Memories – Wandering Dawgs

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #377 – Holiday Fun

December 10, 2025December 10, 2025Posted in Celebration, PhotographyTagged Christmas, Christmas season, Family, Fun Holiday, Holiday, Lens-Artists, Memories, Photo Challenge38 Comments

This week Ann-Christine is asking us to share some Holiday memories. We can choose any happy memories from any holidays we have enjoyed. The Christmas season is here and I will be sharing some of my fondest Christmas memories with you.

My favorite Christmas memories go way back to when our children and then our grandchildren were young. Those were magical times when they would get more and more excited the closer we got to Christmas. In the following gallery our grandson was 4 when we had a magical day with him at Busch Gardens in Tampa right before Christmas. I love this photo of him looking up at the giant Christmas tree. Later in December of the same year his family came to our house for Christmas. He and his little sister loved looking out our living room windows at Christmas Train lights and seeing our living room transformed into a snowy Christmas village.

Most of the ornaments on our tree have special meaning. My favorite ones are the ones our children and grandchildren made. Below on the left is a reindeer made by one of our grandchildren. On the right the two paper star Santas were made by our children almost 50 years ago.

We have lived on the Georgia coast for many years. Many of the Christmas light displays have a beach theme with lighted palm trees and even mermaids.

One summer we were in North Pole, Alaska on the Fourth of July. We visited the Santa Claus house and although we didn’t celebrate Christmas with Santa we had fun watching the North Pole Independence Day Parade which of course featured Santa Claus!

It was my pleasure to be your host for last week’s challenge of Wings. I enjoyed every one of your creative posts. Thank you everyone who responded with natural wings of birds and insects from around the world. There were even a few airplanes, angel wings, dragons, and gargoyles.

Many thanks to Ann-Christine for her challenge Holiday Fun. I hope you will join us for this fun challenge.

Be sure to check back on Saturday, December 13 at noon eastern time for our last challenge of the year.

For information on how to join the Len-Artists challenge please click here.

Every Day is a Gift

Lens Artists Photo Challenge #326 – This Made me Smile

November 29, 2024November 29, 2024Posted in PhotographyTagged Happy, Lens-Artists, Memories, Photo Challenge, This Made Me Smile22 Comments

For this challenge Ann-Christine asks us to show something that made us smile.

My first gallery shows some of the little things that make me smile.

This next gallery features animals that made me smile.

The last gallery features fun things I’ve see in my travels.

Many thanks to our host Ann-Christine for the challenge Lens-Artists #326 – This made me smile

What Color is Your Key Lime Pie?

September 26, 2020September 27, 2020Posted in UncategorizedTagged Desserts, Food, Key Lime Pie, Memories, National Key Lime Pie Day, Nellie and Joes, recipe24 Comments

Today is National Key Lime Pie Day so of course I made one. It’s chilling in the fridge right now.

My first memories of Key Lime Pie are from the 1970’s when Henry and I first took our two young children on camping trips to the Florida Keys.

After spending a day in the sun at the beach, snorkeling, or fishing, we would sometimes eat out at a restaurant and order Key Lime Pie for desert. The sweet, tart, cold deliciousness of that pie was perfect at the end of a day in the Keys. These pies were yellow, not green, and locally made. And we couldn’t get them any where else back the except in the Florida Keys.

The Key Lime Pie soon became our favorite dessert. It was hard to find and that made it even better. Eventually restaurants north of the Keys started adding Key Lime Pie to their menus. We ordered a piece in a restaurant somewhere and it was green! It wasn’t the cool, creamy yellow pie we were dreaming about. I don’t think any one ate it.

After that dessert disaster, whenever we would go to a restaurant with Key Lime Pie on the menu, our daughter would ask “What color is your Key Lime Pie?” If the answer was “green” she would order ice cream.

Somewhere along the line I discovered I could buy bottles of the Nellie and Joe’s Key West Lime Juice in the Keys so each trip I would bring back several bottles to make my own pies.

These days, I can buy the bottles in any grocery store near me. The recipe is on the bottle, and here it is:

1 9″ graham cracker pie crust
14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
3 egg yolks, whites not used
1/2 cup Nellie and Joe’s Key West Lime Juice

Combine milk, egg yolks and lime juice. Blend until smooth. Pour filling into pie crust and bake at 350º for 15 minutes. Allow to stand 10 minutes before refrigerating. Just before serving, top with freshly whipped cream, or meringue, and garnish with lime slices.

There are many variations on this basic recipe. I like to add some lime zest to the lime juice mixture.

Throwback Thursday #18 – January 30, 2012

January 30, 2020January 29, 2020Posted in Georgia, Nature, RVing, State ParksTagged Memories, Okefenokee Swamp, snowbirding, snowbirds, Throwback Thursday12 Comments

We’re not traveling as much in our fifth wheel anymore so I thought it would be fun to relive some of our most memorable days from previous RV trips. This January I am highlighting our January, 2012 snowbird trip to Florida.

Part 5 of our January, 2012 RV trip around Florida

After enjoying our stay in Alafia State Park, we spent a few days in Salt Springs in the Ocala National Forest before stopping at one of our all time favorite campgrounds on our way north. On this day eight years ago, January 30, 2012, we were camped at Stephen C. Foster State Park in Fargo, Georgia in the Okefenokee Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. It was our last stop before going home.

We had camped there several times before but this stay at the park was quite different from our other visits. In 2011, a wildfire burned for days in the area and a lot of the woods were badly burned.

As we the drove the last few miles to the park entrance we were saddened to see the devastation caused by the 2011 wildfire.

20120130 Stephen C Foster (3) — Stephen C Foster State Park after 2011 wildfire in the Okefenokee Swamp

The fire also destroyed part of the walkway through the nature trail.

20120130 Stephen C Foster (2) — Stephen C Foster State Park after 2011 wildfire in the Okefenokee Swamp

We returned to the park several times after the fire and the area is recovering nicely. There are pictures from our 2018 visit at The Land of Trembling Earth.

It was great fun wandering around Florida that year. Except for a few cold days in the early part of the trip, most of the days were warm and sunny. We even had a few days when we could wear shorts!

We were gone for 36 days and went a total of about 3000 miles and have lots of good memories.

Throwback Thursday #17 – January 23, 2012

January 23, 2020Posted in Florida, RVing, State ParksTagged Alafia River State Park, Memories, snowbirding, Throwback Thursday8 Comments

Part 4 of our January, 2012 RV trip around Florida

After leaving Everglades National Park we spent a couple of nights in the Big Cypress Swamp before heading north for the rest of our journey back to Georgia. On this day eight years ago, January 23, 2012, we were camped at Alafia River State Park in Lithia, Florida, east of Tampa. A quiet waterfront site on Lake Alafia (pronounced Al-a-FI) was just what we needed.

20120122Alafia-River-(2) — Alafia River State Park, Florida

20120122Alafia-River-(3) — Alafia River State Park, Florida

Would you believe there is mountain biking in the state of Florida? The state park is located on land which was once a phosphate mine. The mining company donated over 6000 acres to the state for the state park and there are several mountain bike trails on the mounds which were created by the mining. We walked along some of the trails and even saw a few mountain bikers.