She chased balls:

She chased her boy (Benton):

She goaded Molly into wrestling matches:

Contrast that with Holly and Molly — the elder pooches — who had each others’ backs when it came to wearily surveying the chaos (this was NOT a posed photo — Holly was sitting off by herself surveying the scene, and Molly just wandered over and took a seat next to her):

I’ve posted a handful of pictures (16) over on Flickr — it just doesn’t look like I’ll have time in the near term to get them broken out into blog posts. Check them out if you’re interested!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/secondtree/sets/72157623644471961/

I should have included this picture of Benton in the post dedicated to him from the trip…but I missed it. It’s become something of a tradition that he and I will hike down to the river and make a small fire on the gravel bar down there. In this case, between the snow, the sub-20-degree weather, and the damp wood, we actually ruined a lighter trying to get the fire started. That necessitated a trip all the way back up to the farmhouse, where we snagged a book of matches. On the way back down, we found some perfect grass-like kindling…and proceeded to light the fire with a single paper match!

Molly wasn’t bothered by the cold at all — happily sniffing around in the snow and wading in icy water.

A view up one of the little creeks

My “standard” shot looking up the river
(this is taken from the spot where Benton and I made the fire)

Looking down on the farmhouse and barn
(the hunting cabin is visible wayyyyy in the distance, pretty much directly above the front of the barn)

Deer tracks in the snow

A bird in a tree in the front yard

An apple tree through the tire swing

Snowy leaves

Hanging out with Molly down by the creek

Pondering the winter scene

With a large icicle

Walking back to the farmhouse with her dad

Julie got the idea to give Molly a ride down the hill. Never one to turn down affection, Molly trotted right over to Julie when she called her…while seated on a blue collapsible sled. A tight grip, some nudging with Julie’s feet, and they were off!

Julie’s description: “She squirmed the whole time!” (ya’ THINK?!)

The experience had Molly fired up for a bit, shown here racing around several minutes after the ride.

Observing Molly over the remainder of the weekend, the experience clearly (re-)cemented Julie’s status as “alpha” in the Wilson pack — she stayed close to Julie for the rest of the trip!

More pictures to come!

We decided to give camping a go for Thanksgiving this year, heading an hour-and-a-half to the southeast to Hocking Hills State Park, which a number of our friends have commented about as a place worth checking out. It didn’t disappoint!

A few of my favorite pictures from the trip…

Benton and Carson Cross the A-frame Bridge Near Old Man’s Cave

The View Over the Side of the A-frame Bridge
(A stepped bridge made of individual concrete pillars with cantilevered platforms for each step — pretty neat design)

Alana on the Trail Around Rose Lake

“The Sphynx” on the Face of a Cliff at Old Man’s Cave

Benton and I Playing Around with Slow Shutter Speeds and a Lightstick
(This photo is as it was taken — no post-processing)

Everyone had a good time (although Molly found herself wishing she had a thicker fur coat — she got chilled a few times), and everyone agreed that we should make a point to camp more often. Julie is already planning spring break…

Click the picture below to view the full album of pictures from the trip (31 are posted):

Thanksgiving 2009 — Camping at Hocking Hills State Park

• Minor remodel (paint, drywall, new lighting, new pictures) to our first floor half-bath — Julie (and me…because who doesn’t jump at the chance to hang drywall on a ceiling and tape and float it?)
• Trip to the Columbus Zoo — whole family (“Forced Family Fun,” or “FFF”)
• Several evenings in our driveway or on the neighbors’ porch — whole family
• Learning to bunny hop a scooter — Carson and Benton
• Heading off to blow leaves out of the neighbors’ yard with a promise of a half a bag of chocolate for the effort — Carson
• Replacing workshop lights with fluorescents scavenged from a neighbor and our bathroom (see first bullet) — Tim
• Further decoration of the dining room walls with permanent marker

We’ve got pictures of some of those, which I’ll get posted at some point. As a bridge, one pic each of the kiddos (and even Molly snuck into one of the pictures, but she was in the midst of being dressed up as a princess, and didn’t really seem to enjoy the experience, so I’m okay with including her here):

Just a week or two before Elwyn died, our next-door neighbors got a yellow lab puppy name Anabel. When they got her — 3 months ago — she looked something like this:

She’s, um, grown a bit:

And, suddenly, Molly has taken to peering cautiously out the back door to make sure the coast is clear before heading out to do her business.

Often enough, though, when the weather is brisk, she’s up for a bit of rambunctiousness:

Stay tuned. There’s at least a 50% chance that a human is going to tear something in a kneecap as these two bowl around our backyard.

The classic image of the evening was of four girls aged 5 and under all simultaneously roasting marshmallows:

That led to some gooey mess with one of the girls (Sadie):

Which led to a very attentive Molly:

Meanwhile, the boys were playing with their Go-Gos — using some oversized Janga blocks to build structures for them (these structures were later destroyed by Girl No. 3 in the first picture in this post — younger sister of the two non-Wilson boys in this picture):

So, where was Benton with all these young kids running around? Asleep on his bed, face down and fully clothed. He’d been at a sleepover the night before and had stayed up until 4:30 AM! The sad thing was that he was the one who suggested the fire in the first place, and he was the one who helped collect and cut up the firewood! Nevertheless, the next day, Sunday, he was up for more firewood collecting with Carson in preparation for the fire we’ll have on Halloween (or, at least on the night that trick-or-treating happens, which isn’t Halloween, which is just odd):

You can see it on her head as she spreads corn for the deer:

You can see it on her head as she chases Carson on his bicycle:

If she’s not wearing it, we might as well make the picture black-and-white!

But, where did it go? Who is wearing it? Oh.