and get our tent down and put up, we had missed church. So my boy and I went on another hike and then finally to my parents to drop off the camping stuff we borrowed.



The trip overall was a blast. My only complaint (and the only complaint I heard from everyone else) was the parking situation. Part of that was the fact we did not camp in an actual camp site, but with 75 people (2 - 4 per vehicle) that left us with a lot of cars, and no place for them. Other than that, everyone had a great time!

I know my boy did as he slept most the way home and is still sleeping.

Men's Retreat

I've been promising an update all week, and haven't given one, so I guess I'll try now.

Last Thursday, I got up and around and my dad and I went to Roaring River State Park. My uncle and grandfathers (that's too people, cause my uncle is not my grandfather, that would just be weird) church was having a men's retreat there. It's a chance for a group of men to get together, do some fishing or golfing and praise God.

The trip down was nice. (As was the Dr. Pepper I had. It had almost been 4 weeks since I had one.) Once we got down there, we found us each a bunk and unloaded the car. Then we headed down to the meal cabin to grab lunch. Just a quick sandwich, then we went down to the River for some fishing. This was my first Trout fishing trip, so I had to figure it out. Man are those trout tricky. I did manage to land 3 (my grandpa put one on my line, so I wasn't able to get my 4th, but that was fine).


Dinner Thursday night was lasagna. It was ok, but not as good as what I make, course most frozen aren't. But it was still pretty good.

The worship service was great. Good music, and a good message. The man there has been preaching at an inner city church in Dallas... did I mention it was a black church? 75 Baptist men was a deafening experience I'm sure. (He mentioned they cannot even do announcements without some "amens" or "preach it" from the people.) As soon as we were done for the evening, I crashed. I was exhausted.

We woke up bright and early Friday morning with fishing on our mind. My dad and I got to the river around 6:30ish or so I guess since the flier we had said fishing started at 7:00. Well, come to find out, that is August timing. In September, fishing starts at 7:30. So we had to wait a bit longer. I caught 2 and my dad 1 before we left for breakfast.

Breakfast was soooo good. Scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, biscuits and gravy, and hash browns. It's making my mouth water just typing it. After breakfast, we went back out to finish catching our limit. But when we got back, the fishing had slowed WAY down. When we FINALLY finished catching our limit at 12:30, I was more than ready to stop (mainly cause it started heating up). We got the fish cleaned and took it back to the cabin to drop off. I wanted to take a picture of the ice chest that was FULL of trout. We go there, and they had already took out 120 trout for dinner so they could finish cleaning them up and stuff like that. But even with 120 gone, this was still a lot of fish.


After that, we went out on a hike.

I've been looking forward to hiking up there ever since I decided to go. For my birthday, my wonderful wife bought me a really cool hiking stick with built in compass. Very nice, and very helpful climbing those mountains. I had lots of good pictures. Overall, the hike was at least 3.5 miles long. Maybe longer.



Dinner that night was smoked trout, corn on the cob, green beans, brown beans, salad, and baked potatoes. Again, delicious. I was so full afterwords.

Again the worship service was terrific.

I wasn't as tired Friday night as I was Thursday night so I stayed up a bit longer, but nothing crazy. We again set the alarm for 6 a.m. so we could pick up our bunk areas before the morning fishing time. But when I woke up, it was thundering and lightening. No fishing thing in that. I reset the alarm for 7 and rolled over. By 7, the storm had moved on. We contemplated not going fishing since fish don't usually bite very well after storms, but we decided to go. I'm glad we did. We both caught our limits before the 9:00 breakfast time. Once my dad finished catching his limit, we loaded up in the car, went and cleaned the fish, and headed back for breakfast. We got there about 10 after 9, but that isn't bad. Well, breakfast was over. Not sure they really had it. But it was already packed. In fact, everything was just about done. Nothing for me and dad to do except go and pick up our bunks and make sure the cabin was clean (which it was).

We finished up, and checked in to see if there was anything else we could do, (there wasn't), then we hit the road.

I so needed this trip. To get away from my kids, and work and everything really (except for my wife, I don't usually need a vacation from her). The worship services were really good.

If you are interested in seeing more pictures of the trip, you can see my Roaring River Flickr set.

Update

I know, it's been a while. 8 days in fact since I've last updated. I think this is the longest I have gone without updating.

Where to start...

Soccer
Well, I didn't get to see any soccer games from Wednesday till yesterday (Monday). The USA is still in the mix, but they will have to win their game Thursday and Italy has to win theirs. If Italy doesn't win their game, then the US will need a lot of points to make it to the next round.

VBS
Vacation Bible School started last night. I do believe this is the smallest VBS start I've ever seen. We only had 9 kids last night. The point isn't really the number of kids that come, but what they get out of it, but more kids would have been nice.

Camping Trip
Last week, we went on a camping trip. We camped at Twin Points at Skiatook Lake from Wednesday through Saturday. It was a very nice trip. It was hot, but we had a good strong south wind the whole time. That was good for the heat, but it made getting out on the lake impossible. We tried Friday night, but I was afraid I was going to capsize the boat, so we headed back to the dock.

On Thursday night, my boy was riding his bike that he got for Christmas. He hasn't ridden it much. So this was a good time for him to practice. He was doing pretty good. I took him up a hill to have him come down so I could take some pictures. Well, it started off real good, but he got going too fast, and had problems stopping. Needless to say, he crashed. And he crashed good! Scratched up his bike and his knees. One was bleeding pretty good, but once we got the mud cleaned off his knee, it wasn't bad. I was proud that he handled it as well as he did, or he might have really gotten hurt. It also made me happy when he got back on the bike Friday morning. I was a bit afraid he wouldn't get back on it.

There was a chance of rain Friday night and into Saturday. We knew this, and almost came home. But this is Oklahoma, and so until it actually rains, who knows if it really will. I asked my boy if he wanted to go home or stay one more night even though it might rain. He said he wanted to stay. So we put the rain tarps on the tents. The neighbors Friday night sat up late into Saturday morning partying. I really wouldn't have cared, except they were noisy as could be. So, I didn't really get any sleep till they went to bed which was around 2. Then their dogs started barking at a raccoon after all had gotten quite and I finally got to sleep. Well, the 'coon finally moved on and the dog was quite and I got more sleep. Then the rain moved in. Lots of lighting and thunder. And the tent started leaking. So did the rain flap. It was dripping on my wife. We talked for a bit about going in or staying through the night. We decided that we would go home if our boy woke up. If not, we would stick it out.

Well, the next morning (around 7ish or so), we got up (the rainflap finally quite leaking sometime during the night. I had put a towel where it was dripping on the bed so we could try to sleep). We started packing up camp to go home. Got most everything put up, and woke up my boy. He asked why everything was wet. He had slept all through the storms in his own tent. My wife and I just laughed about that.

We finished packing up and went into town for breakfast (between the raccoons and the rain, or planned breakfast was wet). After that, we headed home to unpack, reset up the tents and wash and dry them out.

Misc
Saturday morning as we were headed home, my daughters ex-boyfriend decided to try to choke her and then hit her (at her work), so he was arrested for assault. My wife went up to check on her, and I stayed home with our boy and unpacked. Yesterday, my wife and daughter filed a protective order against him.

Through all of this, I missed going to a birthday party of a guy I work with. He turned the big 30! (sucka). Anyway, gratz again.

Well, I guess this novel is long enough.

later