Hello and welcome…. It’s not summer here but always a great day for a popsicle or ice cream. The other night when Cody and Amelia and all those sweet babies came over. Papa brought out popsicles I had previously bought for Ledger and Riggs when they had stayed a week with us. Oh my goodness what a surprise and a great treat for them. Brooks wanted more. It was so cute. Reminded me of Riggs always wanting another one. Not to mention Colten as well. Colten once said “I think I will have an ice cream cone.” It was Easter and everyone who needed a new bike had got one. I remember a lot of bikes. That picture is on regular film. He hadn’t even been on the bike but like 10 seconds. We all still laugh at that. So instead of being in the moment of the new bikes he was thinking of those yummy Schwans ice cream cones. We used to always have Schwans delivery. We had been customers since 1995 but in the last few years we’ve been unable to have any deliveries due to budget. All my children have grown up with Schwans ice cream. Living rural it can be difficult to get ice cream home especially in the south. The popsicles I actually bought I had seen my old driver at a neighbors house and I stopped to get those bomb pops. As we called them. I think they call them firecrackers or patriot pops. When I was kid they also came in banana and chocolate. I always got that one.
Look at that sneaky happy face on Brooks. Baker is just enjoying the moment.
Oh I know you can taste that sweetness of that cold brain freezing popsicle.
Here is Ledger at our home in NC they enjoyed them too. Always a popsicle at grandmas house.
We had seen this ice cream truck at Jacksonville Beach while we were visiting with Amanda. The bomb pop is on the door of the converted ambulance truck.
Skylar aka Skybear. It’s not a popsicle but I had made everyone at cake at the house Bruce was working on in Cape Hatteras, NC. She wanted to lick the beaters and the spatula. I have a video of her when Dusty was saying can have some? Skylar was shaking her head no. She was like two then. Here she is four. She had stayed with us while mom was deployed to German, that time.
Clarissa
Kim sends me the pictures so I don’t know all th details but I do know that it looks super delicious.
This was when we were in Canada 🇨🇦 we stopped and had ice cream. It was a great experience and a delightful place. The ice cream was amazing.
Samantha enjoyed this blue ice cream and I do remember her tongue turned blue. When I was a kid my aunt and grandmother on my mom’s side lived in WW1 housing and right across from the Colonial Grocery Store and a Highs Ice Cream shop. I would cross this major highway and go and buy a .25 cent ice cream I would get bubble gum flavored. Sometimes I would get a red white and blue one it was around 1976 so Bicentennial memorabilia was everywhere. I even had a red white and blue banana seat bicycle. I rode everywhere. Even places I had no business being there. I was quite the explorer. Curious!!
Dakota looks like she got the same ice cream.
Dusty had a custard cup in the Outerbanks of NC. We went there every time we were there at one time we had a camper at the campground. We would get the vanilla custard with rainbow sprinkles. My mouth is watering thinking of it.
Here are Dusty and Cooper when we had gone to Florida to visit Amanda for her wedding to Chad. We walked around St. Augustine visiting the shops and enjoying the beautiful views. Well we were broke just getting to come to Florida we had cashed in our Rufus “piggy” bank which is really a dog. Amanda told us we could “hock” some jams along the way. Which didn’t happen. We just needed enough money to have gas money. We brought our food which is a normal occurrence unless we have to fly or get on a cruise ship. So we good just needed money for fuel. Gas prices were around $2.80 cents per gallon in 2015. Well the boys had run ahead of us and had got to the ice cream shop where everyone in our group had gone thru the line as we were walking coming to them. Here were Dusty and Cooper sitting with no ice cream. My mother and stepfather had gone thru the line and didn’t buy them any ice cream. As we were getting ready to open the door of the shop Chad had taken them up to the counter and bought them ice cream. I was so upset over the fact that my mother couldn’t buy them an ice cream. While they both sat there eating ice cream. It made me cry later. Because who does that to kids. On our way back home we had stopped at a rest stop to use our jetboil to cook a meal. A couple came up and asked us could they get $10 dollars for gas. Bruce said I don’t know if we can spare it. I pulled out $20 bucks for them and said get you some gas and maybe a little snack. Then I reminded Bruce of what goes around comes around.
Look how happy Cooper was….. with the ice cream that almost wasn’t. Thank you Chad for saving the day. My boys appreciated it.
This is Samantha when she was at my house in NC with one of those “ice cream cones” that Colten was talking about. I always had these on hand as well. I miss my ice cream suppliers. Too cute.
This little ice cream tip was in my pictures I must of got it off of Pinterest years ago. I wish I had known that earlier in my life. Great tip!!! Thanks to whoever made that post.
Today I was in a slump it seems I have this bottled up energy and the weather is just not cooperating with me being outside. Too much snow and ice and extreme temperatures. I have been watercoloring. The 100 day project which is getting to be 20 days in today. Yay! Five more days will be a 1/4 of the way finished. Toot!! Beep!! I love the painting for today however it seemed like I just couldn’t get there. Colby went to buy dog food for me tonight and I asked for some of those gluten free crackers and a goat cheese for a snack. We have been watching a few shows. Nurse Jackie and Versailles. Well I better stop working on the blog for today. See you tomorrow. Much love and hugs.
Hello and happy Monday. Here we are on to the second week of February. Remember I am still sharing the good times of 2025 and other years as well. It’s nice to share and I am enjoying the process. It’s like journaling without paper. I still journal as well. It just feels right. It’s another way for creativity.
This video is funny it’s about us coming to Cody and Amelia’s wedding. We camped using a HipCamp and let me tell you it was a great experience. We arrived in Ohio (kinda like a half way mark) or in my mind it was. We picked a campsite and it was on a slope. I was exhausted as I wasn’t even a few months passed the first back surgery. Which one of my pins were broke and no one was listening to me at how much pain I was in. Finally when we came back home they did a CT scan and found all that out. I was scheduled for the second surgery on September 30. Only 26 days after Cody’s wedding. So while we were camping the next morning on the slopes. It had rained and when I woke up I was way down the slope. All of us moved in the tent. I still laugh about it. In 2024 we took the boys camping in our vintage camper that someone had gave us. We call her Betsy. She needs work inside. The boys loved it. They wanted to go again in the camper. This past year 2025. I will tell you more of that story below.
So we tent camped this past year as Bruce hadn’t got to work on Betsy the RV. It was August and it was hot. Plus being in the tent you could hear everything and everyone close by. We did meet one of the nicest RV owners that pulled in beside us that day. It all started with a frozen Margarita. A young lady had come with her parents and they had brought a margarita machine. Well when they said the margaritas are ready you would know it…. Bruce said “Margaritas” they invited us over and that was it. We really enjoyed talking with them and the boys were both chatting as well. The guy was very impressed with the boys. How smart they were and so well behaved.
We had brought along our hammocks that we have in our backpacks. Over the years we have used these and in fact one of the very oldest hammocks we have is a blue one that Jr used on his walkabouts. When he was in his late teens he would grab his Kelly pack and we would be riding down the road and see him with his backpack. He would stay gone for awhile and enjoy his time going places.
The little boys enjoyed the hammock mostly without grandma. I just wanted to test it out since it had been a long time. It was really nice.
We collected rocks and I used my identifying app for the rocks. They loved it.
Riggs always wanted to get the big ones.
I enjoyed my class with herbal preparations that night it was Goldenrod and if there is an herb I know a lot about is goldenrod. I had brought some from home.
Smoke must of got in his eyes. Bruce had packed all the camp goodies. The boys roasted marshmallows with sticks the old fashioned way. They got a kick out of that.
Ledger has grown up so fast. I tell you it was like yesterday he was just born and now look. Slow down bud grandma has to catch up.
The BigFoot by the house. You can even see the yellow goldenrod blooming.
At the time we went Riggs had burned his foot. Well grandma had all the supplies for a pretty bad burn. To avoid infection I changed the wrap etc. when it was time for him to go home I told him what he would need. He told mom and he was very specific about it. Even telling her how to do the wrap. His attention was very focused and concerning. He watches this doctor on YouTube and is knowledgeable about doctor educational shows. I keep saying he’s going to be a doctor.
This was a picture I found of the boys making a tent in the yard. Everyone was going to sleep in it until nighttime came.
This was camping the year of 2024 when we had the RV on the road.
A very beautiful and relaxing campground. Now for the story….. Ledger and Riggs told me that they didn’t want to tent camp again that they wanted to go in the RV again. So no more tent camping. Haha. Gotta love it. Luxury boys!!!! They know the best way to camp!!!
Years ago we would go Girl Scout camping and would stay in the cabins and/or the platform tents. Bruce was canoe certified so all our girls used to be able to canoe. Bruce would help other troops as well. That can be another post. All the years of camping and canoeing. Most of my pictures of that life are on actual film. I have been one of those people that always had/has a camera. I used to spend many years taking pictures of my dogs and trees. My mother said you’re wasting film and time!!!! I never felt like that. However when I would get my film developed I had to listen to the fussing but I was to busy looking at the pictures analyzing them and seeing if I caught the sun just right or if my dogs were looking at me. I even took pictures of my clothes….. I was thinking of the future perhaps as now no one thinks that type of picture is out of the norm. Mostly for gifts I would always get cameras. Always the novelty ones as well. Then when I was 18 working at a large department store they had a camera department and I put my first expensive camera on layaway. Jr. was a baby and I wanted the best pictures I could get. The camera was over $300 with my employer discount. A Canon. I didn’t become the Nikon girl to much later. The first digital camera I had was a Kodak. I got that around 2002. Which brings me to the new book I am reading Art Work: On the Creative Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/1419780719?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share by Sally Mann a must read it’s so good. I’m already in the fifth chapter.
Well I better head on out as the dogs want attention…
Much love and good vibes,
Dawn Gallop
P. S. Today I was very tired and had no energy…. Bruce said he was feeling some kinda way as well.
Hello and Happy Super Bowl Sunday. This was a BIG deal for me growing up. My stepfather would be so excited and so guarded. Guarded because he didn’t want anyone else in the room or even in the house. Haha my mother and I would leave and usually go to my aunts house or shopping. The shopping times didn’t come until later as growing up in Virginia we had a Blue Law where on Sundays the stores were closed. When we would come home sometimes the game would still be going on. He would come out screaming to let you know don’t come in the room don’t mess with anything. As he was afraid we would blow a fuse or he would miss something. I laugh at it now. Some of the times me and my mom would watch something in another room. She would always say I am glad they had a movie on whatever channel it was. This time frame was in the late 70s when we got cable. Before cable I remember the Superbowl was like on every channel. I may be wrong about that but it seemed like that. I remember watching the twilight show and then the tv going off the air. That was before cable. Newport News was one of the four cities that received satellite coverage where we could get these channels. Good times.
My son Cody once said I didn’t know anything about football, and challenged me to name teams. Well I was spitting the teams off. I even collected the helmets that were in the bubblegum machines. Growing up in Virginia and North Carolina it seemed everyone was a Washington Redskin Fan. They became the Washington Commanders in 2020. When daughter met Garrett we all became Green Bay packers fans. Which is what everyone here seems to be. Sometimes I see a Detroit Lions fan. While I was growing up I was Pittsburgh Steelers fan. Then later I became a Minnesota Vikings fan. Once I married Bruce we pretty much were no longer football fans. I know it sounds crazy to not be fans of football anymore. When I met Bruce I was surprised he wasn’t a fan of football. I thought every guy was lol. Oh well I was wrong!!
The family, Cooper had won King at the court that night. Which was an honor. He later was Prom King as well. Cooper is a very kind and generous person. Everyone likes him so much. He makes you laugh, smile and enjoy being around him.
See always making one laugh. We miss you Boopie. He is a Marine now and working hard.
Eagle football mom
The moms float
Colby played football as well
Family cheering them on
Coop and his friend
Football camp
Brothers
Colten played football as well. This was back in NC.
Cody played one season when he was really young. Colby is the baby here.
My dad had this football booklet. I have the copy today, my uncle had given me after my dad passed away in 2009. My grandfather and my dad all played football. Hope the teams do amazing as I know they will. I can only imagine the excitement and joy they must feel in preparation for the big game. I know when my girls played softball sometimes when my daughters were up to bat bases loaded, two strikes. The anxiety for me was intense I can only imagine what my daughters felt. If you have ever watched Ted Lasso you might know the feelings that come about before a big game. Wishing all the BEST for tomorrow. I’m excited.
Tonight Cody and Amelia came over with the babies. Cody brought over some food and Papa Bruce cooked the whole meal. It took a bit longer than expected but we will let him slide. The boys ate well and had a special popsicle afterwards. More pics tomorrow….. Briar is growing so fast. She’s alert and really misses watching her brothers when she has to take a nap. It was such a joy for everyone to come over. I was feeling a bit sad actually this past week only because I want to be outside and can’t with the ice and thick snow on the ground. Bruce had to work on the snowplow which it was 9 degrees while he was trying to repair it. With the boys coming over tonight and the laughter we all shared the sadness went away. We all need laughter and sharing time together. Thank you Cody and Amelia for coming over. The boys are talking so much now. Much love and gratitude.
