Valentines Morning 2011

The children were determined that Valentines Day should be a holiday from school!

Here, their Daddy is getting ready to unload hay gotten down south last week. Daddy celebrated Valentines morning by making omelettes for everyone! Hannah and Danny must stand nearby and "help."
Daddy's three helpers making omelettes. This was the beginning of one of the most delightful Valentines days we have ever had.

Jonathan came home from work early, drew up plans for a work project, then packed in his and my suitcase that I had packed for a romantic, 26 hour get-away. My glasses got badly twisted by unknown hands before we left, but thankfully, Jonathan's strong fingers and pliers fixed them. Then we were on our way to Las Palmitas Mexican Restaurant where we were served an absolutely scrumptious meal. If we can manage to get the photos off Jonathan's cell phone, we will post them. But for now, we just have to say that the restaurant was cozy warm, almost vacant (perhaps due to not having liquor available--all the better for us), and had a wall full of windows where we could watch evening glow over Pikes Peak. Jonathan ordered a Mexican stew chock full of chicken, beef, mushrooms, crab legs (he ate those!), peppers, and the most savory broth I have ever tasted. It was served in a three-legged stone bowl that kept the stew bubbling even after sitting on our table. We could have ordered octopus, but refrained.

We were in an especially happy frame of mind because Jonathan had just called his youngest sister Barbara to find out if anything special had happened to her today. A young man named Chad Clemmons from Idaho who has been wishing for her to say yes to his marriage proposals had been here for the weekend, to finally get to meet her family after over a year of friendship. Jonathan had a feeling something happened today, perhaps because he remembered a certain Valentines Day seventeen years ago when he put his first phone call through to the young lady in Ukraine that he hoped would be his sweetheart. Sure enough, something DID happen! I heard Jonathan tell her, "Congratulations!" on the phone, and act really happy. And that is all I will say about it for now. If you want to know what happened, you will have to call Barbara.

Middle of the Work Day at Garden of the Gods

You will hear more about our work day in the next post. Here we are taking a lunch break, with leftovers from the Mexican meal we had last night, after stopping at Jonathan's folks to warm up the food! Jonathan kept walking at Garden of the Gods till we found a path down to this dried up gully, where we could sit on rocks and eat a picnic.

This is the path we climbed down and up to our picnic spot.

Few people see this side of Jonathan very often, (below) but let me tell you, it is just a peek into his other side that I get to see. I am not going to take all the credit for this my favorite photo of the whole batch taken the last couple days. Just up to the right of our heads is a rock formation called "Kissing Camels" in Garden of the Gods. Don't ask me whose idea it was for this picture, because I don't remember. The camera took the picture all by itself. Now I will let you chew on how it did that.

Here below is a closeup of "Kissing Camels."
No, sorry, you don't get a closeup of the kissing couple.

I wanted another picture of the beautiful scenery around us, so here it is, while Jonathan is digging around in the back of his truck, with the usual hopelessness, for a drink of Sobe. (He quit Mt. Dew a long time ago.) And no, he couldn't find the Sobe, even though there were several bottles. It was his messy truck's fault.

Goodbye, Garden of the Gods, and back to work, Jonathan and Anna!