Joey's Special Day

Joey’s Special Day

January 16, 2010; the day our first born came out of the closet. He not only came out he came out full flame.

The day began with Todd and I going to JandP's house to begin an adventure on the Little Morongo Canyon trail. It was an overcast morning as we drove out to the beginning of the trail in Palm Desert. We had Joey with us and he was excited as usual to be going on a jeep trip. The girls, Lucy Liu and KoKo were left back at camp in the RV where I'm sure they were happy as larks.

We spent the day geocaching and having a blast. The trail took us all the way to Yucca Valley and the 5 hour trip was a blast. The end of the trail left us close to Paul's mom and dad's house and since we hadn't seen their new house we went over to visit them. After a brief visit we went over to Paul's brother Rob and Carol's house.

This is where the story begins all else before was only a lead up to this very special moment.

When we got to Rob and Carol's house we could hear their dogs barking.

We kept Joey on his leash when we first got there but when we all moved to the backyard to visit we decided to let him play with Skippy and his brother. OMG Joey was instantly enamored with Skippy. Skippy was a male so it worried us a little that they might fight but that wasn't the case at all. They played so nicely together but occasionally Skippy had to let Joey know he needed to back off. This was usually accomplished by Skippy turning all Rambo on Joey or by Skippy disappearing into the house via a doggie door.

Joey would come to a dead stop at the entrance to the doggie door every time Skippy would disappear into it. He nor any of our dogs have ever used a doggie door so be was totally perplexed with the whole concept. Joey would stare right at the doggie door until Skippy would come back out. Skippy was greeted by Joey who was breathlessly waiting for him to re emerge from the abyss, and then the chase was on again. I've never seen two dogs enjoy themselves so much. It was pure joy. Joey had truly found his soul mate in Skippy.

Unconditional love is certainly apparent when it comes to not even blinking an eye when your studly Beagle has revealed that he fell head over tail in love with another male dog.

Simply said: Joey loves Skippy!

The photo was taken by me. Joey is laying outside of our RV in Barton Flats campground, San Gorgonio, CA

Auburn with JandP

I had to wait until after we celebrated my sister Janice and her husband Paul's 40th anniversary in Big Bear California, to post this story. Their daughters asked us all to share a favorite story or memory of their mom and dad for a scrap book. I wrote the following story but there are many many more that remain in my memory cache.

Auburn with JandP

One of my favorite memories of time spent with Janice and Paul (aka JandP) has to be when we took a trip to Auburn Ca to attend the GeoWoodstock VI event in 2008.

Todd and I drove our motorhome to Auburn and got set up in a beautiful RV park just outside of town. JandP drove their jeep up and booked a room at a hotel not very far from where we were staying. Then the fun began.

Between geocaching our way around the area and watching the beaver in a pond at the campground, we packed every day with a new adventure. One day we took an awesome hike to a small town called Cool, had breakfast then hiked back. On yet another hike in Cool we almost got trapped by a wild fire. How exciting is that? Then there was the day that Janice, Joey and I spent on the American River with our lawn chairs in the water, drinking beer and munching on snacks. It doesn’t get much better than that. The guys were on a whitewater rafting expedition so we spent our day relaxing on the river. That was such a cool day.

The GeoWoodstock VII event was so worth attending. What a blast it was to see all the crazy geocachers in one spot. The event was held in Wheatland Ca, not too far from Auburn, on a big farm. They had booths with vendors, workshops, contests and awards for best caching related activities. We spent the whole day there then had a bbq dinner that was prepared by the hosts.

We had the opportunity to spend time walking around Auburn which was full of history and fun sights to see. We enjoyed meals and drinks at a number of the restaurants in town and Joey even joined us on the patio of one of them.

When we left Auburn we all vowed to go back and we look forward to making that happen.

Happy Anniversary to a Great Couple

The photo was taken by Todd and it was when we were visiting Sutter's Mill in Coloma California within the Marshall Gold Discovery State Park