Saturday Dave and my dad stayed at the house to work on my car while Edward, my mom, and I went to the Jones' house for brunch. Donovan and his dad made fruit salad, potatoes, and eggs Benedict (with spinach instead of ham...not quite the same, but a good alternative for Donovan's recent conversion to vegetarianism).
Dyani was there and it was so fun to hang out with her. She came home from Boston for the weekend so we could all go see Donovan and Skyler perform in The Beauty and the Beast at the new theater in Livermore. During the show, Edward and I couldn't spot Skyler--our 15 year old God-brother. Finally we scanned the faces about a foot higher and suddenly we saw him! He's so tall now! The show was great, even though there were a bunch of extra solo songs that I didn't know from the original Disney movie. After wards Dyani, Edward, and I wandered around downtown until her parents had dinner ready. Once Donovan and Skyler returned from the show's cast party, their family practiced singing Amazing Grace for us since they were going to sing it in front of the whole church the next day. They were so good!
At the new Livermore theater:
Dyani and Kateri...prettier than ever:
Sunday morning we broke camp in the backyard, ate a quick breakfast, then headed up to the Far Side Ranch--our family's property about 20 miles south of Livermore in the hills. We spent the day "kerplinking," napping (ok...that was just me), exploring and collecting rocks (ok...that was also just me), staring into the murky shallowness of the pond for any evidence of fish (there are none, apparently), and eating our traditional lunch and snacks. It is traditional for us to eat sandwiches of potato rolls, smoked turkey (now chicken because of Edward's allergy), marinated sun-dried tomatoes, lettuce, and thick-sliced Monterey Jack cheese. Snackwell's devil's food cookies, Hansen's sodas, apples, a pot of drip coffee, and chips are also musts.
While out on a walk we found a dead fox:
Right when we got there I went inside and took a nap. At some point someone came in to give me a pair of earmuffs since they were going to start shooting targets. I didn't put them on, but wished I had when I suddenly woke up to very loud shots from the Swedish Mauser. I slept right through the .22 shots, but that Mauser shot will about knock you over. Groggy, I went outside to watch. Once they noticed I was there they told me it was my turn to shoot at some rocks they'd stacked-up onto an old post. I figured since I was still sleepy I wouldn't make the shot, but I tried anyway. I totally got it on the first try! I also bruised my shoulder since I didn't position the butt of the gun properly onto my arm. Oh, well. Later on I tried the M-1 and I did the same thing with the butt of that one! Geez! By this time my arm was really sore. My brother took pity on me and showed me exactly where to put the butt of the gun. He poked the muscle on my shoulder to show me where to put it...which totally tickled and hurt at the same time. Sigh...I made that shot, too and amazingly it didn't hurt....much. It would have been totally fine except that my arm was already hurt.
Before it got too dark we went around behind the cabin and shot eggs. Yes, chicken eggs. My dad glues loops of string to them so we can hang them on a metal stand make especially for this purpose. It is such a trill to see those eggs completely explode--orange and clear goo flinging every which way. Of course, nothing exploded right away since we first tried shooting them from a distance with .22 pistols. My dad had a "Julie-sized" short barrel one and a long-barrel one. We all pretty much sucked. Eventually we moved them closer to us so we could really appreciate the nasty mess.Daddy and Edward inspecting the exploded eggs and hanging up some more (we brought 18):
We had a great time at the property and I really can't wait to go back!
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