November 20, 2015 Christmas Cactus

My Christmas cactus is blooming, and it's not Christmas yet.

But look how pretty it is.

After all that's going on in the world, and the blizzard this week, I need the prettiness to show up.

August 28, 2015 Another zoo day

Today, we went to the zoo again. But this time we had a purpose.

I stayed down while Clyde, Molly and Connell took the sky ride up to the top.  I wanted to get a good picture looking up at the mountain goats.  This is about the best one, it looks like I'm out in the mountains and not at the zoo....natural is what I was looking for.

Molly and Connell on the the statues at the base of the mountain goats.  This zoo has these statues all over the place (of different animals of course) and they are great for taking pictures with.

And here is the purpose for our visit today.  They finally put the baby lions on display on Tuesday, and this was the first time we could get there to see them.  There are two males and one female, and they are so cute!

We started here, but they weren't out yet, so we did the sky ride, looked at the giraffes, got a snack, and came back to the lions.  And they were out!  And playing!  But because of the shade on the exhibit the playful pictures are blurred because it was dark and they were moving.

Mama was up on a ledge, so no pictures of her.  Just these three "little" kittens.  They are about two months old.

Connell on the mountain goat statue. 

Molly on the climbing wall at the top of the skyride. 

The Big Backyard exhibit from the skyride on the way down.  We usually hit this exhibit everytime, but today it was lions, giraffes, lions, penguins, hippos, naked mole rats  (and the orangutans had a 10 month old baby in their exhibit), back to the skyride, and then back to the lions, where the babies were all sleeping off their playtime from earlier.

After a stop at the gift shop, we were done in and left!

August,2015 Some grandkid time

Not many pics from this past summer, but here are my favorites:

Molly and Gabe at the zoo  (one of several trips)

Gabe, Connell, Willow and Molly at Great-grandma's:

Willow and Molly:

Connell in his sombrero with his huge lunch!  (which he didn't finish)

Gabriel with his huge sombrero:

Pertty awesome summer, but they are all back in school now.

May 11, 2015 How my mother's day went

Did you see all that crazy weather we had last week?  It was like sun, rain, fog, hail, more rain, more hail, floods, tornado.....you name it we saw it.  Then Saturday night, the snow started  and kept on coming.

Sunday morning dawned overcast and foggy.  There was a new eight inch coat of very heavy wet snow on the ground  A really good day to stay inside in my pajamas.  But that wasn't in the forecast.

Clyde starts out with "Are you going to get coffee this morning?"

"No, not in this mess."

"Well, I need coffee beans and tea, so I'm going," replied Clyde.

Oh, okay, I'll ride along, so I got dressed and Clyde started the truck and sort of cleaned off the snow.

Locked all the doors, shut the garage door and left.  The road out of here was horribly potholed, slippery, and snow covered.  Which was good because you couldn't see the potholes.  I had no idea how Clyde could see the road, with that big pile of snow on the hood on his side.  So I'm coaching him and telling him that he's too close to the side of the road, and he's going to slide off.

"I'm in the MIDDLE of the road, I can't slide off!"  stated Clyde.  Well, he didn't, and there was a snowplow clearing the paved road (pot holeless I might add).

Made it to the coffee store, got coffee and sat in there for a while.  Then we left for home.  We'd been gone about an hour.  Made it back through the pot hole filled three miles of dirt road, pulled into the drive and pushed the button to open the garage door.  Nothing.  Pushed it again.  Again nothing.

Me:  "It's not working."
Clyde:  "You have to push the button."
Me:  "I AM!"
Clyde pushes the button on the opener.  Nothing.
Me:  "The power must me off."
Clyde:  "Did you lock all the doors?"
Me:  "Yes."
Clyde: "Do you have a key to the front door?"
Me:  "Yes."
Clyde:  Do you have it so we can get in?"
Me  (digging through my bag):  "I think so."
Clyde:   "Well, do you have it?"
Me:  "I'm looking!  Uh, no, it's not here."
Clyde gets back in the truck and we both sit there looking at the closed garage door.  Finally Clyde comes up with an idea--he is going to break one of the garage windows so we can get in.
Me:  "NO!"  I mean,, then we would have a window to fix.

We sit there for a couple more minutes, then Clyde thinks we can just start the generator.  He gets out and goes to see if it will start.  Next thing I know, he is back, looking at the garage door.  Then he gets back into the truck.

Clyde:  "Are there any jumper cables in the truck?"
Me:  "No, why?"
Clyde:  "I need them to start the generator."

We sit there for a couple more minutes.  Then Clyde asks, "Now what?"
"We can go get breakfast, and then go get some jumper cables", I replied.

So off we went.  We passed some electric company trucks (they were out in force because of all the power failures).  No one there, and no phone number on the truck.  Clyde gets out and asks the two guys in the driveway by the trucks, but they are not electric company employees.  The told him, the the electric guys just parked the big truck and trailer with some kind of digger or something, unhooked the other trailer from the other truck and left.

So, back on our way over the snow covered. pot hole filled road. 

Got breakfast at a coffee shop, went to Wal Mart and got new jumper cables, called the electric company and were told that it was going to be at least 3:55 before it was fixed.  It was now 1:30.  Went home, over the pot holes.  The electric trucks were still parked there, no employees.  Got home, Clyde pulled the generator out by the truck so we could start it.  It wouldn't start.  Tried several times.

Then.........I noticed that the outside lights had come back on, opened the garage door and went inside.  This only took from 10am until 3pm.

Next stop, get more house keys made!

This was my mother's day.  Next year, I am staying in bed!

May 9, 2015 Mother's Day eve in Colorado

Driving home today at 4:15 pm.......

These next are in the yard at home.

Flood watch and warning, winter storm advisory, tornado watches and warnings........you gotta love Colorado weather!

And it started raining last Saturday afternoon, and we've had all these, including heavy rain, heavy hail, the snowplows have been out two days in a row removing hail from the roads, and now they will be out removing snow!

Grand Junction day 5-6

Lots of pictures coming up.


We finished the pajama pants that Cordelia made on her new sewing maching.

These are the adult children  (L-R) Ed, Rachel, Bekka, Brent.  I don't get too many chances to get the adults to sit still for pictures.

And here are the 4 grandkids (L-R)  Wyatt, Cordelia, Molly, Connell.  Clyde was amazed when he saw this picture because although Cordelia is 17 months older than Molly, and Connell is 23 months younger than Molly, the difference in height was astonishing. 

This is Mt. Garfield.  The kids and I walked (hiked) down to the gazebo, and they took out their sketch books to draw.

Cordelia drew the mountain.  I'm not sure you can see this very well, but she did an excellent job.

Ed fixed the swing in the backyard.  Both kids (Cordelia and Wyatt) were thrilled!  Wyatt even proclaimed that Ed "was a cool dad!"

And then the fun began.  To work the swing you have to have some muscle to get started.  That job fell to the grownups.

And the kids enjoyed the swinging.

No grownups were exempt from swinging kids.  Even Bekka had to get out there and throw the kids around.

Grand Junction day 4, March 24, 2015

The fourth day in Grand Junction. We went to Main Street downtown. Grand Junction, like Colorado Springs, and many other places, has sculpture displayed on the streets. These are usually large, some can be climbed on like the apes below. Some look like rock formations that the kids can climb on also.

 Here are two monkeys on the apes.

Met up with Bekka and Brent and their two.  Cousins are fun to have around.

And so that you know that we do have flowers in Colorado as early as March, here are some daffodils that were already blooming in Grand Junction.  Course, their growing season is longer, they are about 3000' lower than here.

Grand Junction day 2 March 22, 2015

Day 2 in Grand Junction, and we went for a walk. We walked every day down by the river. The river side trail along the Colorado is long, paved and the perfect place for biking, running, and just plain walking. And there are always people on the path. This is the at the lake/gazebo just east of where we entered the trail every day. And by just east, I mean 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile east. The kids were trying to skip rocks. Cordelia had a lot of distance, but still it sunk.

Wyatt here is just thinking about throwing a rock.  There are ducks and geese at this lake.  Actually there were geese all over the place.

Now Wyatt is going to throw a rock.   Can you see how he is throwing it.  Can you see what is going to happen?

Yup.  He got wet!  Just knew that was going to happen.

Which made it easier for him to continue getting wet.  Just plop those feet into the water.  That's all boy there!

Then, just to make sure, let's wade right in for the next throw and see how much we can splash ourselves.

And this is the tree at the end of the street on the way to the trail.  It is a big old cottonwood, and I think it is just the thing right out of a scary fairy tale in the evil, magic woods.  Have to paint a picture of this and see how brooding evil I can make it.

Grand Junction, the first day--Saturday, March 21, 2015

Last Saturday, I drove to Grand Junction to spend time with my son, his wife, and his two kids. A long drive, but totally worth it.

This is the oldest granddaughter.  She just turned 11, and I took her gift to her-- a sewing machine, a sewing box, patterns and material.  She was pleased.

She has also grown a lot!  This kid is within one or two inches of being as tall as I am.  (Totally not saying much since I am 5'2", but then again I am not 11.)

This is her 5 (soon to be 6) year old brother.  He is a handful!  I asked him if his middle name was Trouble.

His response.  "TROUBLE is NOT my middle name!"

That's his opinion, but I'm sure his mom and dad might have a different one.

After driving all day, I took the kids for a walk.  They live near the Colorado River Park, so we walked down there.

All in all, from Saturday thru Friday, I walked a total of 65,000 + steps!  That's pretty much an average of 5 miles a day for me!

More coming later.

However, I did not lose any weight.  In fact, I gained two pounds, and I blame it all on Rachel.  She's a good cook.

January 19, 2015 Another Sunbonnet Sue

Well, it's been a while....Don't know where the last 4 months went, but apparently they went.

I've been working on another baby quilt for another baby girl.  In this one, the non-white material has sparkles in it, but it didn't show up in the pictures.

Very sparkly, which I know little girls love.

The next picture, I took to try to get the sparkles to show up, but they didn't.  You can see the quilting detail that I did on all the blocks, though.

However, since this is the second one of these in two years, anyone else having babies had better have a boy!