Colorado Christmas Tales part 5

This is the last of the Colorado Christmas Tales for this year.

In 1989 we were going to El Paso for Christmas. We were going to go skiing at Taos first. So early one morning before Christmas, we got the kids up at 4 a.m. and bundled them into the van. And I do mean 'bundled'. For the entire week before we left, the temperature in Colorado Springs had been below zero. All day, 24 hours a day. So the kids were dressed in their ski clothes, long underwear and bibs and wool socks, and jackets, hats and gloves, and snow boots. Then they were enclosed in sleeping bags, belted in, and they tried to make themselves comfortable with all that extra padding surrounding them. Their heads promptly disappeared into the sleeping bags! The dog wasn't so lucky, she curled up on a seat and tried to stay warm.

The van was running long before we left, the heat was turned up on high. It would have been better if the heat could of been higher. Clyde and I climbed into the front seats, wearing all of our ski clothes, I had a sleeping bag wrapped around me too. We set off south to New Mexico.

It soon became clear that the heater wasn't putting out any warm air. It felt more like an airconditioner. The inside of the windows kept frosting over. We had to keep stopping and use a credit card to scrape off the ice on the inside of the van windows so that we could see where we were going. Luckily for us, the van didn't have a thermometer to tell us how cold it was, or we probably would have gone home and back to bed in a warm house.

By the time we reached Raton Pass, we were wondering if this was a good idea. The heater had been blasting for over 3 hours, and our breaths were still freezing on the inside of the windshield.
But the top of Raton Pass was the changing point. As we dropped down out of the mountains into Raton, New Mexico we quickly shed all of the outer layers, and were soon sweating because of all the heat eminating from the heater. We went from below zero to about 40 in 15 minutes!

What a change!

We went on to Taos for skiing, and then on to El Paso for Christmas. And when we came home, it was much warmer than when we left!.

On another note, Christmas is officially over here. All the presents are unwrapped, the kids have gone home, and it's just me and Clyde again. Quiet is so nice after all the commotion. But I wouldn't have missed all the commotion for anything. The little ones were SO excited! And we had a great gathering with friends and family on Saturday, even though I was ready for bed at 11 p.m. and so was everyone else!

Colorado Christmas Tales part 4

Continuing the Christmas sagas, this is what we started doing in 1986.

I had an artificial tree, I would just get it out of the garage and set it up in the living room, and decorate it. Easy as pie (unless I'm the one cooking, that is).

But not Clyde. Christmas is NOT Christmas if the tree isn't real. But they cost a lot of money...... Well, not so much if you can get a permit from the forest service, and then get to the cutting area in the mountains. So that's what we did.

On the Saturday morning we were going to get the tree, we got all the kids up, fixed a thermos of hot chocolate, loaded up the ax and the saw into the car, and took off.

Luckily for us, it was a nice day, the sun was shining, and I don't remember the temperature, but not too bad. After we got there we had to find a tree. We didn't want to cut one that was too big, so we were looking for one that was about 7-8 feet tall. Gotta tell you that they look a lot shorter out in the open, but we found one.



Everyone got a chance to saw at the trunk. I think the general opinion was that cutting down a tree wasn't as easy as it looks. Here's Eddie taking his turn at sawing.



And here's Clyde hiking in. I know he's hiking in, because he wasn't hauling a tree out. That was another thing, those trees aren't light.




We got the tree tied to the top of the car and took it home. Then we tried to set it up. Remember what I said before about them looking shorter out in the open. We had to cut about 4 feet off the bottom of the tree to get it into the house.

And when we did, we discovered that we had to tie it to the wall. We had adopted these three kittens, shown here playing with the running water in the kitchen sink.



And when we got the tree up, they just loved the jungle gym that we had brought home especially for them!



Needless to say, we had to leave the tree undecorated for several days, until the cats were finished with it. Then we decorated it, and redecorated it, and redecorated it,.......

And the next two years we went back up to the forest to cut down a Christmas tree.
So our kids know where the trees come from and we are looking for one on our property to cut down so G, and M, and CJ and experience the fun of cutting down their Christmas tree!

Stay tuned for part 5.

Colorado Christmas Tales part 3

Before I get started, here's the front of my Christmas card this year. I even got it done before Christmas this year! So, everyone have a Merry Christmas! And hopefully it will warm up a little by then since we have been so cold already this year.



I put this out here because I couldn't find any pictures for Christmas 1984 or 1985.
I don't even remember Christmas 1984, except that I know we were in Colorado. We went to El Paso for Thanksgiving, and the following week my father died, and we went back down to El Paso. So, I don't remember Christmas. It must not have been very memorable!

However, Christmas 1985 was memorable. Clyde and I had gotten together in September, and this was our first Christmas together. I sent the Ed and Becca to Phoenix, and James went to his mother's. We had the time to ourselves, and we had reservations in Breckenridge. We were going skiing! By ourselves! And we weren't coming back until after Christmas, so we were staying at least 4 days. If only I'd known....

We got up there on the 23rd, got our lift tickets and took off on a ski lift. First run, on a simple blue slope, at the top of the mountain, I took a twisting fall. And SNAP! I tore the acl in my knee. Oh bummer. If you have never been pulled off a mountain strapped into one of their sleds heading downhill headfirst, you really haven't lived! All you can see is the sky, and the tops of some of the trees!
And there's only the one ski patrol guy in front to keep you from going all the way down headfirst.

Got to the clinic, they checked out the knee and said the acl was torn. I couldn't walk on it like it was, so I got a splint, from thigh to ankle, to keep the leg straight. And some crutches! Boy was I upset. I started crying because I had messed up our vacation, and on the very first day!

We got to the hotel, and stayed overnight. The next day, the 24th, we headed home, getting there in the evening. The next day was Christmas, and I didn't even have anything in the house to fix a nice dinner. The only place we could find open was Eidelweiss, and they did have an opening for lunch/dinner. So we ate Christmas dinner out. Now I knew that we were going to eat Christmas dinner out that year, but I had been expecting to ski before and after.

When I got to the doctor the next week, he casted the leg from thigh to ankle, and that's how I walked for the next month. When he took it off, I had to go to Physical Therapy to get the knee working. (But I did get a new mountain bike out of this, and a wind trainer to put it on so I could ride stationary, it was good exercise for the knee.)

And, as soon as the doctor said I could ski again, I was back on skis. But that year my ski season was kinda short, since I missed 3 months of it.

Stay tuned for part 4.

Colorado Christmas Tales part 2

Two posts down, I wrote about the 1982 Christmas weather disaster, when I couldn't get the kids to the airport to fly them down to Phoenix. So the following year, 1983, I decided to drive. After all, the snow was in Denver the year before, why shouldn't it be there again?

So, a couple of days before Christmas, I got the kids up bright and early (actually it wasn't bright, it was dark like it usually is at 4:30 am in December in Colorado.)

Packed the car and took off to the south. Shortly after leaving Colorado Springs, it started to snow, lightly. I followed a big truck, and it was easy. Well, it was easy for a short while. The snow kept getting thicker, deeper, and heavier.

By the time I got to Pueblo, it was coming down really good. Appears the storm decided to take a southerly path this time. Since it was still dark when I got thru Pueblo, and I didn't want to travel thru the ever thickening snow in the dark, I turned around, went north back into Pueblo, and stopped at the Village Inn. We had breakfast while I waited for the sun to come up.

The sun came up, but unfortunately, I couldn't see it. It was lighter out, but disorienting since the ground, road and sky were all the same color. Let me tell you, there weren't very many people on the road! It was all I could do to keep the car on the road, I could barely see past the front end of the car, and there were very faint tire tracks, if any. I mostly watched for the posts on the edge of the road so I could see where the middle was.

After 'white knuckling' it all the way to Walsenberg (normally a two hour drive at most), I saw a Best Western sign alongside the road--barely. Being the efficient, decisive person that I was, I decided we were going to have a second breakfast and turned off the freeway. It had only taken over 4 hours for a less than two hour drive.

First question as I walked into the Best Western was "Do you have any rooms available? I think I'm done for the day."

Well, of course, that early in the day, they were full. I had to wait for someone with better nerves than me to check out and be on their way. That's what they told me. I just replied, "I'll be in the restaurant. Let me know when you have a room."
At least I was at the top of the waiting list!

After another breakfast, the kids were confused since I didn't usually feed them breakfast two times in one day, and never twice before 8:30 am, we got a room!!

Yea! I didn't have to drive over Raton Pass, at least not today.

Of course, have you ever spent 24 hours with two kids (ages 10 and 5) in a hotel room with nowhere for them to go run and work off their energy? We watched movies, we jumped on the beds, we bounced off the walls. We did get lunch and dinner, and I called everyone and told them not to expect me, I was snowed in again! All of my southern family (Arizona and Texas) were probably wondering what I had gotten myself into when I moved to Colorado. After all, until last year I had never had a white Christmas in all of my 34 years.

I finally got them settled down and asleep and was relaxing finally. Bekka sat up in bed (the one she was sharing with me of course) and threw up. All over!!
I guess she had too much excitement that day. After we got that cleaned up, we tried again to go to sleep.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny. Really. There was over a foot of snow on the car's roof, but I could see where I was going! Apparently, Raton Pass was a real mess the day before, and there were ground blizzards all the way to Santa Fe that were causing whiteouts on the roads.

We got in the car, and after a very slow, and careful, trip over the pass, we continued on our way. We made it to Phoenix, and then to El Paso. I seem to remember on the way back, on New Years Day no less, I had to find a place to fix something that was going wrong with the car, because it wouldn't go.

That was not an easy trip!!

This is a picture of Ed and Bekka at Royal Gorge that fall, so you can see that they have grown a year's worth. Don't know what happened to the Christmas pictures.



Stay tuned for the next installment in the Colorado Christmas Tales.

Rudolph

Rudolph the Red Deer Rain Nose
by Miss M

Colorado Christmas Tales

It occurred to me that I should save some of my memories of Colorado. We moved here in 1982. Totally unprepared for the weather. The kids never had snow fall in their yard before. Ed wasn't used to playing in the snow, and kept freezing the tips of his fingers and having to come inside to warm them up. But he always went back outside to play in this stuff.

Christmases became really exciting!

Our first Christmas here, it snowed. (Actually it was a blizzard on Christmas Eve Day.)



We had a white Christmas! My first ever (and I was so old then). The snow covered the front steps.

When we got up in the morning, Bekka discovered a new bicycle under the tree for her.
(Bekka always had 'bedhead' when she got up. The hair was like cotton.)



Ed had new tires for his bike, and one of those big Star Wars war machines (I can't remember what they were called, but it added to his collection of Star Wars toys.).
See all that red hair and freckles that he had?



Anyway, Ed and Bekka were supposed to fly down to Phoenix that day to spend the rest of Christmas with their dad. Unfortunately, the couple of feet of snow we got, wasn't the worst in the state. Denver got over 3 feet of blowing snow, they had huge drifts, and the roads weren't plowed. There was no way to get to the old Denver airport to put the kids on the plane. (I had them flying from there because it was a point to point flight-no changing planes or anything.)

So, we flew down for President's Day in February instead. Figured that wouldn't happen again.

Stay tuned for Christmas 1983!

Today will be MUCH warmer than yesterday......

You know you are in Colorado when the weather man proclaims

"Today will be MUCH warmer than yesterday." And then proceeds to let you know that the expected high will be 28 degrees. But it will be sunny!

(Yesterday the high was 4 so I guess he was right.)

Thanksgiving highlights

Well, Thanksgiving was really interesting this year, and since we only had family and Brandi and Ella, everybody missed the excitement.

Started with PWs Lazy chili rellenos and sour cream muffins with blueberries for breakfast. Will have to work on the chili rellenos some more, they were a little runny, but very tasty.

Then Clyde started on the turkey. We had a big one (22 lbs.) and he put it in a turkey bag like we have done for the past 24 years, and I did for lots of years before that.




He put the turkey in the oven at about 11:30 am. We proceeded to cook the rest of the meal, while enjoying the peach margaritas that have become a mainstay of our entertaining.




These are really, really good margaritas, that I found the recipe for on Noble Pig's blog.

At about 2:30, Clyde noticed some strange light coming from the oven. He opened the oven door, and flames came pouring out the door. He shut the door, thinking, I guess, that he would starve the flames of oxygen. He did turn off the oven, and then opened the door again. More flames! He started yelling "leave the house! go outside!" while he attempted to take the turkey out of the oven. James hovered behind him, cautioning "don't spill the grease!" Brent took all three kids out on the front deck. The fire alarm started going off.

Clyde got the turkey out of the oven, and the flames went out. He's yelling "where's the fire extinguisher!" Which we bought 17 years ago when we bought the house, and it's been MIA for many years now. (item one on the shopping list: buy a new fire extinguisher).

Had to open windows and doors and fan the smoke away from the fire alarm, which continued to go off. Got a little chilly in the house. Had to peel the plastic cooking bag off the turkey. Didn't get much in the way of juices to make gravy.

And thru the entire excitement, I never thought to pick up the camera and take a picture!

So, no picture of the flames coming out of the oven.

Right after the fire was out, the alarm was off, Brandi walks in the door. We're all, like, "Wow, you missed all the excitement!"

Needless to say, I am thankful that I don't have to rebuild the house, we did have a turkey dinner, and we enjoyed ourselves all the way until about midnight when we finally gave up playing games and went to bed.

Here is Miss M.


And here is CJ enjoying the pumpkin pie that he and Miss M poked their fingers into yesterday.




Hope you all had a quiet Thanksgiving. Oh, and we have to clean the oven, and make sure it's not going to happen again, or item number 2 on the shopping list is a new stove. And I think I just may make item number 3 on the shopping list a turkey roaster, so we don't have to use the cooking bags again!

You can read another version of this story Here.

Twas the day before Thanksgiving......

And Granpa was busy baking pumpkin pies. They looked really nice too.



But, if you take a close look at the pie above, you'll see two little finger poke holes. One of the grandkids tested the pie! And the other pie has even more holes in it! Grandpa is going to be thrilled!

We'll have a houseful tomorrow, but not as many as usual.. James and Solitare will be here, as will Bekka and Brent. The three kids are already here. Brent is back at work and he gets off at 6 am and Bekka has to be at work at 6am. I was looking at having to get up at 4:30 am to go watch them. But Grandpa, not wanting to get up that early, suggested that we get them the night before. So, they've been here all day, causing the normal amount of havoc that they usually cause. I've done no painting, and the final day is getting pretty close. So, I've got to take pictures and get a couple framed to put into shows.

I am baking a pie right now. It's called an upside down apple pie. Figured that it didn't matter if it came out pretty, since I'm going to turn it upside down! At least it won't have finger poke holes in it like the pumpkin pies do!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Mea Culpa, again

Forgot to acknowledge birthdays again......Too much going on right now.... And yesterday, as we were getting out of the truck in Monument, I all of a sudden said "I forgot a day recently" and Clyde said "my mother's, October 28, and I forgot too". So sorry Mother in Law....Guess things just got away from us.

So Lois, Here's a big Happy Birthday!!!! to you.

And then James, the youngest, turned the big 30 on Nov. 1st. How time flies! Happy Birthday, James!

Rachel, Ed's wife had a birthday on the 10th of November, but in keeping with the 'we ladies don't reveal our age', I won't be telling how old she is. Happy Birthday, Rachel!

And Ed has a birthday on the 22nd. I'm not late on that one. Whew! Ed is turning 36 years old this year. I can't believe I have a kid that old. I mean, I'm only 39! Hah! So Happy Birthday, Ed!!

And so goes the year. I'm done with birthdays until February. Now I just gotta get thru Thanksgiving and Christmas, oh, and finish all my paintings for the final on Dec. 6th. And make Christmas cards, and doll clothes, and buy presents.

I vote for Christmas in July....how does that sound?

It's going to be a looooonnnnnnggggg winter

Today, I finally got out! Yes, not stuck at home. I can do my shopping that hasn't been done in the last two weeks because of the snow. So, Grandpa warms up the truck and drives it out to the street two times to knock the snow down so I can get out. And get out I did. No problems.
Well, that was the good part.

Went to the doctor's, post office, and Walmart. Then MD's for lunch, and came home. Tootled right along. It was easy!

Then I turned into the driveway. And got stuck right out there by the street. So I hauled the groceries in by walking, and then went out after lunch to dig the truck out. Grandpa was kinda like "What do you think I'm going to do?"

I dug out 3 of the 4 wheels, and started on the one that was really buried, and along comes a neighbor in a red truck with a tow strap.

"Are you stuck?" he asks.

Well, duh! "Yes, I'm stuck."

So he gets out, attaches the tow strap, and he pulls the back to the left, while I back out, and
I'm out! So I stop right there. Not going to get stuck again. Call Clyde, tell him I'm out, and can he please come drive the truck into the driveway.

I bet he was surprised that I got out so fast. Like about 20 minutes of digging was all!

This is the second time in two weeks the truck has been stuck. It's going to be a long winter down here.

How the snow flies......

Bet you thought you were going to see photos of the almost 2 feet of snow that's lying around our yard and drive right now (and yes, it's still coming down, but not as much!). This is how Amanda looks when she comes back inside. She plows thru the snow with her nose to the ground.

I've been painting today, it was a work day, but the clinic is closed because of the snow. I couldn't get there anyway. We haven't seen a snowplow yet. So we've sort of hunkered down and stayed inside where it's warm.

I know, I've got to get pictures taken of my paintings and post them here. I do have a couple of cool ones, if I do say so myself, that I think you'll all like.

Grandpa posted something over on his post. I think he's taking a poll. And yes, we do have goose and gander rules. But we also have gander and goose rules, so my vote is that it all evens out in the end. What about you? Do you have goose and gander rules at your house?

Ugh! Maybe this will help spring come early?

It's 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning. The snow has arrived! But not too much yet. It's quiet outside (and yes, I've already been out, why you ask? Amanda of course!) and the snow is very fine, light stuff coming down. Everything is covered again, but only about an inch so far.

The temp is at 24 degrees. Not as bad as three weekends ago when the high was about 19.

The (make that my) truck has a new driveshaft, it was fixed on Monday. You gotta love a mechanic that comes to you, or better yet, comes to your broken truck, and fixes it by crawling under it in the snow to fix it!

Grandpa's truck has a new seat controller, so now the seat moves back and forth, so both of us can drive it now. But really, Grandpa is the only one that has to drive again.......I'm not driving in this stuff!

So, what's your morning like?

a short discussion

Grandpa: "I'm tired of winter already."

Grandma: "But Dear, it's only October!"

I guess cold, snow and a broken drive shaft will do that to you...

Have a good day.

Back to the park last weekend

So, last weekend, it was back to the park. After feeding the ducks. I did take more pictures than just the feet!

Started out playing by the water....What is it about water that fascinates kids? Unless it's bath water of course!



After digging, and throwing rocks into the lake, they found a tree to climb on. A good tree, it was close to the ground!

The littlest one thought this was lots of fun!









But you can see that Miss M wasn't all that interested in the climbing! But she did sit on the tree with CJ for a picture.



I did get a good picture of her, though.



Got pictures of G sitting on the tree.....



and making like a leopard in the tree.



And, of course, I got one of Granpa laying in the grass. He does that well, sometimes.


I would put up the photos I took after Grandpa got my truck stuck in the snow on Wednesday, but he already posted about that here.

Musings.

Went to the park yesterday after feeding the ducks behind the library (slept too late and weren't ready to go to the zoo until 9:30. Would have put us there with all the other visitors and we like to go early and have the zoo to ourselves).

After watching the kids play for a while, I noticed these:

Big feet:


Middle feet:


Little feet:


Only that's not the way it is. You have to swap middle feet and little feet, because the 2 year old wears a size larger than the 4 year old! He'll be catching up with the big feet pretty soon.

Woweeee!!! Look what you can see !!!

Clyde posted some of his paintings. You can see them
here !!

He did a good job, and now I've got to get going and post some of my stuff. Nothing like a little competition!!

Grey day, grey mood.....

No pictures today. It's a cold, cold grey day here. I woke up to a temp of 13 degrees, and it's only up to 20 degrees right now. The fog here has lifted a little, so the sky is just a blah grey.

The drive to class this morning was quite eventful. First, I skidded pulling into Wayne's to feed his horses. So now Clyde's driving....it's a lot safer that way. (Whole other story why I'm doing the driving right now.) Then, in Monument, guess what? There were only about 3-4 vendors at the farmers market, and the pastry lady from Castle Rock couldn't get here because the the pileup on I-25 at Larkspur. So, McDonald's it was.

In McDonald's we heard about the freeway being closed going north, and that it was closed going south of Colorado Springs. And when we started down to class, there was an accident on the freeway. We got off at Briargate Parkway, went down to Academy and got back on. Ok, not so bad.

Uneventful all the way down to the Bijou exit. Cops in the turn lanes to go east. Bridge closed.
Tow truck manuvering to get a pickup off the bridge. Bus resting on a lamppost. Ok, so we went west, and turned to go down to the Colorado Street bridge. Guess what? Closed.

Now these are the two newest bridges over the freeway to get into downtown. Guess they made them too steep, they collect ice and become major hazards. Had to turn around and go all the way north to Uintah to go UNDER the freeway, then back south to ppcc campus.

After class, still foggy, bridge at Bijou still closed, firetrucks with lights and sirens heading north on the freeway (the direction we needed to go). Went back up to Uintah, turned east, and thru town to go back to Wayne's and feed horses and then home.

The house is cold, the outside is cold, it's snowing a little.....How much grayer can it get??

A second day at the zoo.....

On Sunday, we went to the zoo again. Since we've already paid for as many times as we want to go, it seemed like the right thing to do.

G and M were ready to go:


We saw the birds (this is an african crane) at the giraffe exhibit:


After watching the giraffe stampede (where they let all the giraffes outside) we saw these little creatures (and I have totally forgotten what they are):


Next up were the lions, and rockclimbing outside the lion exhibit:

Then on to the Rocky Mountain Wild exhibit. The mountain lions were being fed in one half of their pen. Food was in feed sacks so they could tear it apart. They have 3 boys and one girl all from the same litter. The boys have been fixed, and the girl is on birthcontrol, but she still attracts the boys from off the mountain:

M standing on the fence out side the lions:

The otters were out swimming, so we had to stop and see them:

Then we got to the grizzly bears. They were out walking around, not swimming like we saw before:

The two of them put on quite a show wrestling:

Then we were done, and left for home:

And this is what I found after we had been home for a couple of hours. He insists that he was reading his book, but I have evidence otherwise:
The book isn't even open!

I guess the grandkids wore him out. Meanwhile, I washed dishes, clothes, and did some other stuff.

WHAT??!!??!?

Where did summer go? It hasn't arrived yet! Oh my, we had spring all of June, July, and August.
It's supposed to be summer now. But no, our forecast is for a chance of snow Monday night. Temps in the high 20s.

Our sunflowers haven't made seeds yet.

We just got the stuff to start painting the trim on the house.

The manure pile isn't cleaned out yet.

The wood isn't split yet.



Oh, well, off to the zoo with G and M. Today's supposed to be really nice!

The zoo.....

On the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, Clyde and I joined the zoo. Yes we did. We signed up for the grandparents membership with five grandchildren. So we can go anytime we want, and not have to pay. Seriously, I think 3 trips will pay for the membership, and we still have the whole year to go. And, the best part, we don't have to see everything in one trip. Which, I have to say, is a little hard on the little ones.

So here we have Miss M perusing the map to determine where we are going:



And here she is after deciding, looking quite satisfied:



CJ is a little more leary, not knowing exactly what he's gotten himself into:



Here he is leaving the treehouse right before we went to the My Big Backyard:



And they have a pond in My Big Backyard that is full of fish. CJ had to get a close look! Any closer and he would have been in the pond with the fish:



While in the Big Backyard, we went into the upper part of the treehouse. Miss M sat in an egg and pretended that she was hatching:



We had a great time and we are looking forward to going again! But it's hard to take pictures when you're chasing kids at the same time so we didn't get many taken.

Maybe next time......

The artists

I have some very talented grandkids. They are becoming quite the artists.



Mr G drew this last spring, while he was still in 1st grade. See if you can decipher who it is and what it says. I thought is was really creative, and not something I would have expected from a just turned 7 year old.



I received the above in the mail today from Miss C, way out in Grand Junction. It's a birthday card for Grandma. She put Grandpa in it too. And isn't it nice that she only put 4 candles on the cake? She thinks I'm young!

I had one that Miss M drew of her daddy (and I knew immediately who it was) but I think I sent that home with her parents. I'll have to keep the next one to post.

CJ is quite the artist too, but he draws on himself so I have nothing to scan in from him. Maybe someday when he learns to draw on the paper! LOL!!