Raspberry Season

I'm having an amazing crop of raspberries this year. Thankfully I have some helpers to pick all of them. A few even make it in the house.
 

NO! Bad, robovac, bad!

I bought a robovac off of Marketplace. He brings me much joy. He vacuums the house, including under the couches, and requires no nagging. I quickly feel in love with the round little cleaner. I had found a true best friend.

And then he betrayed me. 

 I did manage to unwind my knitting, but lost one needle to the robovac. I still love him, but it will take awhile for us to re-build our relationship.

Gambling Addictions

We decided that we needed a little family time. So we asked Grace and Sam if they wanted to go to Pojo's. This led to them both asking a friend. Six of us went to Pojo's, I divvied up the tokens, let everyone know that was all I was buying, and then proceeded to watch as everyone disappeared. 

I did a little stalking so I could grab a photo or two.

Everyone was having a great time when I found them. I went and played skeeball. I have a strange addiction to skeeball. Don't judge me. 

Sam came to find me when his friend hit it big. The tickets just kept coming! They were on cloud nine. 

 The girls didn't have as much luck, but they still had fun. At one point Grace mentioned she was off to buy more tokens. Before I could even say anything she looked at me and said, "I don't have a problem, you have a problem. I NEED more tokens" Then she ran off to spend her own money.

Ninety minutes later we were all broke so we turned into our numerous tokens to get tootsie rolls, a frisbee, a mini kite and a water gun. Our gambling did not pay off, we would have saved a ton of money by just going to the dollar store. We did have a lot of fun though, and I may have created a gambling addiction in impressionable youth. I would say the outing was a success.

Early June-A Reflection in Pictures

The cat is still alive, despite Libby's frequent nightmares to the contrary. She is living her best old lady life.

The dog is not getting anymore normal.

I put aside my knitting for awhile and started crocheting a baby blanket. It may be time to add a little more variety to my hobbies.

Michael and I got dressed up and went to a stage version of "To Kill a Mockingbird". It was a beautiful play, and also deeply problematic. I'm still not sure how I feel about attending.

We celebrated father's day. Michael has a deep love of pie. I hate making pie. For Father's Day I made him chicken pot pie, strawberry pie, and banana ginger ice cream pie. They food was truly ugly, but also delicious. I stand by not enjoying making pie.

After I finished the baby blanket, I went back to my current knitting project. I love how these dinosaur bone socks ended up, but I made them too small for anyone in my household. Thankfully the neighbor girl has smaller feet and it was her birthday. She was over the moon when I presented her with these socks.

I also learned I am much better at following yarn patterns than lego patterns. I picked this pika kit up when we were at Crater's. It took me forever to put together, and the sides are horrific (I carefully posed him so they are not visible), but it is finished!

I think this is a complete update from early June. Stay tuned for the rest of the month.
 

Craters of the Moon

I was feeling a little boxed-in and in search of an escape. On Thursday I mentioned to Michael we should plan an overnight to Craters of the Moon. I was looking to see what was available for camping/lodging before I headed out the door to work. I stumbled across a cabin at a campground that was available the next night, close to the national monument, and was well within our price range. I quickly booked the reservation and then headed off to work, not even late!

Friday morning Michael and Sam left the house early, as they were scheduled to volunteer at Camp Rainbow Gold to help prepare the camp for the soon-to-visit campers. As luck would have it, this is in the same direction as Craters.  

After I got off work Friday, Grace and I grabbed the last of the items to load in the van, and headed on our grand adventure. It was pretty uneventful, except for the weird side trip the GPS sent us on. I took the appropriate turn onto a dirt road. The nice dirt road turned into a rutted dirt road and then into two tracks with sagebrush growing in the middle. When the sage brush started scraping the undercarriage of the van, we decided to doubt the GPS. A U-turn and phone call later, we were back on the correct road and found the boys down a parallel dirt road that stayed a road the entire way. They were hot, sweaty, tired, and blistered, but in good spirits.

After a stop for ice cream in Fairfield, we continued on, replenished and refreshed.

We arrived at the campground and found our lodging to be adorable. Sam looks like he is planning on writing a manifesto, but that is how most of his photos currently look. Most of his current photos give off a future convicted felon vibe. Teenagers are fun!

That evening we hung out at camp. We ate dinner and way too many peanut butter Oreos, read a few Patrick F. McManus stories, and called it a night.

The next morning we girded ourselves with free waffles before heading to the dormant lava fields. Grace ate one and a half, Sam two, Michael three.

Look how happy I look. The sun was shining, we were adventuring, and I could see for miles. This was before the complaining started. We made the wise/foolish decision to visit the tree molds first. It was a warm, sun baked, windy mile hike out to the molds. Grace ditched us early on and was power walking to get to the end. When we did reach the tree molds, Sam said, "We walked all the way out here to see this?" 

The tree molds did not impress the teens. Michael and I enjoyed viewing where lava flows had toppled trees and only left a burned imprint of them, but we weren't allowed much time to explore, as Grace was already power walking back. Sam was also making sure we understood that he was hot, thirsty, and bored. It was wise we did this hike first as it was already getting warm by mid-morning, but it was a little foolish as this was the least interesting hike of the day. It was a little difficult to convince everyone to go on more hikes.

They did enjoy these creepy nests of caterpillars that were scattered everywhere, so that was something.

The lava tubes were a little more interesting, and luckily just a short walk from the parking lot. It was still pretty warm and windy, though.

The kids were getting a little bored by this point, but were convinced to do one more hike. So we headed off to explore the Indian Tunnel Lava Tube and Dew Drop Cave, both conveniently located next to each other, but still a 3/4 hike from the parking area.

We all started to feel the heat on the way to the caves, but once we dropped inside it was beautiful cool relief. We started at Dew Drop and were excited to find a dripping icicle and glowing green and orange rocks. It was a pretty small cave that only took a few minutes to explore.

Our next stop was the lava tunnel cave. It was amazing. Swallows were swooping into the cave and making nests in the roof. There were little alcoves and pockets around every corner. And the corners just kept coming. The caves stretched for hundreds of yards. We entered at one end and after a lengthy journey and some scrambling of rocks we exited through a small round opening unto the lava fields. It felt a bit like being eaten and then pooped out by a large rocky creature. The whole experience was surreal. 

By the time we were out of the caves, we were hot, tired, hungry and almost out of water, so we started to head back to the visitor center with its delicious running water and flush toilets. On the way, though, we were able to find a shady picnic table and enjoy a picnic lunch, with crackers and children only occasionally being blown away by the wind.

Back at the visitor center we were able to experience all the glory of running water and we all took the time to fill out our Junior Ranger booklets to be awarded our Junior Ranger badges. We had accomplished all we had set out to do, and seen everything we wanted to see, so we happily climbed in the van and headed home. We debated stopping at the Shoshone Ice Caves, but the teens were pretty adventured out, so we just headed home to wash all the lava dust off of our sweaty selves.