Waiting for Snow

Tuesday morning and we are waiting for snow.   By the end of the winter, we may have grown thoroughly tired of snow and cold, but at this time, early in the season, we can not wait!

Davey has been sitting outside, curled up in a blanket, just waiting and waiting.

Ok that’s not true.  I took this a couple of days ago.  What I would like to point out though is the balcony railing behind Davey.  See where it is all brown without a trace of paint?  That’s the handiwork of Koko the chow.  We used to put her and Timber out there to get a little air occasionally.  This infuriated Koko.  She’d put her head between the railings and walk back and forth.  Her collar and tag scraped the paint off.  She also chewed absolutely flat about a 12 inch section of gutter which hangs beside the balcony.

Koko won that battle, and we don’t try to get them to spend any time outside anymore.  She won the battle, and we’ve likely lost our deposit.  She also chewed up and ruined the screen door.  You’d think we left her out there on days on end wouldn’t you.  Nope, she works quickly.  There is no more stubborn dog on the planet than Koko.  Age has not mellowed her at all.  When she was a puppy, she chewed our sapling trees in half just for spite.  (Likely again because she was outside.)  Now that she is approaching 15, she’s maintained her queen of the world attitude.

Anyway,  we are waiting for snow.  Weather channel.com says just showers today and maybe some snow showers late tonight.  National Weather Service online says that we might get a 1/2 inch today and 1 inch tonight.  We are going with the National Weather Service’s prediction today.

In preparation we are off to get snow pants and boots for Davey today so that he can play in all that snow that we are probably not going to get today!

Happy Tuesday!

p.s.  We still love and treasure Koko.  I secretly admire her stubborn spirit and queen of the world attitude.

Estes Park

Yesterday we drove up to Estes Park.  We wanted to explore a little on the way, so we drove up through Longmont, over to Lyons and then up to Estes Park.  We stopped and had lunch at Pizza Hut in Longmont.  Davey was very happy to go into a real Pizza Hut.  He’d missed it.

Estes Park was a fun town to “stroll”.  It was very crowded though.  We hadn’t encountered a town with so many tourists before.  I have heard people rave about Estes Park all of my life, and I finally can understand why.  It is beautiful!

We walked and window shopped.  One of our favorite things to do.  Dog watching is another favorite.  Davey will see a dog and say, “Oh my goodness.  Look at that precious pup!”  We saw the biggest dog on the planet in Estes Park.  We think he was a Russian Wolfhound.  Davey could have ridden him all the way back home.

There was a yarn shop!  I love googlemaps on my little phone.  Finding a yarn shop involves only a very quick search and then a map to lead me to the front door.

Great shop!  I bought yarn for 2 pairs of upcoming Joy of Sox socks.  Lime green and a pretty blue.  Oh I love that lime green!

We had an unfortunate incident in the yarn shop.  Davey was beside me and was as usual pulling out skeins of yarn to “show me” just as fast as he could.  “Mommy, I JUST wanted to show you this one.”  (Shop owners likely whimper when they see a 3 year old boy enter their shops.)  All of a sudden I hear a cry, and there’s Davey.  Except this time instead of having a skein of yarn in his hand to show me, there is a mousetrap hanging off his finger.  Poor thing.  Thank goodness it didn’t snap him too badly.  He told me later that “Mommy, it really didn’t hurt that much.”  I think it scared him and me more than anything.

Although it’s not a method I would have advocated to get him to stop touching all the yarn, it did slow him down abit.   He was also busy following Duncan the yarn shop dog around as well.

Have you had mountain cookies?  We learned our lesson in Breckenridge as to the sheer enormousness (nice word huh) of them, and so yesterday the three of us split one and still had plenty.

The other highlight were the elk.   They were all over the golf course.  Davey really enjoyed seeing them.

They were looking at this guy.

We definitely want to return to Estes Park.

 

 

Toe to Toe Socks: Done. Hurray.

I finished up my Toe to Toe socks today.  Ok, I do still have a few ends to weave in.  I will do that tonight.  I like the way these socks look, but they irritated the crud out of me.  I finally figured out why.  I do not like having 3 colors going.  It’s a constant battle of untangling no matter how hard I try to keep those guys apart.  They are like magnets – hopelessly attracted to each other.  I have realized that that’s the only thing that really bugs me in knitting.

But I do think they are pretty, and it was a fun colorwork pattern.

My assistant wore shoes today.  It’s getting chilly to be outside barefoot.

Then he got out the magnifying glass to really take a look.

My next socks are scaring me a little.  For the first time, I will be attempting a sock done with 2 circular needles (magic loop I think it is called?).  Yikes.

 

Colorado Tags

We get pretty excited about the small things around here.  Davey has been really looking forward to getting our new car tags.  “Mommy, they have mountains on them!”  So yesterday, we took on the purchase and changing of the tags.

Since we are back in an urban area, we first had to go have an emissions test done on the car.  We found the emissions place.  There was a line of cars.  I didn’t bother reading the big information board when we drove in, because I’d looked into the process online before we’d left.  As we were waiting though, I had a nagging feeling that they might not accept my credit card.  Sure enough as we approached the front of the line, there was the sign “Sorry no credit/debit cards”.  I wiggled ourselves out of the line and off we went in search of money.  (I’d neglected to put my checkbook in my purse, and I barely know what cash looks like anymore.  I am very debit card dependent.)

We were not in the greatest part of town.  I knew we’d be getting back in line so we went into the Dollar General for a snack.  I also hoped I could get some cash back there.  No such luck.  We did stock up on animal crackers though.  The person in Dollar General told me that there was an atm in the liquor store next door.  So Davey had his first trip into the liquor store.  It wasn’t the fact that I took him into a liquor store that bothered me much, it was more the gauntlet of cigarette smoke that we had to run through to get into the liquor store.

So we got our money, drove back and got in line.  It moved pretty quickly and soon we were standing in a booth waiting for them to finish the car.  I started talking to a couple in there.  I was curious as to how often I had to have the emissions testing done.  They told me every other year.  Then they asked me if I had any idea how much tags were in Colorado.  “You are in for a shock!” the man told me.  Then I think he took my slightly southern accent as a sign of naivete and maybe dumbness because he started to warn me how I probably was not going to get out of the tag office without having paid oh $500-700!  Even on my 7 year old car! I really had my doubts about that, but I made all the exclamations of “oh no!  You are kidding!”, and he was happy.

Next I learned that not only did we need the $25.00 emissions test, but since we were registering for the first time in Colorado, we had to have a $15.00 VIN Verification.  Seriously.  She walked around the car, wrote down VIN numbers, verified.  However, there was no computer database verification check involved that I know of.   Anyway, a first for me, but no biggie.

Next we were off to the tag office.  Another very long line.  Davey and I were getting hungry by then, but he hung in there great.  We played “find objects in Mommy’s purse that can entertain us.”  We talked to a man next to us who had moved from Washington D.C.  Finally, it was our turn.  Davey was thrilled to see our mountain tags, and I was thrilled that our tags, while higher than in our previous states of residence, were “only” $158.

Davey is ready now to install them onto the car with Daddy.  More cause for great excitement!

Happy Saturday!  We are off on a Saturday exploration.

 

Oma and Opa’s Tour

Yesterday, we all went on a little excursion.  We took Oma and Opa over to  Golden and to Red Rocks.  If you come visit us, this may become the standard tour.  We can work out alternate excursions as well or multiple day tours.  The standard tour began with lunch in Golden.  Really good place called Woody’s.  I don’t really have a great picture to demonstrate.

Part of the meal though always involves trying to keep Davey occupied until the food arrives.  Often David draws with him.

Then we walked through town to Clear Creek.  It was beautiful yesterday.  Just perfect for a walk.  The trail is so nice.

Such a pretty stream.

I kind of look like I was in pain here or something.  It was just the struggle of trying to hold that little wiggle worm!

Papa got comfortable and took a little rest.

Opa and Davey being silly!

We stopped for ice cream.  There’s a great place in downtown Golden.  Davey was very happy with his vanilla especially after he was offered sprinkles on top!

We went to Red Rocks.  I love to go there.  It’s just beautiful.  But here’s the only photo I took there.  I guess the dirt is red.  Davey certainly had fun playing in it.

So that’s the tour!  A great day with Oma and Opa.

300

I was looking at my blog stats last night and noticed that today’s post is number 300.  I don’t really know if that means anything at all.  Maybe when I get to 500 or even 1,000 a few years from now, but it’s a nice round number I guess.

In my family, we always liked watching the car odometer roll to a round number with lots of zeroes.  We’d peek our heads from the backseat to look over my dad’s shoulder and watch it go from 29,999 to 30,000, etc.  (ahhh, the days before seatbelts when we could move willy nilly around the car.) I still think watching the odometer (even though it’s now digital on my car) is great fun, and I do it to this day.  You know, there is no longer mile in the world then when you are waiting for that rollover to the big round number with lots of zeroes.

David thinks I am nuts.  The only time he has ever done that voluntarily was when the Mustang rolled over to 100,000.  If I remember right we were on our way to a concert back when we  were at OU.  I remember our friend Greg being with us.  We drove around a parking lot to watch it turn over.  Ok this happened many years ago; it’s possible that I don’t have all the details just right, but that’s how I remember it.  Otherwise though, he doesn’t spend much time looking at the odometer.

Whew, I majorly digressed there.  So 300 posts.  I started this blog a month or so before Davey was born in order to document his life.    Here’s how it all started:  Getting Ready.  I could go nowhere but up from that first short post.    My second post at least included a couple of pictures.  (Although I confess, I just had to upload them again.  I transferred from typepad to wordpress a while back and I had to bring the pictures over manually.  It’s a task that I have not quite finished.).  So here’s post number 2:   Tuesday

I have not always been real diligent about posting on my blog.  Here’s hoping I continue to love writing my blog as much as I love writing it now!

So on we go to 500!

 

Third Birthday

Yesterday we celebrated Davey’s birthday.  What a big day.  His Oma and Opa are here, and so they played all day long.  Luckily it was beautiful outside, so they were at the park for a long time.  They played in the sand.  They played on the playground.  Then we had our little party.  Then more playing!  I think Davey fell asleep in about 5 minutes last night and didn’t wake up until 7:30 this morning.  It was a great day in which I didn’t take the greatest of pictures, but birthdays need to be shared in photos, so here I go.

Daddy got Davey those blower favors.  What in the heck are they called.  Ok I googled it.  Blowers they are.

3 candles on a colorful cake.

Davey enjoyed us singing happy birthday to him – well – as much as any person can enjoy everyone looking at you and singing.  He sang with us for awhile as well.

And I know there were only 3 candles, but you should have seen him blow them out.  What a powerful set of lungs!  Ok really, he did blow them out instantly.  He was quite proud.

He enjoyed opening presents.  As the paper would come off, he’d be taking this big gasps of air, “WHAT?? WHAT?? WHAT?? WHAT IS THIS!  OH OH!  I ALWAYS WANTED THIS!  Or some variation of this, but he got so excited and sometimes squeals were involved.

The eating of the cake was all about the icing.  As far as Davey was concerned, I could have just bought a pretty blob of icing and stuck a candle in the middle.

So this morning Oma and Davey have been creating monsters with tinker toys and wiki stix.

Today it’s more playing and I think an excursion to Golden.

Some knitting and waiting

Davey is waiting for Oma and Opa to arrive.  He was waiting before we went to story hour and the grocery store this morning, and he began waiting after we returned.

It’s so nice out today that we’ve been out on the balcony.

“Mommy, will you sit out here on the balcony all afternoon and knit while we wait for Oma and Opa?”

“hmmm.. OK!”

So we were outside for awhile.  We had a juice and dried cranberry picnic too.  He loves our little apartment balcony.  He can play and play out there.

I am making the cutest little baby socks.  They are so fun and knit up so nice.  I am using a Tahki  Torino (I think) merino.  Very soft.

I was looking at my 3 hats this morning.  The latest one is supposed to be for David, but I love it too.  I like our little family of hats though.

We are looking forward to Davey’s birthday tomorrow.  3.  Wow!

 

Gone Fishin’

This morning while I was at school, Davey and David went fishing.  There’s a little lake less than a mile from here.  David was sure that if they used hot dogs  as bait that surely something would bite.  His reasoning was, “What fish could resist a hot dog?”

David packed a picnic lunch.  Here’s a picture.  Guess whose sandwich is whose?  Looks pretty good!  Sandwiches, chips, various cheeses (ok two kinds), crackers, nilla wafers – quite a spread for the fishermen.

Here you see that Davey is ready!  He told me later that this was his “fishin’ cap”.

It was a little cool and windy at the lake, but they gave the fishing a try.  Remember, what fish could resist the prospect of hot dogs?

Apparently, these fish could resist the prospect of hot dogs.  David and Davey got nary a nibble.  Davey determined that the ducks had eaten ALL of the fish.

So Daddy and Davey decided that it was time to eat lunch.

No fish, but I think they had a pretty good time.  Davey was still telling me about it this evening.

Halloween Eve Birthday

Davey was excited about David’s birthday.  I am pretty sure he was much more excited about Daddy’s birthday than Daddy was.  43!

He enjoyed opening presents with David.

We got David a small cake at a local Denver bakery.  Wow was it a good cake.  They had actual ingredients in the bakery.  Bins of flour and all that.  The cake had a bit of a rough time on the drive home.  Luckily it just slid a little off its base and there was a small bump to the top.

I tried to crop out the bumped corner of the cake:

Davey wanted to decorate the cake with strawberries.

Little King of the Icing proclaimed the cake to be delicious:

We had a fun morning celebration.

Yesterday afternoon we went on a brief trick or treating excursion.  Davey opted for his Spiderman costume this time.  He enjoyed it except he found the mask to be a real pain.

He finally figured out to just shove that mask to his forehead and now he was ready for a little trick or treating.

And then – a lollipop.

Spiderman in action!

By the end of this day of birthday and Halloween celebrating, Davey was worn out.  He’d gone to bed too late the night before, and he was pooped.  He was out before 8 though and had a great night’s sleep.  He’s ready to go one more time.  I think we are going to go to a local nice shopping area to do a last bit of trick or treating. It’s been 4 days of celebration.  And now – Wednesday is his birthday!

Happy Halloween!