Our new puppy, Fathom adjusted to boat life quite well.  A couple days after getting her, we headed out on the boat to Liberty Bay (Poulsbo) to celebrate the 4th of July weekend.  We arrived into Liberty Bay with only maybe 10 boats in the bay.  Over the next couple of days hundreds more arrived.  Fathom bonded with the kids quite well:

Ellie was a little bummed that she slept so much.  The next morning we headed into town for some yummy pastries at Sluys and Fathom took her first dinghy ride.  She wasn't so sure of her life jacket, but she sure looked cute:

We did a great hike to the kids park and Fathom started getting used to the leash.  Of course she crashed as soon as we got back to the boat.  Zak started fishing and caught this huge flounder:

Fathom found it quite interesting, too:

The weather was a little off and on for the couple days leading up to the 3rd of July, but turned out quite nice for the 3rd and 4th.  We had our friends Curtis and Cynthia aboard Winddancer and Rich and Echo aboard Ve Ja Du raft up with us.  A longboat with Vikings always come around and start water fights.  The kids and Scott and Curtis were ready for them:

They said that was the wettest they've ever been. We also took a dinghy ride around the bay to say "hi" to some friends and Fathom seemed to like the dinghy a bit more:

The fireworks were good, but as soon as they started Fathom freaked out a bit, so I wasn't able to see them.  The kids and Scott enjoyed them.  On the night of the 4th, we headed to Ve ja du for a big game of Mexican Train.  It was a great time.

On the 5th we headed out to meet up with our friends from Pearl. We tried to get into Blake Island marina with no luck, and decided to go to Blakely Harbor instead.  Here's a picture of Ghost Scott took while the kids and I waited for him to check for a spot at Blake Island marina:

It was beautiful and calm there with only a couple of boats sharing the harbor with us.  The kids set off in the kayaks and we all went to the little park at the head of the harbor:

At around dinner time our friends, Bob, Shari, Sydney, Annie and Salty aboard S/V Pearl showed up to raft up with us.  It had been awhile since we had some good, quality time with our friends and it was so nice to spend the evening together:

Sydney was wonderful with Fathom and took care of her the entire time they were with us:

Annie and Zak went out kayaking and had a great time together:

Fathom met their dog, Salty, and I know they are going to be great buds. It was definitely a short visit, but so good to see them.  They headed to our slip at Shilshole so Bob could head to work before heading up to the San Juans and we headed to Blake Island.  Luckily we were able to squeeze into a spot at the dock and decided it would be a perfect place to spend the rest of our vacation.

Fathom had her first beach experience and loved it.  There were all kinds of things that she decided to taste which I don't know if that was a good thing or bad:

We also went on some pretty long hikes and she was a complete trooper:

The kids found some huckleberries on the island:

We saw a ton of wildlife like always:

The coolest were the owl:

And the huge moth:

We had such a great time and when we pulled into the dock yesterday at 9:30 a.m. everyone was ready for another great day.  We all put our crab pots down, went kayaking, lounged on the dock and later enjoyed an amazing feast of crab, sides, key lime pie, cheesecake, and Margaritas.  It was a dock party for the history books:

Fathom did great:

She met quite a few of the dogs on the dock, picked up all the bits of crabmeat people dropped, and also fell off the dock for the first time.  The last she didn't like too much, but loved everything else.  Now we have a couple weeks at home and then we'll be heading up to the San Juans for August.  Can't wait

June went by so fast.  It was an extremely busy month.  The kids had their school carnival and some other activities.  We put the mizzen mast back up on Ghost.  It's so nice seeing Ghost "whole" again:

We also put on our first ever "Sea Life with Zak & Ellie".  For the school auction we sold this event for 6 kids to come down to the dock and learn about sealife from Zak & Ellie:

They also were able to drive the dinghy and our friends came down to dive beneath the dock to find some cool things:

It ended up being a pretty cool thing. 

Father's Day was spent at Scott's brothers house and his Dad was there as well.  It was great for the Brosius family to be together:

Our next big adventure was our 2nd Annual Weekend at Blake Island with the BIG G (Blake Island Gourmet Group).  Last year we had such a great time, so we decided to do it again.  This year Scott and I left Friday morning to try to get a spot at the dock.  We arrived at the Blake Island marina with 2 boats waiting for spots in front of us.  Check out time was a couple hours away, so we decided to tie up to some pilings to wait for a spot.  We didn't have to wait too long and pulled into a tight slip at the dock:

Our friends were coming in later that evening.  Luckily they found another spot on the dock next to us, so rafted together there:

We spent that evening chatting (is it really summertime?):

Beth and Chad made a delicious Halibut and Steak dinner that was amazing.  We all sat on the dock and enjoyed their wonderful mojitos, as well:

We ended the evening with smores at the shelter.  We had to try to mega campfire marshmellows:

I don't think we'll buy those again.  It kind of takes away from the smore.  The next morning some other friends showed up in their new boat.  It was great seeing the McDonalds and can't wait to have more excursions with them.  We had to head out early to meet Scott's parents for the kids to head out for a couple of days with them while we went to Billings to get our new puppy, Fathom:

She has adjusted pretty well to boat life.  She met the kids today and although they love her a ton, Ellie is a little bummed that she sleeps so much.  There will definitely be a few adjustments, but she has been amazing so far. 

Blake Island Argosy Cruise

Pictures from the Cruise

Another item that we bought from the School Auction was a trip on an Argosy Ship to our favorite island.  There were 300 tickets for anyone in our school to take the trip to Blake Island.  So we knew most of the families on the cruise.  It was absolutely wonderful.  We had 3 hours on the island to do whatever we wanted to.  We also celebrated one of Ellie's friend's birthday:

The kids had so much fun exploring:

I had fun exploring, too.  I also found some great beach glass.

Our New Puppy, Fathom

So, we finally caved in and decided that we were going to have a new addition to our family.  It took a while for Scott and I to decide what kind of dog we wanted, but found something that we think we will love.  We loved Retrievers, but wanted something a bit smaller.  We decided on a Miniature Golden Retriver.  Ours is 62% Golden Retriver and 38% Cocker Spaniel.  She was born on May 2nd and we chose which one would be ours last week.  Her name is going to be Fathom.  We tried so hard to find something that was Nautical, Ghosty, and Girly.  Not too many options out there.  We receive pictures each week and here on the ones we have received so far:

Here's Mom with her pups:

Fathom at a couples days old:

At two weeks:

and at 3 weeks:

We can't wait to get her in 3-4 weeks.

Memorial Weekend/Penrose Point State Park

Pictures from the weekend

This past weekend we spent some time with our great friends aboard the S/V Pearl down in South Sound.  We met them at Penrose Point State Park and stayed on their boat for the weekend.  The weather didn't really cooperate, but we still had a wonderful time:

The kids had so much fun, and YES, that IS sunshine!!!  The last night there we enjoyed a beautiful evening.

For our school auction this year, Scty and I decided to purchase something fun.  We decided on a beer tasting party, put on by some great friends of ours.  It was a fantastic night and we learned so much about different types of beer:

Bob and Ingrid were amazing hosts and I was so impressed by how much Bob knows about beer:

I think we might have to make this an annual event.  It was such a wonderful time.

The first part of May was spent visiting with Scott's family who arrived in their RV from a winter of traveling in the warmer parts of our country.  They live full time in their RV and spend their winters south and summers up here in the Pacific Northwest.  You can check out their blog here:

http://tininthewind.com/blog/

With them they brought along Scott's Grandma:

It was great seeing her.  It's been too long and was a wonderful visit.  While spending time at Scott's brother's house, the kids enjoyed their beautiful backyard.  Ellie and her cousin, Maddie, enjoyed making more Fairy Houses:

The boys enjoyed playing soccer in the yard:

On the home front, our neighbors Bob & Jane hoisted their flag for their new grandaughter's arrival.  It was wonderful to be involved in their excitement:

And last for this post would be the wonderful sunset on the 5th of May:

This month, we've had so many things happening, I broke the posts up to keep it simple.  Let me know which you prefer, small posts or our long detailed Monthly post.

We unstepped the mast and set it on the deck. My plan was that if it was down, I could work on it slowly and have it all fixed up before the summer season arrived. I didn't quite have a grasp on what "slowly" was going to mean. Life gets in the way and things moved along at a slugs pace.

First I had to dig out the rotted spruce. I ended up with a section that was about 7 feet long. It was oddly shaped but that would make the scarfed in spruce stronger. 

 I sanded down all the loose paint and did some smaller repairs here and there. The foot of the mast had a ferw soft spots that were easy to fix.

I finally got everything sanded and after several coats of primer, I am getting ready to start painting.

I will be adding a VHF antenna, and an alternate anchor light to the mast head. When the mast was built, they included a tube running through the mast, but did NOT have an exit hole at the masthead. I had to do some experimental drilling to find a good place for the exit. The tube only went near the top, so I can access it easily.

Like all older Formosa's, the mizzen was slowly sinking into the aft cabin top. I decided to re-enforce the mast support under the aft cabin top. This will allow me to properly tune my mizzen rigging finally!

I am concidering a hard top for the aft deck. I am just in the planning stage now, but I will need to raise the mizzen boom to accomodate the hard top, and me standing at the helm. I will need to do some concept testing to see if this will even work. Standby for more on that project.

During all of this, I also ripped out the old 3rd generation galley counter top. I had origanally used a hardwood butcherblock from Ikea. It did not last long in the marine environment. Then I got the crazy idea to make a countertop imbedded with beachglass. Very cool, but the stuff I used to cover it allowed water in and it failed...sooo, now we have a proper tiled countertop that will last and it looks way better. We also installed a new, larger sink. Much better!

I keep getting later and later with these updates.  It seems like life keeps getting busier and busier.  Oh well, April was a wonderful month.  It started out with Scty's birthday.  At the last minute I invited our neighbors to come over for cake and ice cream to celebrate and I think everyone showed up:

We had Bob & Jane from S/V Eolian:

Fred from S/V Black Opal

Doug from S/V Angelique and Elaine from S/V Hawkwind

Tawn from S/V Palarran, Linda from S/V Black Pearl, and Ruth from S/V Angelique

and Brent and Jill from S/V Ambition

We have such fabulous neighbors and friends.  I'm sure there were more people, but we didn't get pictures of them.  We had about 20 people on the boat and it was still quite comfy.

The kids and Dad headed out fishing one of the days and caught a lingcod.  It was lingcod season, so we couldn't keep it, but they had a blast:

Scty's been working away on our Mizzen Mast project (he will go into more detail on that later).  It's been quite a long process and we will all be happy to have it done:

This is the piece that was rotten, so he had to scarf a new piece in.

April had some beautiful weather and one of the weekends we spent the entire weekend playing outside.  The adults sat and visited and enjoyed the sunshine and the kids kept busy, too:

The kids also had some music concerts and art walks this month.  They love performing and the art was amazing:

I have to say that the best event of the month was our Beach Party at Secret Beach.  Secret Beach is only usable and visible at low tides.  So planning a day to have a party there is pretty tricky.  We had planned this last year and knew this was the only date that would work for a sunset gathering.  Once again it was kind of spur of the moment informing everyone what we planned.  We were a little worried about the weather, but it ended up being perfect.  So many people showed up and I think we'll be making this an annual event:

The tide finally told us it was time to go.  Words can't describe how much fun that night was.  These experiences just make me love this lifestyle more and more.

With only one mast and tons of work to do on our boat, we have been going absolutely crazy needing to go somewhere, but not being able to.  So when Scott got a week off during spring break, we decided to tie everything down, throw off the lines, and go to our favorite local destination - Blake Island.  We had to postpone a day due to some nasty weather, but finally made it out.  It was an uneventful hour-long motor to the island.  We are always worried about finding a spot in the small marina on the island, but luckily there was plenty of room.

After tying up, we all headed out to do some beachcombing.  The kids love finding little creatures under the rocks:

We also met and played with a very old dog named "Bob".  He was a very cool dog (His owners were pretty cool, too);

After that, we headed back to the boat, ate lunch, packed some snacks and headed out for a dinghy ride around the island.  We love the West side of the island due to it's huge amounts of beach glass. 

We found a ton of beach glass and just had fun playing on the beach.  That evening we met up the the crew of Chaika for a fire up at the fire pit.  We all had smores and had a very nice evening visiting with the 3 of them. 

The next morning we woke up and made our Easter eggs and then took a long hike across the island.  Check out how green some of the pictures of the island are:

Zak started searching for Salamanders:

And was extremely happy to find some:

Brosius Family Photo:

There was a forecast for some pretty extreme winds coming through the next day (Friday), so most of the people headed home Thursday night.  We decided to stay.  The marina is pretty protected and we didn't have anywhere else to be. 

Friday was spent making Easter dinner (Scott had to work Sunday, so we had an early dinner together), watching a Harry Potter Marathon, and that's pretty much it.  The weather was really nasty outside.  Zak & Scott took a little hike, but the winds were really strong.  Saturday morning we woke up, looked at the weather (which was still a bit blustery) and decided to leave that afternoon instead.  We took one last hike on another trail we hadn't been on:

And then we headed home.  It was a great week.  Wish we could have stayed longer.  One reason we love Blake Island is all the wildlife:

We started the month of March off with Scott still in Ethiopia and my parents coming to Seattle for a quick visit.  It was great seeing them and the kids and I stayed at their hotel - The Residence Inn - and took advantage of the pool and other amenities. 

Scott was happy to be home from Ethiopia and we were so happy to have him back.  Unfortunately he jumped right back into his schedule with Horizon and headed out to do some flying.  We celebrated Zak's 9th birthday (can he really be nine) by letting him invite some friends over for a sleep-over.  Ellie and I went to the High School play "The Secret Garden", which was absolutely fabulous.  One of the leads babysits Zak & Ellie, so it was great seeing her on stage.

During one of Scott's weekends away, I went out with some friends for an Aquavit tasting.  Aquavit is a Scandinavian liquor/drink.  There were many different types we tried.  All very interesting.  I didn't like it much, but had a great evening.  We ended the evening by going dress shopping for our School auction the following weekend.  We stumbled upon (O.K, one of the guys knew about it) a benefit dress sale for new or slightly used cocktail, prom, and formal dresses.  All for $10/pc.  We had a blast trying on the dresses and all picked one for the auction. 

Last year the school's auction was one of the highlights of our year.  We met and got to know a group of wonderful people who have become quite good friends.  Unfortunately we had a terrible time trying to find a sitter and at the last minute decided to send the kids to Boise to see Grandma & Grandpa. It was the first time they had flown on their own and I think we were all a little nervous.  No need to be, though.  They did great!  Scott and I got ready for the big night and everyone was outside when we emerged from the boat.  They got some great pictures for us, too:

We met our friends at the Matador before the auction to get some really good margaritas.  Kind of dangerous!  But oh, so yummy!

It was a great event and we all did our share to help the school out!  We are all already looking forward to next year's auction:

The next Saturday was another beautiful day in the marina.  We were all hanging out outside when Ellie shouted "There's a whale!".  Of course, none of us believed her until we saw it surface again a couple minutes later.  It was absolutely amazing.  A 30'-40' gray whale was swimming around between our boats in the marina.  We tried to get a little video.

Whale video

The last couple of days we took the boat to Blake Island, but I will do that in a new post.

January ended with record breaking weather and it continued right on into February.  On the 6th of February we had a first dock party of the year:

This usually doesn't happen until April, but it was too nice to ignore it.  It's always so much fun to catch up with the neighbors. 

Zak and Scott decided to study tides for the science fair this year and created a great project.  Of course Scott was out of town for the fair, so the kids and I headed to the school to set up everything.  We found out a couple days before that we weren't supposed to have any liquids in the projects, but Zak's teacher told us not to worry about it.  Zak's project was definitely a hit:

All the kids loved watching the water come in and out.  Zak was doing great explaining things and I had to go find Ellie, so I left him on his own for just a little bit.  Of course, I was only gone for a couple minutes when Zak comes running into the cafeteria telling me that there was a major spill in the hall.  I guess he left the water draining out too long and the bucket was a little too heavy to put back up on the table.  So he missed the table and all the water spilled into the hallway.  Oops.  It was kind of embarassing, but we got it all taken care of and now realize why they didn't want water in the projects. 

The kids were out of school for the whole week after President's Day, but we couldn't really do anything because Scott left Thursday of that week to go back to Ethiopia.  We did get invited to sail along with the crew of Hawkwind to Blake Island.  What a blessing!  It was so great to get out on the water and do some exploring on Blake.  We left Friday morning around 10am and got over there nice and early.  After getting tied up on the dock, we packed a lunch and headed over to the West side of the island.  KC and Elaine have 2 dogs (Bailey and Abby) and they need just about as much exercise as Zak & Ellie do.  It was a great hike over to the other side.  Lunch was fabulous.  We then did some beachcombing, kids played on the beach and Elaine, Ellie, and I tried our hand at building Fairy Houses (more on that below).  Here's some pictures from the Beach:

KC and Elaine

Ellie

Zak

Sun Star

Ok, so about the Fairy Houses.  I found a great book for Ellie called Fairy Houses Everywhere.  Here's what the cover looks like:

We all have fallen in love with the idea of building little fairy houses all over the place, so our first try was at Blake Island.  It was fun, but we want to gather some more items and continue adding to it:

The Location:

The Fairy Boats:

And starting to build the house:

It was so much fun and we can't wait to create some more or build more onto this one. 

The weekend was so much fun and I did great on beachcombing.  Check out my stash:

Finally, this past weekend was another great one.  We just returned home from Friday Harbor.  We headed up there so I could go to a friend's baby shower.  Her husband Darren took the kids while I did that.  It was a great weekend for all of us.  We stayed aboard Darren and Lisa's boat, the kids did some shrimping and fed Popeye the one-eyed seal, we saw some great friends and just had fun:

Ellie and Popeye

Cleaning the shrimp they caught, so they could cook them up and eat them.

What they ended up with:

The kids didn't really like the shrimp once they cooked them, so hopefully they will remember this for the future.

The drive home was beautiful. We could see the fields of daffodils from miles away and got some great pictures:

I can't wait to head up for the Tulip festival in the next month or two.  It was so beautiful.  We saw this strange white patch that we thought could be some type of flower:

But when we got closer, we realized it was flocks upon flocks of snow geese:

It was a beautiful sight.  I really can't believe it's already March.  Crazy!

This January has been said to have been the hottest January on record and I'm not complaining one bit.  We really enjoyed the nice weather.  Unfortunately Scott's work schedule didn't allow us to get the boat out, but we had a good month anyways.

My Christmas present this year was a solo weekend away.  Scott planned it all.  A hotel room for 2 nights in Friday Harbor.  He had the weekend off and would take care of the kids while I had some R&R time.  It was absolutely wonderful!  I headed up there on a Saturday morning, parked my car at the ferry terminal (I had a 3 hour wait) and went and visited some friends, Larry & Helen from S/V Waltzing Matilda.  It was great to visit and catch up with them.  The weather was beautiful when I got back to the ferry terminal and I had to get a shot of the mountains:

Of course the picture doesn't do it justice.  It was a great trip over to San Juan Island.  And I almost teared up when we pulled into Friday Harbor:

Of course then my battery in my camera died, so I couldn't get any more pictures of coming into the harbor.  Oh well.  I checked into my room at Tucker House Bed & Breakfast.  What a wonderful place.  I had the "Secret Passage" room.  It was perfect for a relaxing weekend.  They even had some fresh baked Chocolate Chip cookies waiting for me. Yummm:

I decided to have a nice quiet evening, so I stayed in and read a book and took a long relaxing bath in the jacuzzi tub.  The next day, I headed to dining room for breakfast, which was amazing, and then off to South Beach for some beachcombing.  The beautiful weather from the previous day decided to dissapear (bummer) and it was pretty blustery out.  Oh well, I had a wonderful walk along the beach. 

I headed back into town to warm up and do some browsing around town.  Everyone was so talkative and friendly.  I think they were bored, because there was no one else in town.  It was so quiet, it seemed strange.  Oh well, I helped boost their economy a bit and headed over to some friends' house for dinner.  It was great catching up with them and we had a very yummy dinner.  The next morning I headed out, but stopped in La Conner on the way home.  It's a very cute little town that I've wanted to explore for a very long time.  It was a good end to the weekend.

The next on our list of to do's for the month of January was pulling our mizzen mast for some much needed work:

So Ghost is a Sloop for now.  Luckily the rot that we had found in it isn't so bad, so the project hopefully will go smoothly.  We just need Scott home so he can work on it. 

Last on the January Calendar was our Italian Night Aboard Ghost.  We tried setting up a monthly gathering with our group of friends from Adams Elementary, but we were all too busy during the holidays.  So, we decided to do Italian night.  Everyone would bring a different sauce and we would cook up some different types of pasta.  It was absolutely amazing.  I ate way too much, but it was worth it:

I still can't believe we got so many people aboard Ghost.  The kids all had a great time, too:

The month started with Scott working in Africa.  The time went by so fast, but it was a little difficult at first when we couldn't communicate.  Once he got some internet time and we were able to Skype, life was much better.  The kids and I had many guests over, which really helped the time fly by.  It made me happy to cook and it's always easier when I have someone to cook for.  We definitely were missing scty/Daddy.

The kids and I went and picked out the Christmas Tree this year.  I think we did a good job.  We had to compromise because Zak wanted a big bushy one and Ellie wanted the Charlie Brown type.  We found one that was in the middle:

When Scty got back from his trip we only had a week until we left for Boise for Christmas.  That's where my family is from.  That week was full of Christmas shopping and trying to pack.  It flew by.  The drive to Boise wasn't too bad.  As soon as we got there Scott had to fly out to go to work.  The next couple of days the kids decided to get a touch of the flu, so my last minute Christmas shopping had to wait until last, last minute.  Scott came back into Boise on the 23rd and would be off until the 26th.  It was nice to be able to spend the actual holiday with him.  We made cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve:

And then had family over for snacks and opening presents.  The kids had a very good Christmas this year.  On Christmas morning, the kids woke up to find that Santa had left some goodies for them under Grandma & Grandpa's tree.  They were so excited.  Then Uncle Kerry, Jeff, Josh, and Amanda came over for a breakfast of Strawberry crepes and Uncle Kerry's Treasure Hunt.  My brother put together a treasure hunt for all 4 kids.  It was amazing.  They all had clues and clues to work out together.  He made a website that they had to go to to get some of the clues.  The kids (and adults) had so much fun.  Here are some pictures from that:

It was a great Christmas.  Scott headed back out flying for the next couple of days and the kids and I enjoyed our time with family.  The day we were planning on leaving it snowed around 4 inches , making it a pretty nasty drive back home.  But we made it with no problems.  Upon returning to the boat, the kids saw that Santa had also visited Ghost on Christmas Eve and left the family a Wii.  Since Mom and Dad were against buying any video games, they were extremely thrilled.  It was so good to be home and wonderful to celebrate the arrival of 2010 aboard Ghost.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Well, we have been horrible about taking pictures this month and don't really have any to share.  Scott has been preparing for his trip to Ethiopia, so not much has been happening on the home front.  We had a very nice little family Thanksgiving on the Wednesday before because Scott took off Thursday morning.  He is keeping his blog update, so check that out for updates on his adventure:  http://ghostsailors.com/blog-africa/ .

The kids and I doing great!  Can't wait for him to get home.  Everything on the boat is good.  Really hoping we can take her out sometime soon.  We have a ton of projects that need to get done this winter, so we can have a summer full of cruising.  Hope everyone is well....Ang

Pictures from October 2009

I'm always amazed how fast the months of September and October fly by.  It seems that during these two months, we hardly ever have any pictures and really don't have many stories of adventures to tell.  The kids started school the 1st part of September and Ellie started soccer:

(yes, I know she has the shin guards on backwards, it was a learning experience!!!)

Our weeks and weekends soon filled up with soccer practices and games, but it was so worth it.  Ellie is a natural soccer player and she loved it!

Around the middle of October we had a dinner party with our friends from Adams Elementary.  We decided on having Greek night and also decided to do some pumpkin carving for the kids.  It was so much fun:

The kids always love creating their pumpkin faces and the end results were wonderful:

The Greek food was amazing:

It was a wonderful evening.  I think both the kids and adults enjoyed themselves very much.

Later in the month Zak was able to invite a friend to go with him and Scott to the Museum of Flight.  He chose his friend Marlowe and they had a great time:

It's always Zak's favorite place to go, of course.

Halloween this year was great, as always.  On Friday the kids dressed up at school and did their parade outside on the grounds.  Scott was able to join and help out for the parade and a party in the classrooms afterwards:

On Saturday night, the whole family dressed up to head out onto the docks for our annual trick-or-treating. 

This year we had 5 kids to do the trick-or-treating on the docks and about 20 boats to go to.  Once again our neighbors went above and beyond and the kids were well taken care of:

After trick-or-treating, we always invite the neighbors down to Ghost for drinks and desserts.  Luckily the weather allowed us to hang out on the dock.  We had a tarp up in case there was rain and a little fire going to keep us warm.  It was a perfect night:

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween and a great October.

Since we weren't able to go sailing much this summer, one of the main things that I wanted to do was to go camping where I grew up in McCall, ID.  I miss Payette Lake during the summer and wanted the kids to see how beautiful it is up there.  The drive over was pretty uneventful.  We got to Ponderosa State Park and set up camp.  This is the 1st Camping trip we've taken in probably about 5 years.  We had to aquire some of the essentials (like the tent) and it was pretty exciting to get it all put together:

After getting the camp set up, we decided to take a walk to the lake.  It was such a beautiful day and Payette Lake was gorgeous, like always.  We even decided to pose for a family picture:

On the way back to camp the kids and I started finding tons of huckleberries:

Yummm!  I think we ate everything that we picked, but decided we would be back with bags to take some to Grandma & Grandpa in Boise.  We had a great night by the fire and reading the last few chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  It was a perfect setting for it.  The next day we decided to do a little exploring and spend some time at the beach:

The water was great and it brought back so many memories of summer days at that same beach when I was growing up.  The plan for the next day was to go fishing.  We brought our Sea Kayak and wanted to check out the rivers north of the lake.  We loaded everything up, found a spot to launch the kayak and all loaded in.  It was a bit crowded, but not so bad.  The water was pretty shallow and so clear.  We didn't see any fish.  So we headed back to where we started and decided to fish off the bank.  Scott had just cast and handed the pole to Zak when there was a bite.  After that one every time we cast the line a trout would bite.  It was amazing and perfect for the kids.  We all had so much fun!

I found some more huckleberry patches and decided to load up.  It was a great day!  The next day we headed to Boise to see my family.  It was a little sad to leave McCall, but I think we will definitely do some more camping in that neck of the woods.  The visit in Boise was absolutely wonderful.  Saw some great friends and caught up with family.