Trick or Treat

Halloween has come and gone...

In Keith's opinion it was the best ever!

The soldier and the green fairy.

The clone trooper - commander fox.

The second lady of the house :)

Jeff won second prize at work.

We collected a lot of candy and

had a great time walking the neighborhood.

Beaver Creek - stuff I forgot....

https://quantumforce.homeserver.com/camping
That is the link to the rest of the pictures that we took while on the trip.
I forgot to tell you all about the second night's skunk adventure...
I put our food in plastic containers with lids, so we weren't worried about losing anymore vittles. I tied the garbage bag and zipped up the garbage can lids - so no worries there. I woke up to hearing some rustling really close to the door of the tent - on the inside of our screened area. Skunky was inside messing with the plastic bag that I had our towels in!!! I was afraid to open the door and find myself face to face with a skunk, so I hit the tent a few times and then open the zipper up high and peeked out. I could see that he squeezed his butt out and was going back into the brush! Thankfully he didn't get scared and didn't do any harm, but he did wake me up and I was sleeping so nicely!!!!!
And I almost forgot about our kitchen rock!!! We didn't get a picture of it, but it was in the middle of our kitchen "floor". I tripped on it almost every single time I walked in or out of the kitchen. The boys tripped on it plenty as well. We all knew it was there, but still - I couldn't get over it without tripping!!! And no, it couldn't be moved. :)

Beaver Creek revisited - this time with Jeff...

We are on our way... traveling north on I17.

We pass Bumble Bee, Horse Thief Basin, Bloody Basin Rd., General Crook Trail,

Montezuma's Castle, Tuzigoot Natl. Monument and Cornville.

Finally making it to Beaver Creek.

Here is some of our stuff on the trailer.

So many people commented on our trailer!

It is cute, but doesn't match the color scheme.

This awesome tree was in our campsite.

The boys enjoyed climbing it repeatedly.
Keith made friends with three brothers that were camping with their dad.

We found out that they've camped there every year for five years in a row and always managed to get the site that we were camped on -- oh well, this time it was ours.

We finished setting up our gear and Keith decided to venture to the creek to check everything out. He took the walkie with him and after a while, we hear "I need a medic!" LOL He wiped out on one of the many, many rocks down there. Randy grabbed the first aid kit and took care of the scout.

The water was cold, but some boys still decided that it was good for swimming in.
The scenery was beautiful. We loved being there!

There are rocks galore all over the place. It made hiking a bit challenging.
You should see my ankle. It had doubled in size just from trying to walk the rocks.

The boys got a kick out of crossing the creek. It was crossed on many occasions.

Sometimes on rocks, sometimes on fallen trees that spanned the water. We all managed to stay dry until the last morning. Keith came back to base camp at one point soaked!!!! Luckily we had some extra clothes. Then Randy joined Keith and the other boys and also fell in. Keith ended up falling in two or three times. They had a good time!

The first day, the boys crossed the river and I stayed on base camp side, taking pictures.

At one point, a couple of fish and wildlife guys pulled into the campground and each grabbed a bucket full of fish to dump into the creek. We ran after them to watch them pour the fish into the water. They were rude guys, but it was fun to see the fish congregate in the middle of the swimming hole.

The boys blend into the background wearing their camo!
But they reappear against the rocks!

Back at base camp there are sandwiches to be made - while we still had bread that is. We'll get to that story in a little while. The hosts of the campground really liked our set up. They were impressed with our color coordination and our camp kitchen. The lady - Mrs. Coleman, (that really is her name) wanted to take a picture of our kitchen before we left!!

The hosts told us about two kitties, that belong to the other hosts. They got these two cats as kittens, two years ago and the cats survive there at the campground all year round - in the winter, totally on their own because there is no host after November 15th. Anyway, one kitty is friendly and hung out with us quite a bit. I didn't even see the other one.

Too bad all of our chem-lights were dead :(

Here's Jeff checking and tossing them.

At least we had a few nice campfires. We roasted some marshmallow, made some s'mores, and roasted some kielbasi too.

Another thing that the camp hosts told us about....

SKUNKS!!!!

They come out as soon as it gets dark and they come right up to you!!!

As long as you don't startle them, they won't spray.

We didn't get sprayed - that was a good thing, but one skunk got into our garbage can the first night. I tied the bag, but it decided to get in the can anyway. That same night, after the garbage can incident, we heard more skunk noise - figured he was back in the can, but found out that he actually got into our pantry!!!! Apparently the zipper was not completely closed but couldn't have been open more than half an inch -- he got in there and chowed down on some yummy vittles. He got into all three packages of bread, ate 12 oreos, but didn't want any nutter butters, he had lots of peanuts and even decided to try the entenmann's cake -- dang varmint!! We had plenty of food, so all was still ok after the loss of bread and oreos.

That skunk walked right passed Jeff and walked by me - two inches away from my shoe.

I could have tried to touched it - if insanity would have struck me at that moment.

Randy didn't enjoy the skunks much. It got dark around 6:30pm and that boy wanted to go to bed, so the night would hurry up and be over and the skunks would be gone. Keith, on the other hand, enjoyed skunk patrol.

Kitty came and went and got a lot of lovin' and some chicken.

Keith made friends with three brothers - they had a raft - so Keith got a ride. He also borrowed the net to try to catch some fish, but that didn't happen. I think Randy also took a turn on the raft, but I didn't see him.

We really had a great time. I was actually sad that we had to leave. But work always gets in the way!! We look forward to our next trip, but I think we'll try to go somewhere skunk free next time.

Time for a new post

We had the boys' parent teacher conferences last week. I'm happy to report that Randy is doing very well and that Keith was chosen for a scholarship - a year of after school tutoring. That was supposed to be good news - and it is, but he really does need the extra help - it will be a good thing. The boys are now off for two weeks. That is so nice, not having to wake up early and rush out of the house! They still wake up early, but we get to take it easy!

Not much excitement going on here. Still trying to very slowly finish up painting the house. Still have not won the lottery. My friend sent me a lucky Tiki from Hawaii that I was supposed to take with me when buying the tickets... I took him, but he probably didn't want to work for me because I mocked him for being made in China. LOL Anyway, the Tiki is cool - I'll have to show him more respect and maybe he'll work next time! :)

It's October -- breast cancer awareness month! Time for some pink hair again! Maybe I'll be able to get it done at work today... we'll see.

I got some yummy delicious chocolates, a balloon and a cool huge card from my boys even though I said I wanted nothing!!! Well, I don't suppose I will ask them to return the chocolates!!