Shrimp is the fruit of the Sea

Lars and I took a trip up to Northern California in early July to camp and play with our friends. Since I am home sick and I am tired of sleeping and movies I put on some I Love Lucy to have some noise in the background while I catch up on some blogging. Enjoy!

After camping we went to Monterey. I sampled claim chowder from The Fish Hopper and then we went to Bubba Gump Shrimp to eat. Let me tell you it was very delicious.

Anyway, like I was sayin', shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it.

Elijah said got a kids meal that he later smothered in ketchup. In his kids meal he received a bowl of jello. He announced to the waitress and the entire restaurant that he would rather jump on his jello than eat it. We all got a good laugh out of that one.

He and his sister were full of those. Adrienne, his sister asked me if the Jackson 5 were from the 90's because of their hair. Ha Ha. She was a few decades off.

Elijah was making his boat crash into his face. The kid is a goof and Monterey was fun.

Pomeranian & Me

I am home sick today so I have been watching movies and falling in and out of sleep. One of the movies I watched was Marley and Me. I loved it. It was a fantastic story about the power of animals and life choices of a family mixed in. I cried and I laughed. I loved the ending part when Owen Wilson's character described the love and companionship of his dog and how it had a positive effect on his family. It was a darling show and I recommend it.

Lars and I have been talking about getting a dog for about a year now. I grew up with cats and have never ever considered getting a dog. I never minded dogs, my Grandpa Stark and uncles had a dog and I liked playing with them, but at the end of the day I loved cats. Lars was never a cat person so the likelihood of us getting a dog or a cat were slim because neither of us were willing to compromise (between you and me I have arranged for 2 people to give us a cat as a house warming gift and Lars would consider getting a cat if we couldn't have kids, but I would rather have kids to be honest).

Then we moved to California and have dog sat for our friends and played with their dogs a lot. There is a mall pet store that we visit weekly to look at all the animals and play with. I guess what I am saying is that I am falling in love with dogs, not just any dog though.

This...

A Pomeranian.

I think it would be the perfect dog for our family. It is small, like a cat, and from my research they are smart and interactive dog. Plus it is cute, looks like a lion with all that hair. Now we aren't going to buy today or anything. The idea has gotten more serious as time has gone by. Maybe in the next year or so or for Christmas...we shall see. Until then the trips to the pet store will just have to do.

My Recent Thoughts and Feelings

So I have been feeling and thinking about a lot of stuff lately that I would love to share, but not sure how to put it in words. So I will express myself the best way I know how through song.

See music video's below, I couldn't figure out how to get them all in one blog post.

The Fray - Over My Head (Cable Car)

This song is describes how I have been feeling about work.

Animal- Kesha (W/ Lyrics)

This song expresses how I want to live everyday to the fullest...and how much I love Lars and what I feel about living our dream.

Cascada - Evacuate the Dancefloor

This song just rocks and pumps me up.

SO look out world Stephanie is still in the game despite what you throw at me!

Camping 2010

It's that time of the year when we go camping with the Meuer's. I love California, but I miss camping in Utah. In Utah, you can go camping on a whim, just pack up the car and go, find a spot and pitch a tent. In California, we actually have to plan ahead, make a reservation, and pay money. It's still fun, but not as easy as Utah camping. This year we went to Henry W. Coe Park. Last year we went to Big Sur and loved it. This year we wanted to try something new. It was a private campground and had some nice views, but it was also dry and windy and not a lot of green beauties, plus they wouldn't let us have a fire. Still, the company was great, the food was good, and it was just nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of work and electronics for a few days. Below are some pictures of our adventure.

Elijah is pumped to camp.

Can you see the raccoons glowing eyes.

This raccoon caused so much trouble. He was a very gutsy fellow. Our first night he jumped on the picnic table while we were right next to it. He didn't mind us being there, he just wanted food and we were the first on his evening route. We were sure to put our food in our cars before we went to bed. On our last night we thought we got everything put away before he stopped by our site. As we were heading to bed we saw he was eating the dog food and we didn't bother him. Then he ran over to our table and picked up a zipped up backpack and took off into a nearby bush. The backpack had trail mix and other snacks in it. We swung at the bush to scare him off and recovered the backpack. He manged to zip open the pack and make off with the trail mix. At least we got our bag back and we have quite a story now.

Yummy Mountain Man Breakfast made by yours truly. We ate really good. Lars and I got a dutch oven and it makes such good food.

While on the hike we saw lots of trees that had a red fungus growing with it. It looked like someone painted the trees with red stripes and it was so cool to look at. Funny how something so bad for the trees looks so pretty.

2010

The hike we chose led to a pond. Here we are resting.

This is becoming Jamie's pose for every camping trip.

2009

The hike was long and most of it was up a steep hill which was quite a work out. In the end I think we hiked 6 miles. It was beautiful and fun but in the end....

we were tired...

so we relaxed when we got back...

all of us were pooped.

On the last day we found the park sign

Elijah and I posing

We finished off the camp trip with some traditional smores.

Cocoa was ready to go home.

Thanks for camping with us. We will see you next year.

Any suggestions on where we should camp next year?