Camping at Summit Mountain

For every year as long as I can remember (and probably the years I can't remember), my family has gone camping at least once a summer on Summit Mountain. It's land my great-grandparents owned, and I found out this year it used to belong to my great-grandma's father. We used to go over Labor day weekend, but since I've been able to go on my own, I've gone earlier in the year. There's a lake up there, it's very green, there's a raspberry patch, and lots of wildlife. Jay even got to go on a hike or two.

Holly and Mia had a great time on the hikes and wandering around following anyone they could keep up with.

This was our hike down the canyon to the raspberries. Holly and Mia really enjoyed picking and eating the wild raspberries.

See? Raspberries!

Just look at the size of that raspberry patch.

A nice meadow above the lake.

Sunset from the lake.

Sunset on the lake.

Jay had a good time, too, even though his walker didn't work out like we planned. (Mia is a ham).

Holly and Mia picked flowers on the way down to the raspberries, then left the flowers on this lovely tree.

And finally, Mia with her great-grandparents. Thanks for letting us visit your mountain.

Backpacking to Mummy Springs

On July 31, my brothers and I hiked to Mummy Springs, near Mount Charleston. We were planning to hike to the top of Mummy Mountain, but we were too slow and tired. We hiked three miles in three hours, the uphill part really slowing us down. We found a nice uneven hillside to camp on just past the spring, which actually had some running water. It was a terrible night sleep, but we had a good time hiking and talking together.

coming soon...

two posts about camping trips.

I went backpacking with my brothers the last Friday in July, and my whole family went to Summit Mountain the week of August 10. I love going to the mountains, even if backpacking made me realize I'm getting old and need to exercise more. I took lots of pictures on both trips, but I'm bad at doing anything with them. I back up all my pictures on my work computer, which is probably not the best system, but I want to see them at work too. I'll probably post some and put some others on facebook. There will actually be some recent pictures of the kids that way.

Look forward to it.

Time flies

I can't believe it's already the end of July. The best part of getting through July is that the heat is passing. At least in theory. August will still be hot, but July is usually the peak. Tuesday, our patio thermometer said it was 118 degrees. Our air conditioner works fairly well, but on a day that hot, it couldn't get it any cooler than 80 degrees, and it ran pretty constantly. There was a stretch when the humidity was a little too high to run the swamp cooler, but thankfully it's been working better lately. This morning it was 68 degrees in our living room, thanks to the swamp cooler. The swamp cooler works great, and it works the best when the outside temperature doesn't get over 105 or so.

But I'll be glad to get to September, when the highs will be under 100 again.

I looked at my pictures to see what I could blog about

It's true. Admit it. You like blogs better when they include pictures. So here's what we've been doing.

I think it was two weekends ago when we finally finished our kitchen ceiling. I had to sand, prime, and paint. It was dusty, dirty work.


The original picture will show you what the original light looked like, which was a monstrosity. It was so big that the cabinet doors would hit it and not open all the way.


Kelsea will no doubt appreciate the picture of her from last April.
She'll also be upset with me for using the picture below, since she thinks the lighting was wrong.

It was night, so there's no light from the window, but I think it looks good. And she hasn't taken a picture since then. Also, I added the handles to all the cabinet doors. The clean white ceiling and the brushed nickel handles make the kitchen look cleaner and newer. We bought all the handles almost a year ago, so Kelsea was pretty happy to finally have those on there. Oh, I also changed the horrible dirty outlet and switch to new clean white ones. So much better.
Maybe this will motivate Kelsea to take the picture she wants me to post.