Who thought pastry could be so funny? (check out some of the "best of"..I thought I would wet myself!)

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

So, according to Yahoo! maps, driving from York, PA to Canoe Creek, PA is about 150 miles and should take about 2.5 hours. Well, not so much. I've been dying to go up and see the bats in what is supposed to be PA's largest bat colony for awhile, so yesterday we set off. We left at noon, so I figure we'll be there 2:30-ish, Matt and Sara can do some fishing while I read, we'll take a nice nature walk, let sara swim, eat dinner, see the bats and go home. Me, the genius that I am, looked at the map and saw we could take route 30 most of the way, instead of the major highway. 30 is more scenic, so that's the way we went, completely forgetting that all those scenic little towns have 30 mile an hour speed limits. Plus the road winds right through the Blue Mountain reagion of PA so there was a lot of going straight up, only to come straight down...I'd hate to live there in the winter! Couple that with summer road work and it was 4:30 when we pulled in the park.

I had hurt my back earlier in the week, and 4 hours in the car with no back support left me barely able to walk. SO, we went to the swimming area and Matt and I sat at a picnic bench while Sara swam for awhile.

Sara managed to pack her pockets full of pretty rocks she just HAD to bring home...though I didn't protest TOO much, I remember at her age coming home from Verona beach with buckets of "seashells"...at least her rocks didn't smell like dead fish :-).

We grilled dinner, and I must say fresh corn on the cob grilled out is one of the best things in the world!

I know a lot of these pictures are a bit blurry, but because of my back, I was shaking a lot when I stood up.

The bats actually live in a church which is located off the park grounds, so after dinner we headed over to get good seats.

The black square in the church is an open hole into the attic, where the bats spend their day.

We got there early (about 8-ish) and a few more groups joined us as it got darker (Ladybird would not stop jumping around and dancing until we let her go over and meet each person as they joined us on the lawn...luckily they all liked dogs!

I TRIED to get some pictures as the bats streamed out of the barn, but by that time it was dark, the bats were flying very fast, and my camera is not that good. Here is one where a bat (the white blob) got caught in my flash..I tried to mark the bats with arrows (and I did make sure it was ok to use my flash before I took any pics of the bats).

I know, pretty crappy, but as we were leaving I did see this little fella on the wall of the church:

We left about 10:15, but even taking the highway route back, we didn't hit home till 1:30 am...ug, what a LONG day! I loved seeing the bats, though as Matt pointed out we could've stayed home and just viewed the park's bat-cam here: http://www.pennfuture.org/bats/canoecreekbatcam.html

It's been a nice week. We went walking at a few more parks and we spent Thursday night watching movies and putting together a puzzle.





I used to do puzzles all the time when I was younger, but haven't done one in years. In fact, in April when I helped my mom clean out the attic we found a whole bunch of my old puzzles I had finished and framed.

In other good news, Matt got a callback from a company in CT. They saw his resume on monster and called to have a 2 hour phone interview. They were impressed with what he had to say, so they want him to come in next week for a face-to-face interview. I've never been to CT, but it seems like a nice place, so that may be our next home if this works out.

This week I plan on going up for a day at Canoe Creek state park, which has one of the largest bat colonies in PA, and on summer evenings you can watch them come out :-). I've wanted to see them for awhile now, and depending on how stuff works out we may be moving soon, so I want to get up there before I miss my chance.

It was back to Gifford-Pinchot Saturday (this time I DID remember the camera!). Sara and Matt started out the trip by spending a few hours fishing, while Ladybird and I were content to sit on the other side of the trail and read (the area areound the lake was absolutely COVERED in goose poop, so we had to keep well away from it to prevent a certain naughty puppy from eating and/or rolling in it...yuck!

Matt caught a large stick, but that was about it. Since we were sitting near the beginning of one of the hiking paths, Ladybird got to meet everyone who walked by, which made her day :-).

Her watching the path for more friends.

After that we went on a walk along a differant section of the lakeside trail. The lake was full of sailboats, they were like bright butterflies on the water.

We also saw some basking platforms full of turtles!

The honeysuckle was in full bloom, and you could smell it during the whole walk.

And at the end of the path, Sara found this really red-colored toad which she INSISTED I take a picture of lol.

Then we packed up and came home (ladybird collapsed on our bed with her favorite Sock Monkey).

Saturday was the 1st sunny day we've had in weeks, so we decided to go take a nice nature walk at Gifford-Pinchot state park. We went camping there last august, but didn't get out on the trails. Since it's less than a 1/2 hour from here, we packed a lunch and headed over. The trails were very nice and most were graveled, so we weren't ankle deep in mud after 2 weeks of rain. We walked the interactive trail, with signs along the way pointing out various natural features (Sara loved to run ahead and read them out loud). I forgot the camera, unfortunately. I must say, the trails were not very well marked at all, no trail names at intersections or anything. Luckily we had a map, and sorta stayed on course. Then 2/3 of the way through the walk we found that the trail had flooded. And not a little, "oh, there's some water we have to hop over" I mean the "Lakeside Trail" was now the "Lakebottom Trail" as the weeks of rain had caused the lake to expand and engulf the land where the trail used to be. We debated going back, but we all had on old shoes, so we just waded through the water. Sara was estatic, after having me constantly harrassing her for the past mile to stay out of the water and mud constantly. The water was COLD and came about mid-shin in places. After we found land again, we dripped and squelched our way to the picnic area where we had lunch and went home.

Later that evening, Sara came in from the bathroom saying there was some sort of animal in one of the trees in the backyard. We all went and looked out the window, and saw something large, brown and furry in a small maple tree behind the pool. I couldn't see what it was but it was about the size of a watermelon. It didn't have a tail, so I knew it wasn't a raccoon (the only thing I could think of was it looked like a baby bear). So we all slowly went outside to try and get a better look. About 1/2 way through the yard, a LARGE woodchuck (who had been eating the leaves) jumped out of the tree and ran under our shed. Holy cow!! Did anyone else out there know woodchucks could climb trees??

Well, it's been a hell of a week. Tuesday, the day after Matt stayed until 1:00 am to get work done that "had to be done asap" they let him go. It wasn't anything he did, they pretty much let the entire department go, they're moving all the work to their other facility in Jacksonville, FL. That leaves us in the fairly awkward position of having gotten rid of our home, packed up everything we own, and now are renting an apartment near where Matt no longer has a job. Luckily he got a severance package, and with unemployement we're going to be ok for awhile but it's still a scary position to be in these days. We're looking for a new job in the Baltimore area so we can keep the apartment...but we'll have to see. I honestly think that this happened for a reason, and that God is using this as a catalyst for a big change in our lives...we just have to figure out where to go with it.

A cute pic I tried to take of Ladybird..she WAS sleeping under the blankets on our bed, but as I took the picture she woke up lol. Our little lady goes into be fixed tomorrow..she'll have to stay overnight and the house will be quiet and lonely again.

On another note, I was pleasently surprised to read this while aimlessly wandering around the internet tonight:

http://www.akc.org/news/index.cfm?article_id=3810

I've never held it against the AKC that their focus has been almost entirely on pure breed dogs, that's what their club decided they wanted to dedicate their efforts to. People who get upset at the akc for not accepting mixed breed dogs are like people who would get upset at a Harley-Davidson club for not accepting their Yamaha. But, in a purely selfish way I'm happy they are expanding their sights so that I can look forward to doing events with Ladybird.

Matt's on his way home (it's already past midnight) so I am off for now.