Outdoor Wednesday

On Wednesdays I'll sometimes join A Southern Daydreamer and her Outdoor Wednesday meme to share some pictures.

Stop by and check out other great photos of the outdoors!

And on Wednesdays when I do join in, I usually have a lot of photos to share.  Mostly of the great outdoors, places we go, things we do -- which is drive to ghost towns in Nevada or visit our cabin in the mountains of Oregon -- but I think the pictures I share are unique and pretty, OR repetitious, since the desert looks the same after a while, as do the mountains.

Sometimes I even share photos that are never boring, never dull, never will you tire of.

My grandchildren.  

(Okay, you might tire of them, but I don't) 

All of my grandchildren but one live in the big city (San Francisco, CA, Phoenix AZ, Richmond, VA).  Our little town has 5 stop lights.  That's it.  Only 5.  So you can see the difference, right?  We have lots of sagebrush and wide open skies.

I feel that one day they might be bored with our little town, but for now, when they come they love it.

They especially are in Love with Water Canyon, a small campground about 3 miles from our house.

They all LOVE Water Canyon and want to go to Water Canyon --- any time of the year.

It's a beautiful, but small green spot in the high Nevada desert.
That's the outdoor part... a spot of beautiful green in the dry desert.

Moving on to the kids....

I will tell you right now--- stop scrolling if you don't think the they are as cute as I do.... cuz there are a lot of pictures of them!

So will it be "good-bye" or will you humor me and continue on... ?

They like to play in the water, climb the hills, get dirty and just have fun.

The boys.... because.... well just because.

Because this one is missing a tooth.

This one has cute dimples!

And this one is so cute I just want to hug him and squeeze him and---well I want to do that with all of them, but none of them will let me anymore!  A hug, yes, a squeeze?  Maybe for a second.

All I wanted to do was take a picture with my grandchildren, it was hard to gather them all to stand still --they were having too much fun playing.

In the course of the evening,

Uncle Mark (my son) stole my camera and I didn't know it.   When I went to upload the photos, there was a 'selfie' of Mark with his kids, his nieces, his nephew, his mom and dad, his brother, his sister in law.   He's gonna love that I'm sharing!

Dad and Mom selfies

The Aspen Trees.

Did you know they share a root system?  Under the earth they (a grove) are all a collective 'one'.

I guess Mark took a selfie break to capture the beauty of the trees.

 a very excited brother selfie!

Nephew Selfies!

Niece, daughter, niece selfies! 

Father and son selfie!

Sister-in-law selfie!

And FINALLY, I get a  good picture with the grandchildren!

(kind of)

Cooking Club Cookout--Slow cooking

For the first time ever---cooking club members PLUS our sub were all together!

We were joking about how our optimistic parents would say:

Let's take a picture, we're all together!

And our more pessimistic parents would say:

We better take a picture, we'll probably never all be together again.

So, we decided to take one.

First we had to figure out how to set the timer on the camera, and get it to the right height.

I have put a lot  (A LOT) of photos in this blog post, but, I could have put a lot more--20  or so of  the guys running back and forth, trying to make it into the photo on time. 
Needless to say--I didn't include them.

So, there you have it.

Our cooking club friends!

You remember all our rules right?  There is a theme, and you are assigned a dish?  Well we are going to switch it up a bit in the coming months.

Just you watch and see.

Cooking Club is one of my favorite get-togethers ever.  Love the food and love the people.

Oh...and Dogs.  We had cooking club dogs at our outdoor cookout.

I guess we are kind of dog people.

Here is Tom.  Tom is a Pomski.  Half Pomeranian and half husky.

He didn't get much pom.  He's a wolf.  But a very nice, short wolf. I call him Wolf---he has the softest fur ever.

Tom is a puppy.

Tom just wanted to play.

Here is Sierra.  A Golden Retriever.

Sierra is old.

Sierra did not want to play.

(I told you I have a ton of photos)

And while I feel rather naked here in this photo, I though it important to show my little Bailey Dog and these are the only photos I have of her. 

I was surrounded by dogs because I had food on my plate!



As was Mark! 

They were watching his every move!

FOOD!!



Where was I?

Oh...COOKING CLUB!!

It is the BEST.

We laugh, we eat, we visit, we eat more, we talk about food, we taste some more, solve world problems, eat again!

Talk more about what we made, why we made it and if this blog post had audio, we sound like this:  Ohhh..ooooo......mmmmmm....oh man, that's good.
  oh yes! 
 MY oh MY. MMM-MMM!

Our food talk is kind of on the steamy side!

Our hosts below, Debbie and Charlie.
The theme was slow cooking so they decided to slow roast some pork and have a picnic.
It's hard to find a tree in the Northern Nevada desert, but we do have a little canyon with trees and a stream.
So here are some pics of our
Water Canyon, slow-cooking, cooking club outing.

She's a little overachiever--- she made the homemade sauces.

And the biscuits

and the pickles

and the coleslaw

and the crispy fried onions to put on top

Yum!!

This  picture below is not necessary at all.  It doesn't move the story along--I just think the Handyman is cute.

As I should, right?

(our youngest son went to Southern Connecticut University)

Sally and Paul made 2x smoked potatoes.  They were good---very smoky---they were cooked long and slow with hickory chips. Begun at home and finished at the picnic.  They get the award for truly embodying what the cooking club is all about.

Gina and Mark had dessert and she made a wonderful berry crisp in a crock pot.  Good slow cookin'.

She also rocked last year's Halloween paper plates!  (out with the old, in with the new, right?)

Shelly (shown here below with the Handyman and not Lorin) and Lorin  had bread.  She found a crock pot bread recipe!  And it was really good!

The bread.....and the hot German potato salad.

made by April and Doug.

(April shown here with Paul--tasting his slowly made homemade beer. She's wondering if it's any good.)

Was it Paul? Was it good?

And me?  I had appetizers.  Easy Peasy in a slow cooker.

Chicken wings and enchilada dip.

We have so much fun together!

Cooking Club # 8 was one of the best ones yet!

And these cooking club meals were all good too... Just click on the link to see.

Cooking Club #1   Meals your mom used to make

Cooking Club #2  Cajun Cooking

Cooking Club #3 -Let's all go to Hawaii

Cooking club #4  American Regional Cooking--Great Lakes Region, featuring SUPPER CLUBS.

Cooking Club #5  Famous Chefs

Cooking Club #6  Meatball madness--or something round

Cooking Club #7  Breakfast for dinner

Cooking Club  #8  Slow cooking  

Cooking Club #9  Mexican Street Food  (coming soon)

Happy Eating!

See you next time.