Off-campus adventures

I'll try not to start every blog entry this year with an explanation about how crazy things have been, but it just doesn't seem possible that we arrived at Camp for our year on winter staff just three weeks ago. (With up to three different groups of camp visitors here each week, each of those weeks seems like 4 weeks in itself!). Amongst the busyness, we've been lucky enough to enjoy the company and setting of camp itself, plus have two days off each week to enjoy our new Southern California location.

A sunset in "Upper Meadow"

Outing #1 took us along a winding Highway 79, through the beer-brewing town of Alpine (beers sampled at Alpine Brewing Company included: Pure Hoppiness, Mandarin Nectar Ale, Nelson New Zealand IPA, Wily Vanilly and Captain Stout) on our way to San Diego, where we spent an evening/morning celebrating the 95th birthday of Ashley's Grandma. After a celebratory bottle of champagne (oh right, and orange juice), we headed to La Mesa, California, where Trevor's brother and his family live. Being close to Nathan and Megan and their three kids, Nolia, Donovan & Pippa, was one of the big draws of relocating to Southern California. These pictures can barely even attest to their sweet adorableness:

Donovan shows us how high he can climb.

Pippa plays with some boats.

Outing #2 was about 18 hours back in the California desert at Ashley's parents' house. Ashley's mom has recently started dog-sitting, and every other week or so, they have some pretty quirky 4-legged visitors (Sample: At Christmas, it was a Chihuaua, Cha-Cha and his Lhasa Apsa pal, Lulu.). This time around it was a beautiful Portuguese Waterdog named Sailor, and a truly ridiculous French Bulldog named Ruby. No, seriously. Truly ridiculous:

Ruby, a snorting, panting, altogether adorable French Bulldog.

We'll be out there even more, now that it's “cooling down” (read: barely cracking 100 degrees each day), and can hardly wait to meet some more of their furry houseguests.