Grandma’s Magical Garden

We’ve spent a lot of time in my grandmother’s garden yard. Her backyard has always seemed magical to me, but this year it just seems to be more so. I really believe Grandma has a magic garden. During the day the humming bird fly around, birds of all shapes and colors can be seen grabbing a bit of seed here or there or perhaps taking a bath. There beautiful roses and other kinds of flowers, veggies and trees. There are stone statures everywhere. You might meet a fairy or a little deer. It’s beautiful. And an amazing place to take pictures:

  

But at night is when the real magic happens. Slowly little twinkle lights come on, and a little breeze blows through the trees making them rustle. Then the breeze tinkles the wind chimes and teases them into small drops of sound. That’s when the fairies come out. And you have to be careful because fairies (and bees) bite!

Crazy Colorado Trip Part 3, Dino Depo and Horse Adventures

Ok, so we’ve been here for quite a while. It’s been fun, hard, intersting, and tiring. The lack of sleep is hard, and of course sharing a room with 3 little kids makes sleep optional for me. Anyhow, I’ve taken the kids on a couple of fun adventures. I’d like to start with the first week, so that things kind of make since. And besides that’s how I have my pictures organized.

So, we arrived at the ranch Friday night. Mom and I spent Saturday recovering from the trip. Riley loved seeing the horses. Emma had fun in the yard. Beka loved not being in her car seat. We spent a couple of days just hanging out. I went with Grandma to the store for groceries and stuff like that. Riley got a couple of riding lessons.

Anyway, on June 30th I took the kids out for an adventure. We drove down to Canon City to visit the Dino Depo.  It  fun. It’s a really small museum. We you come in you can touch a brontosaurs bone. The coolest thing about this place it that they had real bones, not replicas. They have the most complete stegosauruses fossil ever found. Apparently there is a fossil rich area not far from Canon City. However, if you were to ask the kids, the best part was upstairs. There they had tons of interactive things for kids to play with and do.  The puzzles were a big hit. We spent about over an hour there, playing with all the toys.

We found this little guy as we were leaving. Riley was so excited, he asked me to take a picture of the little “dinosaur”:

 

I had planned on taking everyone to the park afterwards, but Beka fell asleep as we were  leaving the building. Emma didn’t make it out of town. So, all in all it was a good trip.

When we got home, I finally got to see Riley ride. I thought he did a really good job.

 

 

 

 

Now, I’d left Emma up at the house. She was playing in the yard. I told her I would be back, that I was just going to take some pictures of Riley. I was down at the arena taking pictures when I heard screaming. Mom looked over by the barn… guess who had walked down, without shoes. That’s right, Emma… no shoes and and standing in stickers. She was about one step from a bunch of cactus. ugh! Mom walked over to her and carried her down. We put her on the horse behind Riley and walked her up to the house again… What a crazy girl!

just a quick plug

I’ve finally almost caught up with my 360 picture project blog…. I was about 15 days behind. Anyway, they are pictures from the trip. So if you are interested you should check it out:

My Picture Book

Crazy Colorado Trip, Part 2

OK, I know I said I’d do this the next day… but sleep was way more important… and I wasn’t getting any. But that’s another story. For now I’d like to tell about the harrowing trip Mom and I had getting to my grandparents place.

We left Hotchkiss and drove up Black Canyon. It’s beautiful. 

It’s also twisty and scary. The drop off is crazy deep… I was very glad my mom was driving!

Anyway, trouble started when we stopped for lunch. Beka was ok, but not really happy when I put her back in her car seat. Riley was happy for a bathroom (even if it had black toilets) and snarfed down his lunch. Emma… well she refused to use the black toilet (she said it was scary) and didn’t touch her lunch… I ended up eating her corndog, which turned out to be a bad choice. Anyway, I’d lost Beka’s sippy cup, again. So we stopped at the grocery store and I ran in to find a new one. Emma was starting to be difficult when I ran in, but I had no idea the storm that was about to explode while I was shopping.

It turned into a full blown temper tantrum. Kicking, screaming, frothing at the month temper tantrum. It woke Beka up, Riley tried to hide under the sun visor, and poor Series (mom’s dog) hide his head in Mom’s lap. When I returned, I dumped Emma out of the car and sat her down at a table. It took almost 20 minutes and lots of discipline to get her calmed down.

At last we were on the road again… Sadly, Beka had decided enough was enough and began to cry/scream. She did this for the next 5 hours… ugh!  Again the road was twisty and rough, and again I was glad that Mom was at the helm. My head was pounding by this point.

We finally stopped in Canyon City, which is about 40 minutes from the ranch. We let the kids play at the park and bought some dinner at KFC. Emma finally ate! She was much better after that (she had been kind of whinny, but no signs of another storm)

Back on the road, Beka was once again screaming. I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to get anywhere than I was to the ranch. It was a long night, no one really wanted to sleep. But some how we did. We’ve had some cool adventures out here so far, which I’ll try to write about before I forget. Beka’s still HATES the car seat, and Emma has had one other meltdown. But that’s for another time.

Crazy Colorado Trip, part 1!

So, I’ve been really bad about keeping up with what we’ve been doing. It’s hard without a computer of my own… plus, I’m a little overwhelmed by the number of pictures to go through and not having my favorite programs has been tough. And, I have to admit, I haven’t had the best attitude about having to travel with three little ones. But, if one must be banished from home and all things familiar, exile couldn’t be in a pretty place.

That being said here is a brief run down of the first week of our trip. We drove the first night up to a place called Delta, Colorado. It took us FOREVER. Bah. We left Vegas late, and got in around midnight. Riley was so wound up! It was really bad. Beka went right to sleep and so did Emma… but crazy Riley. My wonderful mother had him sleep in her bed (I had the baby).  And he finally slept. Things wouldn’t have been quite so aggravating, but Riley was up at 7:30… what’s the deal?  Anyway, we had breakfast (Riley threw up) and went to church with my sister’s family.

I was glad we made the push to get there. I feel we were blessed… and they had AC. I have to admit, that has been one of the things I’ve really struggled with. No AC in the houses. I know I’m a wimp… But when it’s 90 outside I need AC. After church I took the kids to the park by Ben and Demya’s house. They really need to play:                  

We spent almost 5 days with them. They live tiny little town about an hour from Grand Junction called Hotchkiss. Just to give you a picture of the craziness that went on, just imagine 4 adults and 4 kids in a two bedroom duplex… it was tight. Mom and I slept on a futon couch with Riley on an airbed on the floor, Emma in Rollie’s room on the floor on an airbed and Beka in a playpen in Ben and Mya’s room… But we made it work.

We spent a ton of time outside. The second day we went to this amazing park. I had a blast snapping pictures of everyone. (just a little warning: I haven’t used Photoshop on most of this pictures… they are pretty much straight from my camera)

                                    

We also tried fishing:

 

Lots of loving too:

One of the other adventures I had was using the laundry mat for the first time:

Emma thought it was great fun! Demya and I left Riley with Grandma and Ben. He had fun and so did we.

I just love Rollie’s face in this one… a real smile.

The kids got to run through the sprinklers to get cool:

    

This the three of them getting warm. It’s really cute, Riley and Emma have dragon towels and Rollie has a Viking one. They are all enjoying the sun in their special chairs.

We enjoyed eating roasted marshmallows and yummy BBQ. Thanks Ben and Demya for letting us crash at your place! See you guys soon!

Tomorrow I’ll write about the trip from Hotchkiss to Colorado Springs… it was a quite an adventure. I’ll try to catch up with what we’ve been doing while we’ve been here.

Joan’s Quilt

Allen’s mom had a birthday last week. She’s very sick. Joan was diagnose with cancer last year. They gave her 6 months. That was  a year and a half ago. She seemed fine, but a few weeks ago things went down hill quickly.

The night before her birthday, I asked Allen if he wanted me to get her anything for her birthday. He replied: “What do you get for someone for their last birthday?” and said nothing more on the matter.  So, what do you give someone when this will be their last birthday on Earth? I was unsure, and I wanted to be tender of Allen and his family’s feelings. I wanted it to be something special, that would have meaning for everyone.

Inspiration struck the next morning: a hand quilt. One block for each grandbaby. A blanket to wrap her in the love of her posterity.  I got on the phone to my sister-in-laws. Everyone was on board… my only concern was if I could pull this off. I have never made a quilt, not a real one. I’ve made a few baby blankets. But this was bigger, and I really didn’t want to screw it up.  We weren’t able to get it together for her birthday. But I got it done in a matter of days. Allen and I took it over to her on Saturday.

I think it turned pretty. The hands go in birth order:

Row 1: Ryan, Laura, Jennie,

Row 2: Hannah, Riley, Emmaline,

Row 3: Faith, Brinley, and Rebeka.

I know she loved it, even though she wasn’t really able to tell us. Richard is planning on using it to cover her legs when she sits in the living room.

This is kind of rambling but I wanted to post a few of the pictures for her birthday. I didn’t take too many, the flash was causing her to feel very confuse. But I’m grateful for the few I did take.

Last night, I went looking for a picture of  just Joan that I could have printed for my kids. I want them to know what she looked like. And to feel like she’s always looking over them. I couldn’t find one of her alone (weird huh? 35,000 pictures…) So I made one:

I took the picture from a family picture I took last year. This particular picture came from one were she looked great and everyone else was not as good. She told me she really liked the way she looked. I then made the background and placed her in it. I was pleased with the result.

Riley knows something is up. He said today that going over there on Saturday was a little scary. I asked how it was scary. He said: “Grandma isn’t the same… she isn’t Grandma anymore.” and he gave a little whimper. I am praying that when the time comes, my testimony will be strong enough and my understanding clear enough that I can explain what’s happening  to him. He has so many questions, and he’s really worried about his grandma. I’ve told him “Riley, Grandma is sick. She isn’t going to get better. But she will always love you.”

Anyone have any advice for me? He’s a really sensitive kid, and I’m not sure when or what we tell him. Do I wait until she’s passed or should he be told sooner? I don’t know. He was really effected by going to Allen’s Aunt Pat’s funeral. He said for days that he missed Aunt Pat and wished he’d gotten to know her… This is a hard one.

Mom and Dad

Dad was in town this weekend. He's working in California now, and gets to come home every couple of weeks. The kids miss him tons, and so does my mom of course! So, Yesterday I begged to take a couple of pictures of them. I think my kids are picture junkies... as soon as they saw I was taking pictures they wanted in on the shot. These are some of my favs:

Wedding Number 3

So, I finally finished the last wedding. I really liked how some of the pictures turned out. It was challenging, the light was so bright and harsh. But I am pleased with the results: