She's Off Her Rocker

Weekend Fun!!

Friday night is "Family Night"...we make dough in the bread machine for pizza, and each kid gets to roll out and make their own...the kids love it and even though I need to hose the flour out of the kitchen to clean up the mess when its over, we still do it!

Ellie and Cassie rolling out their dough...

They really put a lot of effort into their dough..Ellie made it by herself in the bread machine!

You can see our large kitchen has lots of natural light, and it doubles as my studio! I have another room same size downstairs, also well lit, for a studio, but for some reason I am happier working from the kitchen...that and it sits up high with a deck off the back, I just go in and out all day to work amongst the trees!

Cassie Q...

Danny's putting his in his pan...

Here is one ready for the oven....with fresh tomatos and basil from the garden!

The first bite is always the best!!!

Danny generally cuts up during dinner, he's the family clown...he makes a pirat-ey "argh" face while chewing on his...

Afterwards we always push all the couches together and watch a movie! Last night it was Coraline, directed by Henry Selic and I was enthralled! The stop motion film's visuals are incredible and I got atleast 5 creative art ideas while watching it! So many things in that movie, I am going to indulge myself and watch it again!

Today... we headed to my dear friend Crista's house to spend a day in the creek and woods by her house...Here are Ellie and Allyson on the trail..

Single filin' it down the trail...

As usual, Cassie beats us to it! She is in that water lickety split!

One of the best things about this creek is it's wonderful sand bottom...no mud, just clean brown sand. Dogs and kids love it too, and we all get a foot exfoliation walking in it! There is a waterfall a few miles upstream that we are going to hike to on our next trip!

It's always fun to decide where to go first. We've had a ton of rain lately so the water was cloudy and deep in spots...

Look at this amazing moss and lichen! The lichen was very alien like and rubbery. It practically bounces when touched! Weird!! I always get an urge to make a terrarium when I see things like this! With tree frogs!!

There are so many sculptural pieces of wood, trunk, root and stump, that and the dappled light make for a visual vacation! My eyes are gluttons.

Crista and Jim...

First good swimming hole found!

I wander around getting lost in the visual delights....

This was a big raccoon!!!

Some off the tree formations here are majestic...I expect them to pick up their root feet and start walking and talking like an Ent...

Getting ready to cross a huge log jam we found this wolf spider, he was big, but right after photgraphing him another ran from the top of the log to underneath it, and it was three times this size! So I found another route!!

Here was a beautiful red velvet ant...so southern, decadent and lush...like red velvet cake, or a red velvet couch...you just can't go wrong with red velvet, can you? Wish I could have gotten a better pic, he was a beauty

Angus McShmangus...

If tree climbing's your thing, this is your playground!

We find a box turtle FLOATING down the creek! They are NOT water turtles, he must have gotten washed down in a recent storm and just made himself into a little boat...we saved him, he's land ho again.

Crista's golden retriever puppy, Millie, finds a ball and amuses herself playing with it the rest of the trek!

A great shot of Mille and Angus after the ball!

Danny climbing over some skeletal fallen branches...no problem!

Angus watching over his flock...

...and back to me again...I enjoy his beauty.

Danny.....time to go!!!

This was the first day I ever came back without any fish...all I saw was little mosquito fish. I didn't have my first choice of nets, either, that's a partial exscuse. I did find a great piece of driftwood and a turtle shell, found by Jim! We had the idea watching Coraline last night that I should sculpt a skeleton turtle, and since one showed up not 24 hours after the thought, I think I should! It was such a great way to spend a hot and humid day!