A Weekend Get-Away to Big Bear Lake, California

A couple of weekends ago we picked up our niece S, and took her on a little mini-vacay with us to beautiful Big Bear, California.

Though we'd already had a few weeks of warm weather in our desert valley, on the drive up into the mountains we passed several large fields of snow, and stopped at one so our poor deprived-of-snow kids could get out and throw some snowballs.

Big Bear is a gorgeous little mountain town in Southern California best known for great snow skiing in the winter and water sports on Big Bear Lake in the summer.

Oh, and the camping up there is superb. In the summer, the fresh mountain air smells of pine and and tends to be at least 20 degrees cooler than the desert where we live, and at most of the campgrounds, you're far enough from roadways to hear only the sounds of nature.

For these reasons and more, it's been a favorite destination of our family for years.

While there, we usually have to take a trip to the Moonridge Zoo.



For years, the small, privately funded facility has rescued orphaned wildlife or rehabbed injured animals.

We arrived at feeding time in the Red Fox habitat. The zookeepers hide the meat (chicken legs), inside boxes with small openings so that the foxes are forced to root around for their food and dig it out much like they would do if they were looking for rodents in the wild.



What cracked up the kids was that the foxes couldn't seem to relax while eating their food, because they could see the wolf 'pups' next door, pacing around on the other side of the fence separating their enclosures, and so were wolfing down eating their food as quickly as they could lest it somehow be taken from them.



Here is a coyote on high alert.



Cousin S really liked the big cats exhibits, particularly this snow leopard which lifted it's head momentarily for a look at us but went right back to his nap before I could get a photo.



Here we visited the Mountain Lions.

This one seemed to be saying, "Ew...you stink!"



"Here, let me give you a bath."



"Ahhh, much better."



We watched the grizzlies for quite a while. To a child of Judah's age and disposition, there is something thrilling and yet terrifying about getting that close to big, scary wild animals, even those separated by fences.

I suppose the fact that you could smell their natural, wild smell added much to the experience from his perspective, as he clung to Jeff's neck the entire time we were there.

This grizzly got up to leave because it was feeling a bit crowded and wanted some space from his brother, and so moved to his own place in the sun.



Brother bear, missing his warm, soft pillow, followed along and snuggled right back up to him in his newly scouted out spot.



This is perhaps my favorite photo from the zoo.

Can you see what it is? It's VERY well camoflauged. (You may need to right click on the photo to enlarge it.)



That log looking thing between the two tree limbs? A bobcat. About twice the size of a normal housecat, but with thicker, more powerful legs and paws.

I wouldn't want to tangle with one in the wild, that's for sure.

Then we got to the bird exhibits.

The owls all sleep in plastic dog houses burrows which keep out the elements, namely the snow, and are therefore much easier for the zookeepers to keep clean.



This barn owl had a little perch in the top of his habitat, as his type of owl is more accustomed to hanging out up high.

I would almost swear that this owl was speaking to me in Joe Peschi's voice, "Are you lookin' at me?





Here was a very large California Golden Eagle.



I tried to get a photo of the Bald Eagles nearby, but it didn't turn out.

One had somehow injured one of it's eyes, which left the eyeball devoid of the cornea and pupil rendering it a very faint grayish white yet still able to move around wherever the eagle looked. The result was that the eagle, which was hopping around on his talons at the bottom of the exhibit, looked at you with a very blank 'eagle eye' stare.

Which really freaked out Judah. "I don't wike dat zombie eagowl!"

:: :: :: ::

Not far from the Moonridge Zoo is one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, La Montana. (The n should have that little ~ thing above it, but I can never remember how to get it there.)

It meets our criteria for good Mexican food: It's rather rustic inside, they make their beans from scratch (with lard), and the place is always hopping. We're pretty sure that is because they make some of the most delicious chile rellenos we know of. They also keep replenishing your tables with their addicting chips & salsa to the point that you end up taking most of your entree home with you. Delicioso!

Another fun place to visit while in Big Bear is Pine Knot Village. This is an area consisting of all kinds of wonderful shops, galleries, a few restaurants, coffee shops and even a movie theater.

The shops are spaced out so perfectly that the boys never feel like we're shopping, and therefore don't drag their feet or complain when we go into 'boring' shops (the ones mom likes, lol). We just poke around in all the shops and everyone has fun.

This area is also home to the best ice cream/candy shoppe in the San Bernardino Mountains. It was rather chilly outside while we were there and the shop owner was shoveling snow away from the front entrance, but we noticed that it didn't stop too many tourists from having an ice cream cone while window shopping in the area.

Normally we would have done just that, but we'd already passed the bakery which was down the street and around the corner, and which sells raspberry, cherry or apple turnovers. Those just sounded better to us that particular day. Decisions, decisions.

While Jeff and the kids wended their way through several souvenier type stores, I meandered through the nearby quilt shop and other crafty, home-decor type places. Ahhh...bliss. The ideas alone made it all worth the trip.

One of the art galleries there boasted a 'taxidermied' Dr. Seuss character that was mounted in much the same way as an 8 point buck's head (we weren't allowed to take photos, sorry). It was amusing to say the least. And sorry, no...it was not a Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz.

This same gallery also had some beautiful Bev Doolittle prints in which the artist masterfully camoflauges wildlife and sometimes Native American images in among nature scenes...so well that you really have to look at them to finally see the wild horses among the birch trees or the bears among a pile of large rocks. (If you click on the link, her 'hide and seek' series are the ones to which I refer.)

There were also some Thomas Kinkade special edition paintings that incorporated Disney characters like Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and The Princess and the Frog and even Pinnochio into the fanciful scenes. This perfect 'marriage' of art forms was such that I could envision a pretty spectacular girls bedroom decor theme around any one of the scenes a.) if I had a daughter, and b.) if they were they not quite so spendy.

Towards the end of 'the strip' of shops, there is an old converted filling station where folks can take old-time carriage or stagecoach rides around the village behind a draft horse, or have old-timey photos taken indoors.

Incidentally, this was where Judah went rushing out to pet the goat that was tied up outside. He got right down beside it, and the carriage owner called out, "That might not be such a good idea. That goat might butt him!"



Surprisingly Thankfully, we got out of there unscathed, and went inside to have our photo taken.

The kids all voted in favor of the Roaring 20's style clothing.

I think that was because Cousin S found out she could dress like a flapper, and because Jericho got to hold a Tommy Gun.

The man who runs the studio was a congenial fellow (dressed in old-time attire) who was kind enough to allow us to play around with our own cameras behind the scenes while he answered a stream of customer inquiries at the counter.

He even suggested a couple of fun poses like these.















I'm pretty sure this was permitted only because our boys took such an instant liking to his delightful canine Chester.



Chester knew several tricks, but perhaps the most endearing was that he would high-five you for a treat.

The fact that he would lie on the floor beside them and plop his weary head into their laps like he'd known them for years may have also contributed to their instant bond, because they really wanted to take that doggie home!

The portrait we had taken there was copyrighted and therefore can't be shown here, but we took plenty of our own photos and I must say, they all turned out pretty cute.











After having exhausted ourselves exploring Big Bear that weekend, we headed for home.

We always know it's been a good trip anywhere when Judah is out cold moments after buckling into his car seat.



This was the gorgeous scenery at a scenic pullout on the way down the mountain.





A lovely way to end a lovely weekend.

Happy May Day!

When I was a girl in Washington State, our family always made it a point to celebrate May Day.

We'd make cute little paper cones out of paper plates and doilies, with a handle by which to hang it on a door knob, and then we'd fill it with a bouquet of flowers and march off to our neighbor's homes to spread some cheer. Sometimes we'd even talk my mom into driving us all the way to Grandma's house to make sure she got one, too.

One neighbor lady Mrs. Pike absolutely loved this tradition, and that we chose to include her. She didn't have any grandchildren of her own, and when we 'adopted' her, she didn't protest.

While we didn't go the whole nine yards with a May pole, we four kids formed our own parade over to her house where we would knock on her door and then run to hide while she found the 'surprise' left for her.

The first couple of years, that worked just fine, but one year she caught us in the act, and made us all go back up her driveway until we were out of sight and then 're-enact' it so she could get a picture.

We, who probably had mud on our shoes from taking the 'shortcut' through the culvert ditch between our properties, on our covert but too-giggly-to-be-secretive mission, had really brightened her day.

Mrs. Pike has been gone a long time now, but I still look back on those memories with great fondness.

While I've always loved that tradition, somewhere during my college and early married years I kind of got away from it.

Then, when we moved here 12 years ago, we met a wonderful old couple in our church. Glen & Betty.

They had a large family and plenty of kids, grands, great-grands and now even a great-great grand of their own, but still had us over from time to time and were the sort of folks to 'adopt' all the additional grandchildren they could. Of course we were happy to oblige.

Glenn knew this May Day tradition well. In keeping with his own childhood tradition, he'd apparently made sure his Betty had flowers every May 1st.

When she died, he began leaving little May Day surprises on the doorsteps of several very lucky ladies at our church.

In the flurry of Spring activities, I'd forget all about the date until I'd go outside one beautiful spring day and very nearly trip over some sort of potted plant left on my porch or just outside our gate.

A couple of times I've even caught him in the act of leaving them off, but have never let on.

And though he's still recovering from a stroke which he had just a couple of weeks ago, he still managed to have his housekeeper drive him around town this morning (a day ahead of May Day, I might add, to ensure the 'surprise' factor) to help him with his usual covert May Day mission.

And these were the lovely flowers I found on my porch this morning.



Isn't that so sweet?

Yes, another man gives me flowers which I gush over every year and Jeff doesn't even mind, lol.



We sure do love that guy!

And when we grow up...we hope to be just like Glenn & Betty.

Oh, and here's the little treat which we have to sneak over and surprise him with this evening. Cheesecake brownie bites...made to his dietary restrictions and small so he can't overdo it.

Care Packages

My sister and her family recently took a tour of China.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime adventure which we followed with great interest. It's not everyday that you get an email "From the Yangtzee River in China". They took thousands of photographs (on digital cards), and hours of video footage.

Along with their having seen amazing sights and touring silk and cloissone factories, as well as seeing the Great Wall of China...they got to take an all-night sleeper train across the country! Amazing memories, for sure.

When they returned home, my sister sent out care packages.

Inside mine was this gorgeous serving bowl.

One time since moving into this house did I ever remember mentioning to her the color of our kitchen tile, and somehow she managed to find a serving bowl that matched it perfectly.

Jami has our grandma's infamous knack for finding the absolute perfect gift for someone.

The picture doesn't do it justice, but the match is dead on.



See how sparkly and pretty the glaze is on this bowl? I plan to just admire it for a few days before actually using it.



Meanwhile, they also picked out a bunch of cool loot for the boys, too, including money from that country which is always interesting to see. And this was after the goods had been pawed through by the boys.

The blue and white rectangles on the bottom left were nougat candies that taste a lot like a Big Hunk candy bar, except that they're wrapped with rice paper in addition to the outer wrapper. Just above the brightly colored candies in the bottom right are two packs of Extra gum, which in China come with some kind of little collectible prize.



The metallic foil wrapped confections tasted a bit like a long, tubular cheerio, filled with some type of pasty filling. Couldn't quite figure it out, but it was fun to get a feel for the 'flavors' of China. Jericho has enjoyed sampling all the goodies.

By far, Judah's favorite part of the care package were these hats.



Judah proudly wore his all over town the other day. Jericho prefers to display his. He's rather touchy about messing up the 'do' these days.

In any case, we were thrilled to get the packages, and just wanted to send a Thank You shoutout to aunt Jami & Family.

A Belated Post on Easter Activities

For our family, Easter, and more specifically, the commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ is a very significant and important celebration in our home.

While there is usually a dinner with the in-laws where we do fun things like egg hunts for the kids, always the focus of the week is on the significance of Christ's death and resurrection.

For the little ones in the family, we always bring out the Resurrection Eggs (our version) to explain the events leading to the Cross.

Our Easter festivities also include special Sunday services at church which very often include someone in our family participating in a passion play.

This year, Jeff played the role of Jesus' disciple Peter in a drama which was woven in with a lovely Easter Cantata.

For days in advance we had to relive the horrible events of the denial of Christ in our home over and over as Jeff practiced his lines.

As it happened, the day before Easter was the big dress rehearsal.

This overlapped with an event I was involved in by about an hour, which necessitated Jeff taking Judah with him to the church.

Our ladies craft group was at a local nursing home delivering Easter cards along with these faux Faberge' beauties





While there, I was happily oblivious to what Judah was doing at that moment, secure in the knowledge that Jeff would keep an eye on him. He was to be turned loose in the church nursery right off the sanctuary where the doors between would stay open.

It seemed an ideal plan. After all, it was only for an hour.

Judah, however, is a force to be reckoned with.

In the same way that Judah always gets into his worst mischief when I'm on the phone, seeing his dad was preoccupied, Judah did not stay in the church nursery.

Instead, Judah seized the opportunity to do a little exploring of his own. The entire church campus (thank the Lord not the world!) was his oyster.

Later, when I came to pick rescue the entire cast from his antics pick him up, I found him playing in the nursery. A surprisingly tidy nursery.

That should have been my biggest clue right there. Never is that nursery clean when Judah has been playing in it...especially by himself and unattended.

He got off the rocking horse when he saw me and said, "Hi, Mama! I missed you!"

Of course, whenever he says that I melt and so was distracted enough to not give it a second thought. "I missed you, too."

We waved across the sanctuary to Jeff to let him know he no longer needed to worry about Judah, and then went and got into the van.

Judah immediately began chatting at with our Pastor's mom. She'd been one of the group to visit the nursing home and I was going to drop her by her house on my way home.

Now Marie knows all about Judah. She was there when Judah very nearly busted our Pastor's chin open.

She's also one of those good-humored souls that are very quick to laugh and always has a sparkle in her eye. Her deep Arkansas accent and mannerisms remind me quite a bit of my dear Mamaw in this respect which is probably why I took an immediate liking to her the first time we ever met.

She was enjoying the childish prattle streaming forth from Judah, which ran the gamut from Spiderman to the seeds in our garden and ending with, "Mama...you forgotted to give daddy da church key."

"Oopsie" I said, realizing that I had forgotten to give Jeff the key to let the cast members in that morning.

"I realwy wiked see-een Jerry's camper house!"

"Oh, did daddy take you back there to talk to Jerry?" I questioned, figuring it had been necessary to visit the retiree caretaker's RV when Jeff realized I still had the key.

"No" he said, matter-of-factly.

"So daddy didn't ask Jerry to open the building?"

"Nope, Waura opened it."

"Then how did you see the inside of Jerry's camper?" I asked, looking at him in the rear view mirror.

"I goed in dere when daddy was in da church." His little sing-song reply spoke of having had a grand adventure.

"So you went in there without asking? When Daddy thought you were in the nursery?"

I glanced at Marie, whose brows had risen and who appeared ready to burst out laughing.

Putting in that way, Judah got a certain guilty expression on his face. "Yeah."

He brightened suddenly, "it's wike a witto house in dere." Again with the sing-song voice.

"Was Jerry in there?"

"Nope."

Oh, great...Judah prowling around in someone's RV all by himself. There was no telling what sort of havoc he unleashed.

His eyes brightened. "He has a cool toy truck in dere."

Whether it belonged to Jerry's grandchildren or was a remote control type gadget I didn't bother to find out. I was too appalled. And embarrassed.

By the time I pulled into Marie's driveway, she was doing all she could not to laugh.

What am I going to do with that boy?

:: :: :: ::

Before putting Judah down for his nap that afternoon we made Easter treats for all his cousins.

While I'd planned to finally try the Empty Tomb confections or at the very least Hot Cross Buns, being pressed for time we fell back on a non-symbolic old favorite involving crispy cereal, marshmallows and butter. You can hardly go wrong with that combination.







My young assistant chef had no problem at all with putting away as many of the 'scraps' (between the cutout flowers) as he could.

:: :: :: ::

After Judah's nap, we made the long drive to Jeff's sister's house for the family Easter gathering which had rather unexpectedly been changed to Saturday instead of the usual Sunday afternoon affair.

This is always a highlight for the kids in our extended family as Aunt Karen and Uncle Paul have a pool and this usually constitutes the inaugural pool party of the season.

It was still a bit too cold outside to comfortably swim, but the kids enjoyed hanging out in "da cuh-choosi" instead.



Later, festivities moved down the street to cousin Nikki's house, where she had literally turned her living room into a home movie theater and had all kinds of fun activities set up for the kids, including that annual favorite, egg-dyeing, and the telling of the Easter story with Resurrection Eggs.



Meanwhile, we adults all had a wonderful time visiting together after dinner.

In a rather old-ladylike turn of events, I managed to converse while oh-so-busily trying to finish my big crocheted afghan project to enter in the fair early Monday morning.

I had been working almost non-stop on it for days and finishing it was still going to be a stretch. Nevertheless, I soldiered on. And on, and on, and on.



That night when we got back home and I was still frantically crocheting into the wee hours, eyes, hands and neck screaming for sleep, I decided to consult the fair entry guide hoping I'd gotten the date wrong and that I had a couple of days leeway...only to learn I'd missed the entry deadlines, not only for my afghan but a couple of photographs, a quilted wall-hanging and baked goods. **long sigh**

However, I wasn't going to let it disrupt our Easter observances. I'd just save all my entries for next year. **I could'a been a contenda!**

Bright and early the next morning, we got the fixings for our Easter dinner going, and then got the kids up to find their Easter take-out boxes baskets.





Jericho didn't want his picture taken while still in his PJ's.

Judah, after changing clothes for the umpteenth time that morning, went outside to deliver some treats (meat trimmings) to our dog, and returned with this.



"I picked some fwowers for you, mama."

Best of all, they weren't even from the neighbors yard!

"Awwww, thank you," I replied, gushing over the beautiful flowers and giving him a hug.

I found a little vase and those became our centerpiece.



At last, we headed off for church.

The Cantata and Play went off without a hitch.

Afterwards, all the local extended family came over after church and we had a wonderful visit.

When everyone headed for home, we were cleaning up and and contemplating a Sunday nap when my dad called announcing that he'd be arriving hours ahead of schedule.

Though tired, we were glad he'd made it into town in time for a good dinner and then the evening service at church. It was a special treat to have some of my side of the family there to celebrate with us for once.

My dad barely walked in the door and sat down when we experienced a big earthquake.

It felt rather symbolic having a big earthquake on Resurrection Sunday. In spite of all the festivities, our attention was drawn back time and time again to the significance of Jesus' death and resurrection and the importance that holds for mankind.

Blessedly, we all did manage to get a quick power-nap before heading off to church.

All in all, it was a wonderful Easter.

:: :: :: ::

Of course, a Holiday cannot pass in which I am not out the following morning scouring stores for great deals on useful seasonal decorations.

Aside from the eggs we put in the kids baskets, we tend to decorate more with lambs and crosses and empty tombs, but there generally isn't a lot in those categories left around after Easter.

However, I was not averse to snapping up some cute little discounted birds nests at Wallys.



and this wreath which I got from the Salvation Army (a couple of weeks earlier) for the bargain price of $1.50.



For $7.50 total outlay, I harvested enough supplies



to make a different wreath (pictures to come later)

and some darling little birds nest decorations for another purpose.

Oh, and see that cute little silver footed plate holding the nest up? That was another under $2 find from another thrift store. Nothing a little silver polish didn't fix in a jiffy.



Almost makes up for my disappointment in missing the fair entry deadlines!