The Tale of the Maiden Voyage

Since I know you're all waiting to hear about the Pink Pearl's maiden voyage I took lots of pics and thought I'd blog about it today.  Besides it's always better with pics, right?

As the crew makes ready for our voyage. Have you ever seen someone go camping in a fancy dress and tights?  Some of my crew are a little, well let's say eccentric....

 Here a sampling of  the crew poses for a picture.

 I have to give credit to my mini photographer.  I must admit that though I would have loved to I did not take all of the pics you see here.  My mini photographers have a way of making off with me camera and taking some good pics.

a self portrait

 packed and ready to shove off

 Sobe worrying that we would leave her behind pulled some of the clothes out of her girls bag and was trying to nest in it.  This is as far as she got.  She patiently waited here by the door while we readied the Pearl and when we moved the bag to the car and put her in she resumed her spot on top of her girls bag in the back of the truck.

Here she is looking over the back seat
wondering where her girl is.

 Hooking her up

 and away we go, setting sail for our adventure.

 Here is the view as we approach Crystal Cove.  As  you can imagine the excitement builds at this point in a journey.

 In the campground we spied an airstream and later
 another canned ham. 

Here's where the trip gets interesting...   When we arrive we find that we mistakenly booked the wrong campsite.  We booked a site in the tents campground, which was confusing because the online booking agent let us book it, and even asked the length of the trailer.  Something about in the fine print somewhere it says no hard sided trailers allowed in the tent spaces and well to make a long story short we waited around for the better part of two hours first deciding what to do, then waiting for the lottery for the one space available.

I told you we were bad at this camping thing.  I think our camping trips could make a good Family Vacation movie.  You should hear some of our stories.  I think you'd agree...

We did manage to have a good time in our two hours at the camprgound.  We snacked a bit on our snacks, played some games and napped in the Pearl (still parked next to the check in kiosk).  Since we have no curtains yet it must have been a sight to see.  Took the dog and a few kids for a walk;  A few walks actually; Chatted with the rangers;  And enjoyed the view.  We didn't get to use the Pearls accomodations much, but it was pleasant resting with the family while we waited.

Here we are, a few hours later returning to port.  Never being accustomed to being kept down by 'the man' and his ridiculous rules nor being the sort who miss chance for an adventure, we quickly made ready and were off to more welcoming ports.

camping geenies lamp studio style

We enjoyed the beautiful night sky, some snacks and our very large screen movie.

Abduction

aye, it sounds a sad tale of a maiden voyage.  It was definitely an adventure and a day worth remembering.  We held true to our record of camping trips gone awry.  In the end we saw True Steel and Abduction at the Mission Tiki Drive In.  We even saw a shooting star.

Photo credit: toplessrobot.com article on
 The 10 nerdiestroadtrip destinations in America.

Life is what you make of it right?  Well ours is definitely and adventure!

The Pink Pearl 

aka the Geenies Lamp Studio on the road

For a while now some of our kids have been asking, almost daily, if we can go camping.  Honestly We're not very good at camping, unless we're with a group, like our Boy Scout Troop, a group of friends, etc.  This is because we are not planners.  I tend to do things as they come, without much forethought.  This has led to problems in the past while camping.  We love tent camping, being in the great outdoors, we don't mind sleeping on the ground.  We're always up for an adventure.  Always have been.  

Unfortunately adventures can be very stressful at times without some planning.  This we have learned the hard way on more than one camping trip.  This is why The Pearl is such a good thing for us.  We can keep her stocked with the essentials and at least wont have to worry about those things every time.  Plus eventually we'll have a fridge, and be able to use our stove and oven, possibly even a shower and loo.  

So we have booked a maiden voyage for her, and for us.  We spent the weekend working to get the last few things that absolutely needed to be done before she was seaworthy for a test run.  You can see all the help we had.  

 The goal here was to get the paneling around the bed changed so I wont have to be near any water damage.  Things like that trigger my OCD and who needs that on a camping trip??  My hubby also replaced the top of the nightstand there on the right.

He also replaced the roof paneling he removed and put some new insulation in to make it nice and comfy.

 here all of our helpers are getting involved with the unpacking of the new mattress.  It's Pink!

It is slightly too large for the space but we have plans for this in the end.  Involving a rebuild of the whole bed frame.  Here it is unmade.  I have plans of course to gussy the whole interior up when we're done.  We have not gotten to the floor yet, but I plan on giving it a good scrubbing before we go. In the end the floor will be black and white tiles.

On the opposite end where the dinette is missing he built a temporary platform for a twin sized bed.  To sleep a couple more little people.






The Maiden Voyage

Her maiden voyage will be at beautiful, scenic Crystal Cove Beach in Newport. Here is a little blurb about it from their website.


Crystal Cove State Park has 3.2 miles of beach and 2,400 acres of undeveloped woodland, which is popular for hiking and horseback riding. The offshore waters are designated as an underwater park. Crystal Cove is used by mountain bikers inland and scuba and skin divers underwater. The beach is popular with swimmers and surfers. Visitors can explore tidepools and sandy coves.

Image from EveryTrail.com

Sounds like lots to do!  And we love the beach!  It has since started raining, so hopefully it will have stopped and will be a beautiful sunny day for the beach.  Wish us luck!  

Derby Days

Happy weekend friends, loved ones and fellow travelers.  It's been a very productive day.

The Team- photo from the SCRD gallery

Started our day off with Roller Derby practice.  It's really hard work.  I think I agree with them, that this is one of the most challenging sports out there.  Both physically and mentally.  It takes a lot to join a team and actually be good at it.  We are fortunate to live near the new home of the South Coast Roller Derby league who have taken us in and are showing up the ropes.

The Juniors.  Coach Toxic is on the far right. 

Then it was out for pizza and beer to cheer up one of the girls on the team.  Relationship issues.  This team really supports each other.  Last week the juniors had an ice cream party at Farrells to bond.  Courtesy of their coach Toxic Rox.  She's been helping Jewella Deville and I learn the ins and outs of the game.  She's a great coach!

After that it was home to work on The Pink Pearl.  She's so close to being seaworthy.  We're about ready to schedule a maiden voyage to test the waters with her.   Today hubby finished the new vent install and re-installed the rest of the cabinet doors.  I finished lining the shelves and cleaning a couple of cupboards I had skipped the last time.

   

 We're leaving the water damaged front of the cupboards alone for now.  We just wanted to get her good and cleaned up and get out on the road then take it slowly after that.

the old vent which couldn't close all the way

And the beautiful working new one

Look I found pink!

I also had him remove the original metal paper towel holder so I could give it a good clean.  Check out the stamping on the inside.  So cool!  I love things like this!

After this it was a trip to the local hardware store for some supplies and then I was done.  I can't wait to go camping and get some art done in the great outdoors.  It was a lovely, fun, very productive day.  I hope you had the same!

Art Journaling my life

This is the cover of my new journal.

I know I've been quiet lately.  Had a lot going on.  And a lot of changes taking place, both within and without.  Trying to deal with it all.  A few posts ago I showed you pics of my first Art Journal.  Here are some pics from my current one.  They pretty much say it all.

Inspired by the lovely Suzi Blu

Inspired by an article in Cloth Paper Scissors

A teeny little book I found lying around

Here is the book out of the pocket

Inspired by an article in Cloth Paper Scissors

A collage of papers I altered

Inspired by an article in Cloth Paper Scissors

 That about covers it.   Well half of it anyway.  I'll post some more another time. 

 Anyone know about ducks and their deal with 'hiding'their eggs?  They used to lay just wherever, even in the pool a few times.  Then I stopped finding eggs......  I knew there had to be some somewhere....  finally I found them.....

 tucked away in the bushes and stuff in the far reaches of our yard.  It took some looking to find it.

Honestly I was surprised that they didn't lay like this before.  This was what I kept expecting to find.   There were 10 eggs in this nest.  And we had to sneakily move them because the ducks kept staring at us.  Now we can't find any eggs from them again.  I have looked daily, my family has looked, they must have a nest somewhere.  Do they not want us to take them?  They are both female, so they are not fertilized.  It's a mystery I must find an answer to-- prefferably before a bunch of rotten duck eggs pile up.  

Updates aplenty.

These are all duck eggs.  The very large one had two yolks.
Those are my 9 year olds hands holding them for scale.

Seems like a long time since I've updated you all on a few things.  I'll give it a shot here and try to keep this not too long.  So the ducks and the chickens are all laying now.  We have fresh eggs everyday.  More than we can use, so we've been giving some away.  They are delicious and different from store bought because their shells are much thicker and they don't easily crack.  We even had a double yoked duck egg once.

The ducks hate the dog.  I took this video for you to show you how they act when she's around.  It's loud and annoying.  They yell at her the whole time she's out there. Of course they wouldn't cooperate so this video does not accurately depict their relationship.  You can however see the way she stares menacingly at the dog in the beginning.

he installed new tail lights

The Pearl is coming along nicely.   My dear husband has fixed the lights, put a new power cord connector thing in, ripped out some of the paneling and bought new insulation.  We also removed all of the drawers and cabinet doors for some good cleaning and re-structuring in some cases.  If you know me I like clean.  So they were cleaned with bleach first (I know, it's a no-no but I'm a germophobe), then cleaned again with a green cleaner I make with tea tree oil, lemon and some other good stuff.  Then finally de-greaser.  Now they are nice and clean and probably need some more oiling or shellac or something.  We'll eventually get to that.

new shelf paper in the cleaned and reconstructed drawers

removing all cabinet doors and
drawers for cleaning

disgustingly dirty before

Then there is the Princess Stove.  We took it out and have been cleaning it ever since.  This past weekend I talked him into taking the whole thing apart so I could soak all the parts in degreaser.  It worked like a charm and she's nice and clean now.  The only thing left there is new insulation for under her, he already put new wood to hold her up, and a thorough cleaning of the oven.  We had a 70 year birthday party to attend that day, so I didn't get to the oven yet.

completely taken apart

parts of the Princess

 I'm sure there's more we've done.  Oh he re did the bed frame.  I forgot to take a pic.  Check out his posts on repairing yesterdays trailers today.  There is even more exciting news to tell, but it'll have to wait til next time.

The bitties art

On the Art Journal front.  I have been keeping up with my art journal daily, but have not taken any pics yet.  I'll get to it.  I know at least two of you are Art Journaling along with me and I think that's great I am proud to be a part of that!  Remember when you were a kid and art was just fun?  You just drew and colored and painted for the love of it.  Here's a few pics to remind  you of that...

working in her art journal

Art journaling

the other bittie art journaling

And remember.....