First day back hiking!

Well.. it's officially spring again :) I've been hiking...
It's been a good day despite all the stress... I made a point of taking my mind off of things and just taking it easy today..
Started the day out with going to the baby pageant with Tina and watching Rebekka strut her baby stuff.. I was pretty happy with how she did.. She won the trophy in the beachwear division and got runner up awards for most of the other categories. She wore the outfits I made for her and looked adorable.


Here's a pic of a tree I thought was pretty interesting.. If you look you can see that it's held up by about 2 and a half inches of bark on each side.. and you can see clear through the middle.. the only reason it's still standing at all is that it started to fall.. and got caught almost straight up in the fork of another tree.. I was actually a little scared to walk under it.. but there was no wind so I figured it would be ok. I expect it will probably just collapse in on itself soon... There was a bench we sat to rest at across from this tree.. and we noticed a few trees with initials cut into them... RS+MH IT+MH .. JM+MH.. apparently MH gets around.. and has very few date ideas.. We also saw.. a woodpecker.. a Bee... (it's almost nice to see a bug at this time of year).. Deer tracks.. little fishies.. tadpoles.. ducks.. we THOUGHT we saw a bear.. but it was a really big black dog.. and we saw a strange black animal.. that we know wasn't a skunk.. it was a bit bigger and ran like a squirrel.. AND we saw a squirrel.. yup.. good thing I went out into nature.. lol.. never woulda seen any of that in the city. lol..
I think honestly.. that a hike that starts with a very large downhill trail.. is not necessarily a good thing.. because at the END of that hike.. you HAVE to go back UP the hill.. and at the end of the hike.. you are not feeling nearly so energetic as you did at the beginning... but you can't go home until you've gotten back to the car.. which is at the top of that hill... which you'd rather die than climb.. I was quite jealous of the dog that was climbing up the hill.. he may have been foaming at the mouth from the effort.. but he was still moving.. unlike me.. I had to rest 4 times on the way up.. definitely need to hike more.. we made an agreement to go at least once a month during the good months for it.. (until summer when the bugs get too bad, then it's beach time)
When I got home Matt's buddy Nick was here... haven't seen him in ages... he brought us a printer!! YAY!! a really nice one too.. needs ink... 45$ a cartridge.. and yes we have to replace all 4 to get it to work again.. so.. yet another thing to put on the list of things to get... but on the upside.. once we get the ink the cost per page is like 2 cents.. and THAT I can live with.. that and the ink colors are all separate cartridges.. so I don't have to replace all the colors if I run out of red.
Matt's Aunt came over for dinner today.. She brought pie! blueberry pie!! Probably the best blueberry pie I've ever had.. mmmm.. Matty made a really good pork tenderloin with spinach stuffing.. mmmmm.. it was really good with my rosemary apple cider jelly..
Last night when I got home from work Matt had Frank, Alun, and Jeff all here.. Jeff lives here.. so that's no big suprise.. Alun almost lives here.. (lol) so that's not a suprise either.. I wasn't expecting Frank though.. which was cool.. It's always nice to see Frankie.. Well.. I was feeling a bit silly.. Looked at my dogs.. and had this thought that my girl dog should really be pink.. and my boy dog blue.. so I can tell them apart... so I grabbed the food coloring.. and proceeded to color my dogs.. (they needed a bath anyways).. it was good for a laugh.. then I bathed the dogs... unfortunately.. the purple dye did not wash out.. lol.. so poor chelsea is walking around with a pink face... and my hands look like I slammed them in a door..
I am working on figuring out how to get my photo's to actually go into my posts.. they're not exactly going WHERE I want them.. but they seem to be showing up.. ok I spoke too soon.. I've tried about 7 times now to upload more pics from today.. it's not working.. I give up.


here's some links to the pics..

here's bekka with her little purse
here's bekka in her princess dress
here's Tina's little guy Isaiah
here's my doll in an outfit I made for the as of yet unconceived one
and here's a pic of one of my little kittens