Sept. 28, 2014 Colorado's golden fall

Took a drive from the Broadmoor up to Victor via Old Stage Road today to look at the colors. Nice slow drive, I think my top speed was about 15 miles an hour on the better parts of the road. There were quite a few cars, and my driving sure sets Clyde off somehow.

Some of the better remarks:

 "Stay close to the edge on these curves!" While looking down a couple hundred feet.

 "Don't drive off the cliff!"

 "Stop!"

 "Back up straight! Pull forward! Don't hit the rocks!"

 "Where's my phone?" Had to backtrack to the last stop to find it.
 "Watch the road!" As I hit a hole in the road on a switchback.

 But the colors were spectacular.

August 22-23, 2014

Yesterday we had another zoo day! Bet you're getting tired of all the zoo pictures, but I gotta get my money's worth out of that membership!


We were late getting there, the kids stayed up too late the night before and boy were they grumpy!

But, we got to see stuff we hadn't seen before because we were always past when it happened.  They got to feed this tame bird (you'll have to wait for the 3rd picture to see it ).  And they held a cup with food in it for the bird to eat.
Isis (she was too quick and I didn't get a good picture of her).

Molly:

Connell, and now you can see the bird.  Only four kids got to feed the bird, and my crew made sure they were picked.

The lions were out.  I could have gotten a really nice picture from across in front of him if we had brought the big telephoto.  Grandpa didn't bring it because he didn't want to have to haul it around.  (Likely excuse, I had the wagon which he pulled):

The moose.  I like how at our zoo, there are places where you can take pictures without the fencing getting in the way.

The beaver was out this time.  Well actually in a hollow log, but out enough.  Here he is sitting on his tail.

Now, these two following pictures I took today.  We have had a really wet August here, and I have a bumper crop of toadstools!   I found these under the tree in the side yard.  Don't look too impressive?

Here they are with Clyde's hand on one of them.  They are literally dinner plate sized!

And all that grass?  It's been a month since I've mowed because of all the rain.  Thought it would have dried out from the rain last night by now.  But no, it's still too wet!  When did that ever happen in Colorado before?

August 19, 2014 Molly's Birthday

Molly's birthday present:

I asked Molly back in June what she wanted for her birthday.  Her response was "a baking set".

Which I promptly forgot about, so last week I asked her again what she wanted for her birthday, and her response was "a baking set".  So for her 9th birthday, I got her a "sort of" baking set.

I got the brightest, most colorful measuring cups and measuring spoons I could find, a batter bowl with a red lid, and a good wisk.:

Then, I moved on to cooking.  She does like making eggs and pancakes for breakfast, so for that I bought her a purple, yes, PURPLE!, frying pan.  I just can't believe that I found a purple pan for her.  Purple is her favorite color, and then I got two spatulas, one purple and one more fuschia colored.

And then I bought her a good muffin/cupcake pan, some bright cupcake liners, and a ladybug timer so she can know when to remove her stuff from the oven.  And, I had a kids cookbook from Pampered Chef that has easy stuff for kids to fix for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks..

I don't know if she went home and fixed pancakes for dinner or not, but she is all set to be a chef!

June 26, 2014 the firepit

Saturday, at the farmer's market, we made a find!

And not a cheap one.  See that big black cauldron with the fire in it.  It is an old sand casted iron pot.

It stands on 3 legs, one of which is broken, and has some holes drilled in the bottom because someone used it for potted plants..  It came with a handle that you can use to hang it from a tripod over a fire, or is you have a big old fashioned fireplace that used to be used for cooking, it may have hooks that you can use to hang this pot.

 

Notice what they are using to roast the marshmallows.

I couldn't find the old roasting sticks that we used to have for camping, so I had to improvise.  I duct taped shish kebob sticks to wooden spatulas.  That problem has been fixed.  Found metal ones at Wal Mart today.

This cauldron is about 2 feet in diamete, if not more.  And it's deep enough for a fire to be contained.

I had extra large marshmallows on hand and we used those last night.  Today I bought hershey bars, graham crackers, blue and pink and white marshmallows and we made s'mores.  Yum!

June 24, 2014 Flowers before the hail

My blooming flowers.

My flowers finally recovered from Rosie's grazing.  And yes, she's a dog, but whatever.  Now it's hailing.  Guess I'm not destined to have pretty flowers for long this year.

June 4, 2014 Zoo Day

Today, grandpa took a vacation day and we went to the zoo.

Took the three oldest grandkids with us.  This will be Gabe's last trip for a while as he is spending the next year with his dad in Alabama.

Grandpa is pulling the folding red wagon that I found at Sam's.  The first time we brought this to the zoo with us, he thought it was kinda hokey.  But after seeing several other red wagons, and even a blue one, he decided that maybe I wasn't totally crazy.  It is light weight, and sure comes in handy to hold all the drink bottles and stuff that we have to take with us.

We didn't wait for the giraffe stampede that they do every morning, but we did visit them in their house before and even fed them some lettuce.

We stopped to check out the elephants, but they weren't out yet.

The Wallabys were out and they are very friendly.  This one wanted to be petted.  The Wallabys run free in their pen, and people come in thru double gates.  The first one is supposed to be closed, before the second one is opened, but I watched several groups come in and hold both gates open at the same time.
They were lucky they didn't have to catch a wallaby.  We found out that the ropes were there to keep people on the path, not to keep the wallabys in.  People actually were coming in and chasing the wallabys!

This Wallaby was very curious and checked out the wagon.

We stopped at the budgie birds and tried to feed them.

One of the peacocks was really trying to impress a couple of pea hens.

The Amur tiger was out walking around,  I learned that tigers aren't like normal cats.  These guys like the water.

Grandpa and the girls.

And this one is for Rachel.  We even got Cordelia to pet a snake!

And lastly, at the gorillas, there is this scale that you can weigh yourself and see how you compare to the various primates.  I'm not sure what the faces were for, but I couldn't resist!

April 5, 2014

The last week in March, these two kids came to visit for Spring Break.  Their parents came with them, and we had almost an entire week with them.

The first night here (Tuesday), Wyatt and Rosie were downstairs playing.  The next thing we knew was that Wyatt had lost one of his front teeth (already loose).  He was crying and said that Rosie did it!  When all was said and done, we still didn't know how Rosie had knocked his tooth out, but out it was!

And by the end of the next day, the other front tooth was out also.  Poor Wyatt looked like Snagglepuss!.

Cordelia was her usual sunny self in the mornings

Grandpa got Rina out and took the kids for a ride.  We are leading kids on her right now because she is new to us, and we don't have a fenced in place to ride in (all my round pen panels are still over at the 80 from the dog trials last year).

On Saturday, since Ed and Rachel were in Denver, we took Cordelia and Wyatt to the zoo.  Probably not a good idea in hindsight (which I will explain later), but we had fun.  Even if it was cold when we got there!

This is Wyatt hanging over the fence to the lion enclosure.  It's all new, and this is above the enclosure.  You can see the lions from down below also.  This is one of the new exhibits from last year.  And don't worry, I didn't let him climb any higher!

Wyatt in the airplane by the rhinocerous exhibit.  He got in the pilot's seat and wasn't letting anyone else have a turn, he was so busy flying!

Here's a shot of Cordelia.  Looks like she was having fun!

Then, over by the wallabys, we went through a brand new exhibit.  It was a reptile exhibit, where there used to be birds.  I shot the next two pictures thru the cage.

 

This was one of the last things we did.  Wyatt gravitated to the four wheeler just like any little boy would.  It's a display, and it is chained in place so the kids can climb on.

Now, the retrospective:

I had noticed that I was out of breath climbing the stairs, so I dug out my oximeter to see if I could tell why.
I discovered that my O2 level was in the low 80's, but if I stopped, I recovered pretty quickly.  Except my pulse rate was elevated.  I finally said something to Clyde on Sunday, and on Monday I called the doctor with my symptoms.  He wasn't in, they said maybe I should go to urgent care.  So we trucked off to the Urgent Care place  (the only one in town that we will go to).  We got there about 11:30, and didn't leave until 6pm.

The doctor couldn't find anything wrong, except that a quick walk around the office caused my O2 lever to drop into the low 80's.  Not good.  She even called the pulmonologist to see if he had any ideas.  She sent me home on O2, placed an order for an echocardiogram, and told me to see my primary card doctor asap.
She pulled blood (about 7 vials total, all came back normal), did a chest xray and finally resorted to a cat scan.  Nada.

Next day, at my doctor's, he said it was time for the pulmonologist, and we made an appointment for Thursday.  All of the doctors said that I should stay off the treadmill, even with O2, until they knew what was going on.

So, we still don't know, the pulmonologist spent an hour with us, sent us home with a bunch of information, and is waiting for the heart ultrasound before progressing to more tests, and a sleep study to see how I was breathing.  So we're not done with this one yet....

March 28, 2014 Throwback Thursday

A few weeks ago some of my facebook friends were commenting on how short their moms used to cut their bangs.  I can really remember those days.  On the good days, I looked like this:

On the bad days, they stuck straight up on the side that I slept on, and no amount of water or combing would make them lay down.

Enjoy!

February 16, 2014 Oops, it's not January

So, I'm a month late on the last post....and I don't know how to edit it to make it correct.

The party was February 8th.

February 16, 2014 Belated birthday pictures

The birthday party was last week.

The guest of honor was little Luna, who is now four years old.  But she still gets cake and especially frosting all over her face.

I couldn't resist this picture of her older brother Demetrick.  He will be six in a couple of days.  He's just at that age where teeth are optional,

And, of course, we are now done with our second doll bed, customized for Luna.  What you can't see is that I put glitter on the paint to make it more like sky.  And the pink striped material and the edge of the quilt that your can't see have sparkles in them.

And Molly has decided that she wants her doll bed to be light blue.  So, I now know that we have two more to make this year.  Stay tuned.....