Meeting an Online Friend

Over a year ago, and I'm not sure how she discovered it, but my Mom found the blog, Seasons of Life, written by Mishel. My Mom followed her blog and I started following her blog too, in addition to her daughter, Ashleigh's blog. They are walking Christians who very much love the Lord and exhibit their love for Him through their blogs and sharing of their family life.

We don't live far each other. And it's been mentioned a time or two before that one of these days, we need to all meet and have lunch together, etc.

Imagine our excitement when we read on Mishel's blog a couple of weeks ago, that her and her husband were going to be in the exact same areas of the Sierra Nevadas, at the exact same time we were!! Mom gave her the location of our campground through email and Mishel gave Mom her cell phone number.

Friday afternoon, as we were sitting around the campsite, relaxing, chatting, some of us reading, there was a car driving slowly through the campground, it then pulled off to the side of the road. And then a lady got out of the car and said our names! It was Mishel!! And husband Rande! Mishel had used the internet access on Rande's cell phone to pull up the email from my Mom telling her where we'd be, and they came looking for us! If you've ever met anyone in real life after having met them on the internet and having gotten to know them through email or blogs, you'll know how exciting and comfortable it is to meet an internet friend in real life for the first time. We stood and talked and talked for over two hours! It was so wonderful to have met Mishel and Rande in person. The only thing that would have made it even more awesome was if Ashleigh and her cute little guys were there too! But we're hoping to meet up one day soon all of us girls for lunch.My shirt speaks for all of us!

Friends Forever

Do you have a friend with whom you can go months and months without contact with and then pick right back up as though you'd never had a lapse in being in contact?

Diana and I first met in the summer of 1992 at a home Bible study for young girls. To make a long story short, Diana was my Maid of Honor when Steven and I got married. THAT's how good of friends we'd become through the years.

Through the years, our paths have gone different directions, I'm married, have two children. Diana is single and lives at home to keep her widowed mom company. But no matter how different the paths, I know that we'll always be friends. No matter what.

Diana called Thursday evening. I'm not when was the last time we'd talked on the phone, we've emailed. And she's able to keep up with me and our happenings through all my blogs. I'm not that up to date on Diana, she doesn't keep a blog. LOL. At any rate, she was calling me from her hospital bed! She had gone to Urgent Care on Tuesday, advised to go straight to the ER, and then was admitted. Her right lung was filled with fluid and the doctors aren't sure what's causing it.

Gramie came and picked up the girls Thursday afternoon, so it was perfect, I could go and visit Diana in the hospital on Friday and not have to worry about what to do with my kids, if they were driving someone crazy, etc. I was free as a bird!! So after stopping for groceries and a trip into Costco, I went to the hospital and visited with Diana for over three hours!!!

She's been cooped up in the hospital for days and wanted to take a walk outside. So we did just that. We sat on a bench for a while soaking up the sun and then walked around the outside of the hospital for a bit. The entrance in which we would now have to enter was a revolving door. Diana was being silly and just kept going round and round. Good thing her heart monitors weren't able to be read so far away from the unit she was on, or she might have scared the nurses. LOL. Me with my handy dandy camera in my purse whipped it out and took a picture and said "you know this is going on the blog!!". LOL.

Prayers for Diana would be very much appreciated. They still don't know what's caused her lung to fill with fluid and has a tube draining it. They've also found a blockage in the tube leading from her kidney to her bladder which they think is an old stone that never passed. They will put a stent in on Wednesday to open that up. But in the meantime, she remains a "Mystery Woman" as far as that fluid buildup.



** I asked permission to post this picture on the blog.

Good Mexican Food

Every time we are in San Diego, we go to our favorite Mexican food restaurant.

We first discovered this place eleven years ago when we spent our 1st wedding anniversary in San Diego. I was working at the time and had asked my supervisor if she knew of any good Mexican food places in San Diego as they had a boat docked in a nearby marina and spent a lot of time there. She recommended this place and we've been going back ever since!One of the things that makes this place extra special and yummy is the hot jalepeno cheese dip they serve with their chips and salsa. It is so good, we easily go through two to three bowls. Although this time, Hannah discovered she liked the stuff and now she's hooked! A few years back, I discovered how to make the dip, here at home, and we refer to it as Miguel's Dip. Within 48 hours, we had visited both our favorite Mexican food restaurants - one in Steven's hometown, and this one in San Diego. It was a real treat!

The Caterpillars of Pine Glen

As we were pulling into Pine Glen, our campground, Steven couldn't help but notice some a caterpillar making its way in the street. Once we paid really close attention, we realized there wasn't just one. There were tons all over the road. Live ones. Dead ones. Smashed ones.

When we pulled into our campsite, the caterpillars didn't just stay on the road. They were everywhere. They were huge. They were ugly. And they were in the trees. Don't believe me? Just ask one of my family members about the conniption I had one evening as we all sat around the campfire and one fell from the tree and landed on me. I wasn't the only one to exhibit such a performance in the days to follow.The camp host told my Mom that they are on a two year cycle, the campground is only graced by the presence of these caterpillars every two years. And as huge as they are, you'd think they'd turn into beautiful butterflies, but NO, the camp host assured us they were those big brown moths. Ewwww. We didn't see them in town at the shops or up around the Lakes. They were in the campground and at the nearby visiting center, that was it. We didn't see them anywhere else.

Weird.

Gross.

And making a note to only visit this campground on the odd numbered years.

So Much to Share...

The last nine days have been filled with so much. The list of things I wish to blog about grows everyday.

I've taken over 800 pictures between our camping adventures, as well as from the last two days we've spent in San Diego. Pretty good for a camera that wasn't working as well as it should.

I'll be sharing more of our adventures over the next week or two.

But for now, here is an album of Mammoth Camping 2008.

Home. For Now.

We're home. We had a great time camping in Mammoth Lakes. We couldn't have asked for more perfect weather. It was in the low to mid 80's all five days we were there, dipping in the high 40's, low 50's at night. Perfect weather. It was so miserable to have left Mammoth yesterday morning at 67 degrees and come home to it being well over 100, and over 90 just in the house.

We arrived home last night and within 30 minutes of arriving home, the car was unpacked, the majority of the camping gear put back onto the shelves in the garage, and the laundry was started. And oh what a massive mountain of laundry it is!! As of this morning, I've done about five loads of laundry thus far, including 23 pairs of socks!! LOL.

And now, despite only being home for a short time. I am packing again. Tomorrow we will head to San Diego for two days. We will spend tomorrow at the San Diego Zoo, and then on Wednesday we will go to Sea World. The girls are so excited for that! It's been twelve years since Steven and I have been to Sea World, and obviously the girls have never been. But we check on Shamu every couple of days on the webcam.

Thursday morning will have me doing laundry and packing again as the girls are going to their Gramie's this weekend. It was planned a couple weeks ago, but when we saw her last night for dinner on our way home, she asked if she could come get them on Thursday afternoon. So it's laundry, packing, and more laundry for this Mama.

If I get all the camping laundry done today, that means when we have no kids home on Friday, I can blog, blog, blog and share some of the 450 pictures I took while camping, and then the pictures I take while we're in San Diego!

Lots to Do Today!

Packing the car.
Packing our clothes.
Making homemade salsa.
Baking potatoes for hash browns.
Etc, etc, etc.

Busy day.

Have a great few days and I'll be back soon with lots of pictures...and stories, I'm sure!