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Bailey Gen and Keith's dog; she's grown up just a bit. |
Mike Our Fearless Leader and Pig Cooker. |
Sarah's Hat It's got a bear on it! Or a cub. It's probably sports-related. I suck. |
Riley This is definitely his favorite time of year... |
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Happy Bailey This is Bailey's first MelFest, and she really seems to be enjoying it. |
Cooling Mel Furiously making us breakfast... |
Preparing the Fire ...while Ray and Darren prepare us the fire. |
Breakfast Time You can tell it's morning because nobody's moving fast. |
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Breakfast Fire It's important to have a high fire first thing in the morning. |
Supervisory Mel Watching over her wards. |
Ray Chops Wood A large portion of this time down was made up of chopping wood... |
??? and Dave I really should remember her name. |
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Friendly Snake We had a rattlesnake earlier, but I didn't get pictures; this snake was far more friendly. |
Friendly Snake, II He was also a lot more active. |
Friendly Snake, III I'm glad a I got a few good pictures of him before he wandered of. |
Little Lizard We spotted him around the same time as the snake; it was harder to get a decent shot of him, though. |
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John and Mel If you look closely, you'll see that Mel is very proud of her new bass guitar. |
Tired Riley He likes sleeping under Mel's feet. |
Gen Camping may be the only time I see her again. Hmmph. |
Fun With Fireworks, I These fireworks had lived in Darren and I's place for months. |
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Fun With Fireworks, II They're all the smoky kind, of course. Oh, how much better life would be if we had real fireworks in Illinois! |
Fun With Fireworks, III Sure, they're dangerous and loud... |
Fun With Fireworks, IV ...and those that use them are generally annoying. |
Fun With Fireworks, V But they're still cooler than just making a bunch of yellow smoke. |
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Wood Music, I While chopping wood, Mike and Brian discovered something important: |
Wood Music, II There's music in them thar logs! |
Wood Music, III I was shocked at how cool it all sounded. |
Brian's Music Brian would continue playing. |
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Mike's Music Mike, in the mean time, looked for more logs to play on. |
Bottle Accompaniment Jon and Charlotte had to add some extra sounds to the set. |
Wood Music, IV Overall, this was definitely one of the weekend's highlights. |
Wood Music, V I think it was even written about in the outhouse. |
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Contemplative Mel She isn't really sure what's happening on the fire over there... |
Concerned Mel I think that something exploded here. This was as much concern as Mel could muster. |
Tim Yup, that's me, camping. |
Darren's Camera Pictures of cameras forever! |
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Preparing Dinner Gen and Keith make their own foods for the barbie. |
Tasty Concoction I just said barbie, didn't I? |
Cooking Dinner We all helped out with the actual cooking this time, though of course Mel was our leader. |
Hungry Dogs Guess what? Hazel and Riley are hungry! *gasp* |
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Gen's Marshmallows Gen was first one to bring out marshmallows this trip. Mmm, goo. |
Hungry Riley He found some marshmallow on the sticks... yum yum! |
Darren I've never seen him with that facial expression before. |
Sarah It was good to have her finally making it down... |
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Hanging Around Sitting around and blathering after dark is ever fun. |
Sparklers This thing didn't look like it'd be that useful in full daylight, so we waited. |
Sparklers, II It was, in fact, neater later on. |
John Another good shot of John. I proclaim him photogenic. |
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Mystery Dog He showed up on Sunday and Monday mornings, and ate some of our breakfast. He was certainly friendly enough. |
Charlotte Oh, so happy to be awake! |
Morning Mel Mel doesn't look that much more cheerful, though. |
Too Much Wine I bought 14 bottles of wine on this trip. 14! I dn't even drink wine! |
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??? and Mike I should still remember her name... Hmmph. |
Dave Having Dave's approval is one of the major reasons I now consider myself a regular. |
??? and ??? Of course, not remembering their names is a problem in that direction... |
Playing with Fire At some point, it was realized that an awful drink concoction of John's was vaguely explosive. |
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Explosion, I So what was there to do but to try to photograph it? |
Explosion, II Toss a bit in... |
Explosion, III ...wait a second or two... |
Explosion, IV ...and *boom*! |
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Explosion, V And then out it goes. |
Explosion, VI Perhaps a movie would have been more interesting. |
Tired Riley I think that everyone was about ready to go. |
Sarah Packs Up Sarah got to be in charge of moving the chairs back up, I guess. |
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Dirty Colleen Mel's Mom's dog decided it'd be fun to jump in the mud pond too... but she's a long-hair dog. |
Dirty Colleen, II I'm really glad I didn't have to clean that up. |
Group Shot, I It would have been easier if I'd brought a tripod. (Dave, Mike, ???, ???, ???, Hannah, Ben, ???, ???, Charlotte, Ray, ???, Dan, Mary, Beth; Bryan, Sarah, John, Colleen, Mel) |
Group Shot, II This one turned out pretty well with how I placed it, anyway. (???, ???, Mike, Brian, ???, Ben, Hannah, ???, ???, Charlotte, ???, Dan, Mary, Dave, Beth, Mel, Ray; Darren, Sarah, John, Tim) |
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Hannah One of the better solo pictures we've gotten of her, I think. |
Darren and Hannah So cute together... |
Packing-Up Tim The time had come to go, and so Beth got my camera... |
Excited Packing-Up Tim ...and made me smile. I'm really bad at it. |
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