Monday, June 29, 2009

Fair photos

I've always wanted to enter photos in our local Mother Lode Fair but never seemed to have the time. This year I made it a priority and entered pics from our around-the-world journey. The fair was held this past weekend and I earned two ribbons, including one for this photo of Ediza on the beach in Greece. For this photo, I won an impressive $7 -- exactly what it costs to buy one soft pretzel and a bottled water at the fair:)


More importantly, entering photos in the fair forced me to tackle a much larger project: sorting through and developing prints of some of the 5,000 photos we took during our trip. Not an easy task!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Camp Tuolumne Trails

It's been a while since I've posted anything. We've been staying busy working around the farm, fixing up our home, etc. On Father's Day, we took Ediza and Maggie on a hike all the way around Pinecrest Lake (a week or two before that we went up to Pinecrest to watch an outdoor movie under the stars -- very cool).

Today we took two llamas -- Golden and Pele -- to Camp Tuolumne Trails, just outside of Groveland. The camp is geared towards children and adults with special medical needs. The campers we met really enjoyed visiting with the llamas and were naturally very inquisitive. My favorite question one of them asked me went something like, "When a llama goes to a new place does he take time to observe his surroundings?" Good question.


Pucker up, Golden.


Pele wants some love, too.


Yes, that's Ediza -- a llama trainer in training.

I've visited the camp a few times while it was being built, but today was my first time since it opened last summer. The camp was created by a couple who want to help kids with special needs experience the "simple pleasures of childhood." It was really great to see their dream (not to mention all the time, money and everything else they've invested into the camp) finally become a reality. We'll be returning next week to introduce the llamas to a whole new set of campers!