family and friends

(click on photo for enlarged view)

looking around Bass Lake

(click on photo for enlarged view)

here are some of my favorites places in Bass Lake

it's all about dillon

Here's some pictures i've taken of Dillon while we've been here. he's very photogenic and instantly goes into his pose (that started when he was very young!) when i say "Dillon, smile".

scenes from my mom's house

here's a little taste of what dillon and i get to experience when we come to Bass Lake. you can see where i get my gardening and yard expertise from! mom's yard and garden are full of fun and whimsy. i'll introduce you to her little family. she's got 2 dogs, Blossom (2nd row, 3rd photo), Paddington (1st row, 1st picture). then there's the cats, all rescues: China (1st row, last picture), Sugarplum (4th row, 1st picture), Jingles, a "ragdoll cat" (last row, last picture). missing is Edith Ann, a orange and white kitty who declined to be photographed. she also has her darling little doves who make the cutest little cooing noises.

the picture with the flower and the bee is her Hollyhocks which are covered in bees right now. i just loved how the bees are covered in the pollen. guess they don't have allergies!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

erika (my niece), her friend and my sister arrived yesterday. we went for a quick swim at Falls Beach and a nice dinner at Yolanda's. It's tradition to be initiated at Bass Lake by going down the falls. dill & erika have been going down the falls forever, but it was her friends first time. she was very brave and let dill hold her hand as they went together. notice the fools gold in the 3rd picture, first row, with my footsies dipping in the lake.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

here's us stopping at the Pines Market to look at mom's card display (she sells cards of her photography). don't you love the girls in their matching dresses?

do you like hummingbirds? i sure do

(hint: click on the photo for a larger image)

my mom gets hundreds of hummers at her feeders. she has 4 feeders and they are constantly feeding from them. She has to fill them at least once a day. (to read all about the do's & don't's of feeding hummingbirds, go to my mom's blog, Ageless Adventures here and here. mom volunteered at the hummingbird banding network for a few sessions and learned plenty.

the hummingbirds that come to her feeders are called, Anna's. they can be very terroritorial and love to duel (dillon's words!) while angling to get into the feeders. i stood on a chair while taking those pictures and i was there during happy hour - where bunches come in to feed before it gets dark. they were swarming around me head and i could feel their wings in my hair. it was cool. i stuck my finger on one of the perches and a few of the landed on my finger while snacking.

in other news, tuck is starting to feel better. his test for influenza A was negative (thank god). so now he just needs to mend from whatever nastiness he got. some neighbor friends are pitching in to do what little they can. i've had horrible dreams about him since being here, so hopefully they will go away now.

kudos to my mom

my mom loves photography about as much as i do. when i visit her or she visits me, we are always grabbing our cameras to take on our little side trips; whether it is into Yosemite national park to our favorite watering hole or taking Muppet and Gracie (our doggies) into Central Park. Recently she's gotten serious about trying to sell some of her images and have others be able to appreciate her photos. she lives in a small town in California, called Bass Lake, which is an beautiful place to take pictures. Currently she's got her pictures in 3 locations around the lake. she's been asked to take pictures at weddings, around local property and at the local farmers market. i'm really proud of her for taking such a huge step. good job mom!

creating a story

i've had a few inquires about how i came up with my purse story, so i thought i would share. i was born in California and lived in various areas of the state while growing up. we did use to go a place called Bass Lake, located near Yosemite National Park and Fresno (California). My mother lives there now. usually i go every summer to visit, but lately that hasn't worked out (boo hoo). When i was little we rented a house in Bass Lake. on the way there we had stopped at a gas station and at the time they use to give out little plastic toys when you filled up. It was my turn to get something special (there were 4 kids), so i got the toys, which were little animals, like a giraffe, a tiger and something else. anyway, i did indeed hide those little toys in the house where we were staying. and yes, i did forget about them when we were leaving. Also, there was a huge boulder on the side of the house that we use to play on. across the street from the house was the lake and there was a dock that belonged to the house we rented. so we would go to the dock and jump into the lake wearing our bright orange life vests. I found the water to be "creepy" and didn't like to jump off the dock. i always thought there were things under the dock and they would get me.

Another part of the story came from my stepmom, Angie, who had emailed me and told me she had a metal mesh purse like the one i picked up at the flea market when she was a little girl and that she liked putting the purse in her mouth. the "lost" part of the story came about because when i graduated from high school, my mom and stepfather moved to North Carolina. A bunch of my personal belongings were lost in that shipment; things like my beloved books and my yearbooks. So i've never gotten to look through my yearbooks again and it always really bums me out. i really wish i had them back. highschool is such an important time in your life when you are full of dreams and just enjoying life as a young teenager does. it would be fun to look at the old pictures, read all the things people "signed" in my yearbook, especially senior year. I often wonder what became of them. were they trashed? did they end up in a thrift store?

so those are the elements i combined to create my story of the lost purse.