Surprise Stop!

On Friday, in the midst of our basement cleaning, I got message from my brother-in-law.


I didn't realize I had a message until a few hours after he left it, but it said something to the effect of "We camped in Rocky Mountain National park last night and got rained on and since we are so close we were thinking of dropping by for a visit."


I called and said that hopefully I wasn't responding too late, and that I hoped they know they are always welcome and still planning to come. Ed said that they were still planning on it....YAY!!!!


They called when they made it to town and got to our house a little after 4. We came inside so they could relax a little and then my niece asked to go to the park. We usually take the kids to a big park in town, but it is a few miles away and requires driving. I suggested a small park a couple blocks away so they wouldn't have to get back in the car :)


It was a nice little walk to the park and ended up being a great spot! There were swings, slides and plenty of nice grass. I even snapped a few pictures with my phone:

James called saying that he was done working and almost home, just and we were getting ready to head back so we didn't get rained on. He beat us home by a couple minutes and Cordelia wasted no time running inside to surprise him!

Ed made steaks and corn for dinner and we had smores (made over the grill) for dessert! The kiddos got baths and everyone had nice dry beds! Ed and James played video games a bit and Rachel and I hung out talking.

It was a nice visit, and we are so glad that they were able to come by....such a great surprise!!!!!

Vacation?!?!?!

So we had been planning for a few months to go camping at Arches with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and were really looking forward to it! Fortunately James got work with both Boulder County and the City of Fort Collins for the summer (yay work!!!) unfortunately this also meant that he had too much work to be able to take the time off needed to go on this vacation. So although we are happy for the work and subsequent income, we were really bummed not to go camping with family.


I decided to still take Thursday and Friday off and tackle some of our basement cleaning. Once I mentioned this intent, my wonderful mother (aka. the cleaning and organizing Queen) offered to come up to help me. She promised to be nice since I take after my dad in regard to "stuff" as in I am a complete pack-rat! I like to do a lot of different projects and have all sorts of supplies and things to help me accomplish them all...even if it won't happen for 10 years :) I like knowing that if I need something that I have it and don't have to go out and buy something new.


So, my mom came on Thursday afternoon and we went to lunch and then worked downstairs for about 2 hours before calling it a day and making dinner. We then started up again on Friday morning and worked for most of the day. It turned out great, we threw some stuff away, made a trip to the thrift store with stuff to donate, found a couple things my brother could use and mostly just organized all of our (mostly my) stuff. Here's the result:

Isn't it great! Now we just have to finish the other half :) Which is not near as bad as this half was. We've worked on the other side before and it is mostly books that we are going through (we have ALOT of books, even double-stacked they don't fit onto our bookshelves). We've turned in several boxes to the used bookstore and have several more that will be going that route as well. Hopefully we can manage to cut down enough that they fit on the shelves we have. Ultimately I want to build floor to ceiling bookcases and make a library, but that will be sometime in the not so immediate future.

Thanks Mom for your help, you were GREAT!

It's been a busy few days, cleaning downstairs was just the start. I'll update more soon!

3 AM Alarm

So on Saturday night/Sunday morning at approximately 3 am OC (one of our dogs just in case you didn't know) barks. He has a loud bark anyway, but at 3 am when you are trying to sleep, it seems even louder. James yells at him to "Shut UP!!!" possibly other words were also in that mix :) I am pretty sure I yelled too, but probably without any added expletives.

Usually OC will settle down pretty quickly, but he was going nuts! Then we listen and you could hear a screaming animal sound. James jumps up and runs into the living room to look out the window, he leans on the chair which starts to recline and slams himself into the window. So I am not only hearing this crazy animal scream but also a yell from my husband trying to injure himself.

So I get out of bed and we look out the living room window and see out neighbor out there with a flashlight looking for something, and then he heads back inside. We opened the window and this animal scream is pretty loud and slightly terrifying. It eventually stops and James starts looking something up on his computer.

He plays something like this:






Oh My Gosh!!!!

Do we seriously have a mountain lion in our neighborhood?!?!?!?! I thought the sound seemed bad, but had not even considered that it might be a mountain lion! Of course our crazy dog decides that since he is up and we are up and he heard something outside that he should also be outside. Not gonna happen tonight!! Thankfully since the sound stopped, he wasn't quite so insistent on being let out.

We went back to bed and eventually fell asleep. OC passed out long before either James or I and I am not sure Baxter even woke up throughout the whole ordeal!

In the morning I looked out the windows just to make sure there were not any large cats lurking in our yard or trees before I let the dogs out.

We we fed the animals and headed out for church. On the way, James called his dad; both to wish him a Happy Father's Day and to tell him of our EARLY morning adventure. He left a message.

Just as we got to our pastor's home, Clyde calls James back so we wait outside while they talked.

James went through the crazy story.

Clyde (my wonderful Father-in-law) informs him that it probably was a fox, as they sound very similar but louder.

So we are feeling quite a bit better by this time. I know there are foxes around, but never would have thought they would sound like a mountain lion.

When we got home, our neighbor was just pulling up as well, so we head over to their house to see what they know.

She states a similar story of their dogs going crazy and her and her husband went outside with the flashlight. Sure enough, he found a fox in the middle of our cul-de-sac screaming its head off!

Apparently he chased the fox off and it went down the road and then came back, so he chased it off again and it stayed away.

Here's a clip of a fox screaming for your enjoyment. :) Not pleasant anyway, but even worse in the middle of the night:

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have pictures this time!!

Well a few at least...

We've been busy with yard work lately! We also made a trip down to my in-laws for Clyde's annual surprise birthday party to himself :) it was a great chance to visit with family and see our wonderful nieces and nephews!!!

So since we have mostly spent time on our yard, here's the update:

We shoveled out the old bright orange mulch from the front, cut down and dug out the roots of two aspen trees then planted some boxwood bushes, a contorted filbert tree and surrounded it with nice rubber mulch.

After several years of trying to get the grass to grow (or at least survive) in the front yard, we have decided to give up on it. We dug over about 5 feet from the driveway and reconfigured the retaining wall blocks to create a wall and a mostly level space in front. We are in the process of digging up the dead grass and some dirt from this mostly flat area so we can bring in sand and flagstone. Then we will have a nice little patio to enjoy in our front yard!!! Our goal is to have it finished by the 4th of July!

In the midst of redoing our front yard, we are also building a raised garden in the back. The plan is to build it three cinder blocks high and we are just about done with the first level! It's taking awhile to level the individual blocks. However, once the first level is done then it will just be a matter of getting more blocks and stacking them. Ultimately we plan to pound re bar in a few spots for stability and then put a wood topper around the whole thing. My wonderful in-laws are going to bring a load of horse manure/compost for us to add to the dirt so we should be all set for next year. We have started a few plants in pots that we would like to transplant into the garden this year if possible, but next year we want to go all out!

A few weeks ago we put up lattice on the side of our garage and planted grapes. The grapes are not looking so good, but I still have hope. If they don't work out, we'll try again next year.

We also planted hops rhizomes between the grapes. We have eventual plans to try home-brewing, so the hops will come in handy. The most exciting thing is that they are actually growing!!!!

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These are three separate plants, but they didn't have any real growth when we put them in. We are very excited for our hops!

We planted strawberry plants near our front door and they are taking off, we are looking forward to some fresh strawberries this summer! I will probably need to cover them soon since I think one (or several) of the local bunnies have been nibbling on some of the leaves. Also I would like to eat some of the strawberries that we grow and I know the birds like them too as would the bunnies.

Anyway, there's a recap of what we've been doing. I will try to update more often!

Hockey Playoffs!!!

So we played our first playoff game of the season last night and pulled off a nice win over the team ranked ahead of us. Everyone played a good game, lots of good passing and shots and a great job by our goalie! It is always nice to start off with a good win.

The local CHL team the Colorado Eagles got off to a sad start with 2 home losses in their 7 game series. They are on the road in Bossier-Shreveport for 3 games now, so we'll see how they do.

The Avalanche are holding onto the 8th spot in their conference to make the playoffs with 7 more games to play. Hopefully they can hold on and do awesome in the playoffs.

Have a wonderful week!!!

Happy St. Patty's Day!!!!

Happy St. Patrick's day!

Happy Birthday to my Sister-in-Law, what a great day for your birthday!

Two years ago, my hubby proposed :) three and a half months later we were married!

Today was beautiful, nice and sunny I just wanted to play outside. Instead I worked inside from home. However, I did take a break to go pick up a corned beef at the store. I put it in the oven with potatoes, carrots and cabbage. It smelled so good that we had dinner at 4! Mmmmmm, I love corned beef and cabbage add a nice Guinness and it is pretty much a perfect meal :)

I have pictures of the meal, but can't find my memory card reader right now....hopefully soon!

I promise I will still post the scone recipes. I actually have an even better one than the others I told you about, but I'll post them all and you can decide.

Enjoy the rest of your week! I am going to try to get out and enjoy some sun before the snow comes back (apparently on Friday....blah)!

I think I am addicted....

To scones and lemon curd!

Since tea back in December, I have been wanting scones. My mom gave me a quart of buttermilk a few weeks ago so that I could use it before it went bad (she had no use for it).

Originally I was thinking that we could make overnight oatmeal (very good and easy by the way...you stick everything in a crock-pot at night and wake up to delicious oatmeal) because James likes to put buttermilk on it. However, we didn't have all the stuff and I didn't want to go to the store.

I remembered seeing some recipes for scones using buttermilk. So I've made scones every few days for the past couple weeks.

James liked the first recipe the best, they were not sweet at all so they paired nicely with the boysenberry jam we had. They held together well and were quite tasty.

The second recipe was a little on the sweet side, but initially I liked it a little better. James was not a fan of this one.

The third recipe, listed as "Irish Scones" is my favorite. In fact I am eating one right now :) They are a little sweeter than the first but not as much as the second, I think it is a good balance.

In the past I have always made flavored scones. It was fun and creative and included maple pecan with maple icing, blueberry topped with caramelized almonds, apple cinnamon with cinnamon icing and many others. Lately I've gone with plain scones, maybe with a little vanilla but that's all.

I have nothing against the fun flavored scones and enjoy coming up with new ideas, but.....

I have discovered the greatness of a nice warm plain scone with lemon curd spread on it. I've had lemon curd a few times, but had it again at tea with a nice warm scone. Thus my newest obsession!!!! Lemon curd had a nice lemon flavor with a slight tartness that tastes so yummy!

Anyway, just wanted to share. I will try to put up the scone recipes later if I have time and if you are interested. I got the lemon curd at the grocery store right with all the jam and jelly.

Have a great day!