Stressful times, followed by hella fun times......

The last part of December and the first part of January was pure hell on this forest woman......my 11 month old male Sheltie, Finn, went into sequential seizures, one right after another. He ended up having 13 before I could get him to an emergency vet off the mountain. Having had an epileptic dog before I knew exactly what was happening but I'd never witnessed seizures this severe. It was frightening to say the least. I thought I was going to lose him. I feared losing him. Luckily my Shingletown vet referred me to a wonderful vet who saved Finn's life. Finn was in an emergency hospital under 24 hour care for 6 days until he could come back home. We feared he may have sustained some brain damage due to the severity of the seizures, but fortunately he did not. He's back to normal now, but will be on a lifetime regiment of meds every 12 hours. I can't thank this Vet enough and I know it will be a hard long road ahead of us, for Finn and I, but we'll make it. He's for sure a 'Mama's boy' because he won't leave my side, and that's all good with me! We're buddies.

My son and family came to visit over the Martin Luther King week-end. They brought Tammi's sister Jamie with them which was great. She loves it up here and was looking forward to some snow play. Unfortunately there was no snow at my place so we took a short trip to Eskimo Hill up near Lassen Volcanic Park.

Eskimo Hill is a majestic (how else would you describe it?) snow covered hill that everyone, and I mean everyone ~ needs to experience at least once in their life.

Here's Kaihla doing all the work of hauling the sled to the hill, which she insisted on doing.....

At the bottom of the sledding hill there is a clearing that looks something like a small village. People are hunkered around deep built-in fire pits bbq’n, they even bring their own chairs, obviously prepared for a day of sledding. Adults, children, dogs, and I mean lots of them.

Here's Tammi and Shadwic ready to take their first run.....

And then Jamie and myself, with Shadwic ready to push us off.....

And then Sean and Kaihla with Shad ready to do the push off.....

And then Sean and Shadwic with Kaihla and myself ready to send them off.......
This was all in preparation of the 'big hill', because Jamie, Shadwic and Kaihla had never sledded down any hills. Once we were done with the practice hill we tackled the big hill.
Walking uphill on the left side dragging tubes, sleds, boogie boards, or whatever takes a good 10 minutes (depending on the snow depth) to get to the top of the hill. At the top, you look down on about 100 yards of beautiful, snow packed downhill sledding. Rather intimidating actually, but....... it’s unbelievably a kick in the proverbial butt. If you get tired of sledding, you can wander off and build an ice igloo. Back in 2006 when I took my friend Laura, her son Danny, and her granddaughter Elizabeth we found an ice igloo that was already made.

Or you can build a snow-man, partake in some good old fashioned snow ball fights, or just sit in the snow and be amazed at the beauty of it all. You're literally in the middle of nowhere, with tons of snow. The little ones, Shadwic and Kaihla had so much fun! The big ones, Sean, Tammi, Jamie and myself, well....what can ya say? We had hella fun!

This is Shad preparing for his first run down the 'little' hill. Not sure why Kaihla has her gloves over her eyes.

Nana and Shad taking a 'breather'.

Kaihla ~ obviously having sooooo much fun!

Kaihla's turn!

Time to go home, and of course Kaihla once again insisted on dragging the sled back to the truck...gotta just love this girl!


The following day we (of course) went on a quad ride through the forest. We found a nice little secluded spot to let Shadwic shoot his new Daisy 'Grizzly' BB rifle. We set up balloons on a fallen tree and he 'plinked' away under the guidance of his Daddy.

If you look closely at the last photo you will see the red balloon in the air after Shad had hit it!
Yay! My grandson is on his way to becoming a 'marksman'!
(My apologies for the quality of the last three photos as I had to create 'snapshots' from a video that was too long to post)