A few pictures of a long drive.

Posted on July 31, 2013 by cpeezers

We are in Ellensburg getting settled in. I am not crazy about unpacking boxes. We will get it all done though.

We had a fun drive. I love the West, and we saw some beautiful scenery. I didn’t take very many good pictures, but I got a few that I liked.

One of the highlights of the drive was the Wyoming Information Center. It is pretty new and was just across the border as we left Colorado.

It was really a nice small museum.

Davey enjoyed looking at and climbing around a sculpture that was outside. He’s “reading” about it in this picture.

David and Davey checked out the mammoth.

We played in a tipi.

Davey spent a little time in the clink.

There was a short trail outside on which we walked Buster. There was also a fenced in area where he could run free.

Wyoming has such pretty and varied terrain. We drove through a vast open area, and Davey and I pretended that we were back in time when the area was an inland sea. We had to be careful of the pterodactyls flying over us.

We spent the first night in Rock Springs WY. The second night we were in Mountain Home, Idaho, and I took this picture in the evening. It’s one of my favorites of the trip.

Davey and I stopped at a scenic overlook on our way down into Pendleton, OR. It was beautiful, but there was a lot of haze from nearby wildfires.

The day we drove into Pendleton, we had lunch in Baker City Oregon at the Oregon Trail restaurant. This is a really nice little town. After lunch, we stopped by the park, and Davey played for awhile.

Davey is happy to be in his new home. He immediately wanted to plan a “moving in” party. We walked to the Dollar Tree this morning, and he got decorations. I had great intentions of making a cake, but I ran out of time and energy and we picked one up at Fred Meyer. Davey had 4 friends over tonight, and he had so much fun playing with them. It’s awesome that he already has 4 friends (kids of David’s new art faculty colleagues). He didn’t want them to leave.

Davey was more about playing with his new friends then eating the cake, but he was a bit of an icing fiend as usual!

Isn’t that begonia beautiful? A housewarming gift. They grew it from a cutting of another plant. I hope I can keep it looking as nice as it does now!

So here we are!

The Long Countdown is almost over!

Posted on July 25, 2013 by cpeezers

Seems like we have been counting down to our departure all summer. It’s been nice to have some time to wrap things up and to prepare to go. It’s not like I can’t wait to get out of Colorado. I do like this state very much, but it’s time to head out!

David and some mover helper loader guys got the truck loaded today. It rains about 47 drops of rain a year here (that’s for my dad – who refers to small showers by the number of rain drops), but today of all days, we had a massive downpour. David had stuff stacked all around outside the storage unit in preparation for the moving guys. He said it POURED. Davey and I were driving up I-25 in it, so we can vouch for the storm. Davey said several times: “Mommy, lightning just hit our truck.” It certainly seemed liked it.

But they got it all done. Davey and I loaded the car with all the loose ends from the condo and got it cleaned up. Then Davey and I went to see our neighbors once more. David is going to miss their little girls, and David and I are going to miss their parents. (Buster is also going to miss their dog. They loved to play together.)

So tonight we are in a hotel in Broomfield. It’s nice and they welcome dogs. Buster had his first ride in an elevator. The first two times, I had to drag him in. After that, he just marched in, and he looked rather proud of himself for doing so. He adapts well.

Tomorrow we head to Wyoming!

I tried to take a picture of Davey sleeping. I think it’s a little grainy, but I didn’t use flash. Sweet tired boy.

5 Shots

Posted on July 24, 2013 by cpeezers

We’ve all been dreading this day for awhile. We knew that we needed to get Davey’s immunizations updated before he started kindergarten.

I told him that he needed his shots so he could go to kindergarten. He asked me if I’d go ahead and home school him (I’m always suggesting this to him, but he’s never been open to discussion until today).

We’ve been trying to prep him. He was pretty nervous though. He was talking “numbing cream” a lot. Poor kid. There was no numbing cream. I’m not sure where that idea came from, as I don’t think the cream could numb far enough down to where the needle pokes. He said that if numbing cream was not available then maybe he could take a nap during it. I told him that general anesthesia was probably not an option.

So first they did a check up on him. He’s 50 pounds and 45 inches tall. It’s the first time in a very long time that he has not been “a pound per inch”. He’s very ticklish so all the belly checking and listening made him giggle like crazy. We had a nice P.A. who giggled with him.

Then it came time for the shots. I always love to watch the doctors and P.A.s run for the hills when it comes shot time. I don’t blame them. It ain’t fun.

The nurse came in with 5 shots. FIVE! I had it in my head there were going to be two. I don’t know where that idea came from. Davey didn’t really take it in how many needles were laid out in front of him. He was still talking numbing cream. I confess we went for some “pretend” numbing cream. It was neosporin basically. It did calm him a little, but then we had to get the shots over with. David held him, the nurse pushed against his legs to hold him still, and I hugged his sweet head.

He wasn’t happy. Well 5 shots? That’s a lot to ask of any human. He cried and yelled abit, but he recovered quickly. We were all very happy to learn that he doesn’t have to have another shot until he is 11.

We told him that he could go anywhere he wanted for dinner. He chose Chuck E. Cheese. That’s what we get for getting him 5 shots.

He did recover quickly though and was soon smiling again.

The Countdown Continues

Posted on July 22, 2013 by cpeezers

The countdown to leaving Colorado continues. It’s becoming a lonnngggg countdown!

We enjoyed a peaceful day yesterday. We went to Barnes and Noble and got Davey the next Geronimo Stilton book in the Kingdom of Fantasy series. We are working into books that are not strictly picture books (although Davey still loves them too). Geronimo Stilton is proving to be a lot of fun because it is very interactive (some puzzles, games etc), and it also has illustrations. I highly recommend it. David and Davey settled in for a bit and read together at the bookstore.

I’ve also decided that I need a new hobby. Ok maybe not, but I’ve decided that I want to learn to sew. I kinda learned a little once upon a time about 20 years ago. My mother-in-law helped me make some summer dresses. It was fun. Probably more fun because she very much knew what she was doing and was a great guide. But thankfully there is also so much online help now (since she is in Oklahoma and I will be in Washington!). I want to try some craftsy classes to help me learn. I also bought some fabric (I almost said yarn out of habit) at Fancy Tiger and a pajama pant pattern. It’s supposed to be a good pattern for beginners.

First I need to get out my sewing machine (once I get to Ellensburg). I probably should have it cleaned. I think this is something that should be done periodically, and I think I have had it cleaned maybe once in the 20 years I have had it. It’s not like it’s been greatly used. I can thread it (or I used to be able to. May need google to help me find an old Pfaff manual) and have had the opportunity to sew some very very basic things in the past. Squares and such.

There are words that scare me a little with sewing (kind of like lace used to scare me in knitting). “Bias” and “on the bias”. Interfacing is another one. I’m open to advice! However, between craftsy and the kajillion sources available on the internet, I think I can do this.

That’s the plan. In the meantime I have some knitting to do.

A final Colorado day trip: RMNP!

Posted on July 20, 2013 by cpeezers

Today we decided to go on one last day trip. There are about a trillion places that we’ve still not been to in Colorado, and one of them is Rocky Mountain National Park. We’ve been to Estes Park several times, but we had not ventured beyond it into Rocky Mountain National Park.

So today we did. It’s beautiful. It’s a huge park! There are seemingly a lifetime worth of trails to hike. There were also lots and lots of people there (but not in a bad way. It was just surprising to see so many people!)

We wanted to find just a short hike for Davey and Buster. We found a great one, but we quickly learned: “No dogs allowed.” Dogs are not allowed on the trails in Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s understandable I guess. There are a lot of people. Dogs would add a lot of chaos to the mix. But poor Buster. We left him with fresh air, and we parked in the shade.

It is a very short walk to the Alluvial Fan. There is a slight climb, but not more than a little bit of a hill. It’s just that you feel it more at 8,000 feet.

There were people climbing and crawling all over the rocks along this waterfall.

I’m not sure what’s going on with the limp Davey pose. Silly kid.

There were lots of great photo opportunities here.

Davey had so much fun climbing on the rocks.

He is pretty fearless and would climb to the top of the biggest boulders. It looks like he is getting ready to tumble here. He didn’t fall though; he was just a kid in motion.

Davey’s not much for taking in the view, but even he had to take a second to enjoy the sights.

I love these pictures of him taking it all in for a moment.

David had fun climbing on the rocks too – and striking a pose!

It was beautiful here. I can’t recommend it enough.

After we were finished in RMNP, we drove back to Estes and had lunch. Then we took that poor dog of ours, who did not get to go on the trail with us, to the dog park. Estes Park has a great dog park. Buster hadn’t been able to run freely since we’d moved out of our house, and he went nuts. He was so happy, and he sprinted and sprinted.

It’s a dog park with a great view.

We went to Estes Park several times while we lived in Colorado, and we enjoyed it every time. I was so glad we could go back once more and do just a little exploring in RMNP.

The countdown to Colorado Departure

Posted on July 19, 2013 by cpeezers

Our last Friday evening in Colorado.

Gosh.

It was beautiful outside tonight. We took Davey and Buster over the playground.

Davey asked David to help him on the monkey bars. I like this picture.

Buster sat with David while I took some pictures. I call this “Man and his Best Friend”. You can see the love in David’s expression. (David does love Buster – well as much as he can love a dog who is not Koko Puff!)

Davey was telling me the other day about how sometimes he sees some of the siblings of kids in his summer class. He said that some of his friends have lots of brothers and sisters! So we talked a little about how we have a small family. But then Davey said “I have a brother!…A Really Hairy Brother”.

Here’s a clue:

I have to admit they interact like siblings – the love and the conflict.

We don’t have many plans for the weekend. It’s about time to pack up again.

Happy Trails

Posted on July 16, 2013 by cpeezers

We went on a little hike today. Might be the last chance we get to do that here in Colorado.

I discovered a new great website and corresponding app called Every Trail. It lists tons of trails all over the country. I wanted to find a trail close to our house so I set the search for trails within 10 miles of Erie.

We found a trail in Superior called the Dirty Bismarck Loop. I thought it was a cool name. We had to try it!

We didn’t come near to walking the whole thing. We maybe walked 3 miles. Davey did great, and it was fairly warm out. Buster loved it too. Most of the trail was through the open prairie. There was a warning sign at the beginning of the trail instructing us to beware of rattlesnakes. Davey was ready to nix the trail at that point, but we convinced him it was highly unlikely that we would see a snake. Thank goodness we did not. I have a bit of a snake phobia, but I’d rather walk on a trail where there was the threat of rattlesnakes than a trail up in the mountains where there was a threat of a mountain lion watching my every move!

We read a picture book the other day about a little pioneer boy traveling across the Great Plains with his family. Davey really got into this. So today, he pretended the entire time that we were pioneers making our way across the prairie. Davey, Ma, Pa and Buster.

He can squat like this for a long period of time. It amazes me.

It was a nice hike. David got a family pic of us. (Davey and Buster are gazing fondly at each other here.)

Then Tonight Davey helped me make some no bake cookies. They are called “No Bake Energy Bites”, and I came across the recipe on facebook. Here’s the recipe.

*~*~*No Bake Energy Bites*~*~*

1 cup (dry) oatmeal
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix ingredients together in a large bowl. Roll into bite size balls. Refrigerate to set.

They are really tasty. I added chia seeds to the batch I made tonight. Davey liked helping me combine ingredients, but he is not too interested in eating the cookies. David and I highly recommend them though!

Knitting Mishap(s): Accentuating the Positive

Posted on July 14, 2013 by cpeezers

I’ve been working on a little sweater which was going to be for little girl of a friend of my sister-in-law’s (too many prepositional phrases!). It’s been a real learning experience. The pattern is Little Ancolie, and it’s been a challenge from the beginning. I blogged earlier about some problems I had initially with the lace as well.

(I just want to add that this is a really nice pattern. The knitter was the problem. Not the pattern!)

So I’ve learned a lot from this sweater.

1. I’ve learned about yarn. Bamboo is very drapey. This yarn is a bamboo/wool blend. The sweater looks pretty, but I’m thinking it is not going to hold its shape very well.

However, I also worried that it was not going to block out very smoothly, and it did actually block out really nicely.

2. I’ve learned about the possible perils of using double pointed needles in the round versus circular flat knitting. Most of the sweater was knit flat. The sleeves were to be done in the round on dpns. Well, I chose what I thought were the same size needles, but they were a different brand. They were also metal, and I had knit the flat portion with bamboo needles. The difference between the sleeves and body is just a little bit noticeable.

Yes. Just a little.

I ended up knitting short sleeves and I actually knit them flat and then seamed them up.

3. I put a picot edge at the bottom. It was rolling up like crazy. I did not think that blocking would fix this, but it actually did.

So at some point in the knitting of the sweater, I thought that all of these things were going to result in the ruination of my project. But it all worked out.

4. When the pattern says “carefully” pick up stitches for the edging, and it adds that you should make sure you pick up the same number on each side, you need to take heed. I thought I had picked up relatively the same number of stitches on each side. I did not.

As can be seen in the above photo, one side is quite a bit shorter than the other. I declared this to be the ruination of the sweater, and I immediately began knitting another one. It’s going much more smoothly so far. I have not experienced a single bump along the way *knock on wood*.

As a possible salvage, I am going to send this sweater to my sweet niece Lila. With the drape of the bamboo and the constant motion of a wee one, she just might be able to wear it without this being too noticeable. She is also adorable, so as someone else mentioned to me – no one will be looking at the sweater anyway!

I have learned more from this project than almost any knitting project, so I really do consider this a success!

Denver Art Museum

Posted on July 12, 2013 by cpeezers

Yesterday Davey and I went to the Denver Art Museum (David joined us after we’d been there a couple of hours).

I can’t believe that we waited until 2 weeks before we are leaving Denver to take him. It is such a great museum. We went to see the special Nick Cave exhibit first. This was really really neat. He incorporates found objects, crochet, knitting, among other things to create his work. It’s hard to explain all of his work, but I found a nice article on him here.

He makes these “soundsuits” so Davey and I watched a performance film for a few minutes. At the same time though, they were projecting these large granny square images onto the floor. I couldn’t take a picture, but that was Davey’s favorite part. He played in the square and loved seeing the image projected on him. Very fun.

We didn’t even go through all of the museum, because there is so much fun interactive stuff for Davey to do. There are also “studios” where adults and kids can make things.

We had fun stamping images of paintings and coloring them to make postcards.

He actually enjoyed this for quite awhile. The nice plus was that I really did too.

After the Nick Cave exhibit, there was this wall of felt and tons of felt stuff to arrange and play with on the wall.

Davey enjoyed this.

There was another studio near one of the exhibits of American Indian beadwork. We practiced doing our own “beadwork”.

We didn’t spend that much time looking at art. If you like to move through artwork quickly then Davey is the perfect companion. I tried to slow him down by asking him questions about what he liked or found interesting about some of the art. This worked for short periods of time.

Before he sat down on this large seat he asked “Mama! Is this art?” Sometimes it can be hard to tell and he didn’t want to sit on the “art”! Davey would have preferred me not take a picture as you can see here. I can’t snap them quite as quickly and surreptitiously as I can with my good camera, so he gets annoyed with me.

This is another not so good picture, but Davey rarely slows down to take a little break. I had to get a picture of that.

After his break, he had a great time playing with several other little boys at one of the play areas. There were these giant soft cloth blocks, and they enjoyed building and tearing these down!

David really enjoyed the Herbert Bayer exhibit and we all liked the Rothko exhibit as well (it’s really interesting because it shows his early work and the evolution to his later work). I’d like to go once more since we didn’t make it through all of the museum. Not sure it will happen. If not, then I will make sure we go to the Seattle Art Museum!

Betwixt and Between

Posted on July 10, 2013 by cpeezers

It’s Wednesday morning. I just dropped Davey off at his morning summer camp. I’m hanging out at Einstein’s. Before I came here for a bagel, I had to go next door for a Starbucks Iced Peach Green Tea. I’ve been drinking lots of green tea lately, and this is a nice “fancy” green tea treat. I highly recommend it.

A friend was asking me about our pending move the other day. I told her that we are in our condo for a few weeks before we go (actually we’ve been in the condo a week already!), and I told her that I feel kinda in limbo. She said we are “betwixt and between”. Perfect way to put it. I’m still here and sad to leave, but at the same time ready to go and excited about our new adventure.

I think Davey feels kinda the same. Sometimes when he is tired and right before he falls asleep, he will ask me “is it too late to turn back”? Mostly though he is really excited and is ready to move into the “blue house” we will be renting. (It is blue! and built in I think 1886.) David was born out of his time. He should have been an early pioneer traveling across the Great Plains all the way to the west coast. Or a Spanish explorer. He is ready!

Here’s Davey doing a little exploring of his own at the creek in Boulder.

Cpeezers

Family, School and Yarn