Toads and Trips

We don't have to go on vacation for the children to have fun. All it has to do is rain. Then the boys will run outside and hunt around for all the little merry jumping creatures that populate our window wells after a rain. They find toads, frogs, salamanders and who knows what all. Here is their most recent catch in the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket.

Friday, despite Jonathan having just been the last to succomb to the flu we all got last week, we packed up and headed to the mountains for a weekend getaway. We had to ditch our plans to go to Buena Vista, and instead just went near Lake George. In the picture below, we have stopped outside Woodland Park, to let the children bike to Manitou Lake on the bike path. Carrie's bike needed some repair first.

Then we camped about 5 miles out of Lake George. The camping area had just recently had a fire. But we found a spot near the edge of the burned area, by some pretty aspen and pines. If you looked down, you would see ugliness. If you looked up, you would see beauty. See a lesson in that? So we parked our trailer with the doors toward the beauty, and we looked up.

Until the boys discovered lots of empty bullet casings hiding on the ground all around. Then they spent most of their time looking down, with their eyes glued to the ground, seeing how many they could find. They literally found hundreds. We all joined in the search, since the boys were having so much fun. Some of them put their findings in sandwich bags. Not Danny. When I asked him if he wanted a baggie, he said, "I have pockets!" in no uncertain terms. His pockets sagged, clinked, and weighed him down, but the more the merrier! In the pictures above and below youi see Danny and Timmy with their "casing farms," as Jonathan called them.

The children getting ready for another bike ride down a mountain road after a picnic in an aspen glade.

Colorado Railroad Museum

On Saturday, we visited Colorado Railroad Museum, a virtual paradise for boys on a Saturday. And we have to say the girls were pretty interested, too.On Saturday, for just a few dollars more than the very reasonable family rate of $18, you can take unlimited rides behind the steam engine. So here our family is, ready for a ride, while the kind man who helps people board is taking our photo for us. This first ride was in an open car. The next ride we took was in a passenger car on velvet seats!

Here is the engine starting off, spouting steam and chugging smoke!

In the middle of the second round around the property, the engine stopped to take on water from the water house.

Below, Rosie is posing by a caboose.

The Building Project

Now that "Stevie Wonder" (corner) has laid blocks, Jon McVey starts plastering.

Jonathan up on the roof.

Jon plastering the windowsills.

Good action shot.

Beautiful morning in Black Forest

Getting the second load.Daddy manages the biggest logs. Timmy wants you to know he took this picture.

Danny helps Hannah carry a very little "log."

Mom is running out of energy, after helping get logs for two trailer loads. So she is kicking logs downhill instead of carrying them!

When we got home the first evening with our first load, the children rode on the load of wood on our dirt road the little way to our driveway.

Ordinary and extraordinary

Most days are pretty ordinary around here. It was good to be warm enough outside to hang laundry outdoors. Danny and Hannah let a puppy eat.

One of the less than ordinary days for Jonathan! At work, he stood up from working under a sink, and rammed his head into the sharp corner of a cupboard. Blood began streaming from under his hat. His electricians freaked out and wondered if they should call 911. Instead, Jonathan just had one of them take him to emergicare, where he got this interesting looking headdress. Here, he and I are looking at his hat.

Closer look. He got three stitches. We are thankful it wasn't worse.

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!