Bishop's Castle

Home sweet home! We got home from another exciting trip to Colorado on Sunday. It was a ten day trip stuffed full of fun activities. The first stop in the mountains was to a location I'd heard about and wanted to visit, Bishop's Castle. It's a large, castle like structure built by one man. He's been working on it since the 70's and it's open to the public. There was even a wedding going on while we were there. That was fun to see. I have to admit the castle wasn't what I thought it would be. I'm sure the man who built it knew what he was doing but I'm not sure he used plans or adhered to building codes while building it. It seemed very half hazard. For instance, Wesley and I are climbing a rather treacherous set of steps going up to the tallest turret and there was a section of stairs that appeared to be held together with baling wire.  It was surprising and it made me question the integrity of the whole building. But we made it to the top (and back down again) without any problems and it is an adventure I can always remember doing with my oldest child. Sean and Greta stayed on the ground as they aren't a fan of heights.

We stayed in Canon City and enjoyed swimming in the hotel pool. Swimming in hotel pools has to be one of the biggest highlights for the kids. Soaking in the hot tub has to be one of mine. The next day we headed out to stay in Ouray, Colorado for a few days. But first we had to stop on the top of Monarch Pass for the obligatory picture in from of the elevation sign. I have so many pictures with my sister in front of this sign when we were kids, it's kind of funny to be doing the same thing with my youngins.

This post is rather picture heavy (as are most of my vacation posts) so I will stop there and post another one tomorrow with more of our vacation. I'm sure you can hardly wait.

Baseball

Wesley signed up for baseball again this summer. Last summer he enjoyed it and we thought it would be a good thing to do again. Well this summer has kind of been a bust when it comes to baseball. Practices have been rained out routinely and the ones we have attended have been 99 degrees outside with kids practically dropping like flies from the heat. The games, which in the past have been at 10 or 11 in the morning on Saturdays, this year have been at 8am. The kids have to be there early to warm up so we are getting up at 6:30am on each Saturday. That's just ridiculous to me. The first game was 52 degrees out with everyone huddled under blankets. The weather has been nuts to say the least.

Through all of this the kid is doing great, hitting the ball like a champ. I'm super proud of him.....even if I whine like a baby about getting up early.

When you give a 5 year old a camera.....

Greta found her Playschool kid camera in her room and after a fresh set of batteries she set off to document her world through pictures. It's fun to see what's important through the eyes of a five year old.

Straight to the strawberry bed.

Marbles

A five year old selfie.

Perspective

Rocky says hi.

Seeing the world from 4 feet tall.

I think I took this one, but I thought it was a winner.

An Upgrade

I've got to say, this has been a strange summer so far. It just doesn't feel like summer. We are finally getting summer like temperatures after a cold May and my oldest kid comes down with Strep throat. Strep in June when he's been out of school for two weeks. We're thinking it was picked up at the skating rink. Hubby hasn't been feeling well either for a couple of weeks so he stopped by Urgent Care last night after work to get swabbed for a Strep test. Thankfully that came back negative, but he had fluid behind his ear drum so he's on some meds. Poor guy has been busy busy lately. Heck we all have, but he's been in the shop every available moment working on a vehicle. But what vehicle?

 He finally found an acceptable replacement for the Land Rover. It, like the old Corvette, was sucking all his time, energy and money and it was time for a newer commuter car. He's been searching online for a few months and finally ran across a Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited that fit the bill. It needed new brake pads, rotors and shocks so that's what he did last weekend. It's a beauty with all the bells and whistles, definitely an upgrade.

Climbing

My youngest child likes to do her own thing. She gets dressed in the morning and is outside before I've even made my tea. She likes to go searching through the strawberry bed looking for strawberries that ripened overnight. Then she skips back to the garden where she hunts for lady bugs. Then she might search around for flowers that she makes into a bouquet that she then presents me with. She's a sweet kid with a big heart that loves nature.

I went outside the other evening to check on her and found her peering into the tortoise pen. She comes running up to me telling me how they are climbing all over each other again. Yep, those silly tortoises and their "climbing." At some age I'm going to have to explain all the "climbing" activities occurring in our backyard. But not today!

Team Work

Well I'm pretty proud of myself today. You see yesterday Wesley attended a birthday party for a fellow 2nd grader at a skating rink. All the kids put on their skates and proceeded to stumble their way onto the rink where they promptly fell on their faces one after another. It didn't instill a lot of confidence in me, after all I haven't donned skates in nearly 25 years. But that didn't stop me! I went skating yesterday, and I liked it. Didn't even fall once. Even though Wesley tried to make me fall on several occasions. I'm thinking we are going to have family skating weekends this summer. We'll see how the other half of the family does on skates.

The kids and I were back at the garden this morning seeing what has drowned and what will make it. I noticed my big pile of manure/mulch was overgrown with Johnson grass and it was getting pretty tall. When it gets to a certain height it produces these massive seed heads that distribute the dreaded seeds all over my garden. Johnson grass in my garden nemesis. It makes these long tubers underground that send up shoots of  thick bladed grass. Best way to get rid of it is to dig up the tubers which is incredibly time consuming and work intensive. I told the kids all about this as we looked at the tall weeds on the mulch pile (that I can't mow). Wesley said he'll pull the weeds so I took them over and showed them how to grasp it at the base and pull the whole thing out. So for the next hour he and his sister pulled weeds together. They both grabbed the weed and pulled on the count of three. It was hilarious to watch. They did great! I told them I'd pay them a nickle for each weed bunch. They earned $2.50 each. Such helpers!

Coffe Filter Wreath

I'm pretty much forced inside these days with the constant downpour outside. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled we are getting rain. It has taken us out of drought conditions which we've been struggling with for a few years now. It has interrupted our many outdoor spring projects, which I'm bummed about. The thought of doing siding again during July and August isn't very appealing.

So I've been trying to stay busy indoors with projects I've been putting off. One of them is this wreath idea I found online that intrigued me. It's a wreath made out of coffee filters. It looked fun and inexpensive so I thought I'd give it a try.

First you have to buy a package of 200 cheap white coffee filters (less than $2). I didn't want a white wreath so I made up a couple bowls of tea. One I used some hibiscus tea which I already had on hand and the other just basic tea (any brown variety).  I put the coffee filters in the bowls and let them soak for varying times, the longest (deepest color) was 15 minutes. Wring them out and let them dry overnight.

Next step put together your wreath base, which in this instance is a cheap pool noodle ($1 buck) duct taped together.

Then start hot gluing those dried coffee filters onto the noodle. I scrunched them in there to create a tighter look. You could do it any way you'd like. Super easy project.

 

I think it's lovely for a spring wreath. I'm thinking a brown one in varying shades for the fall would be pretty too.

Lush

We are now at 11.3 inches of rain for the month of May. Second wettest May on file. It's officially a rainforest out there. I've always wanted to live in a rainforest so it's kinda cool. Mowing on the other hand, not so cool.

Look, There's Guinea Pigs!

School's Out

School is out. It is officially the first day of summer vacation. I'd be pumped if it resembled summer outside...even a little bit. We're almost to 8 inches of rain this month. Yikes! Wesley had his 2nd grade field trip to a local wildlife park the beginning of the week and we froze! All the kids are in t-shirts shaking from the cold wind. Then is started raining, so we had 45 cold and wet 2nd graders. Poor kids. It was a fun park though and the weather conditions will make it a memorable field trip for sure.

It's hard to believe this dude is heading to third grade. I swear he was born just the other day. I'm very proud of the big kid he's becoming.

About a year and a half ago I bought a nice big point and shoot Nikon Coolpix camera. It was highly rated and did it's job well. I turned it on last week and it stuck out its lens and promptly died. No LCD screen, no life. We tried fresh batteries but it was a gonner. I, for some reason, think electronics should last longer than a year and a half. Grrr. So we started researching cameras and found a good replacement that would take nice everyday pictures as well as pictures for my sculpture business. It's a Panasonic LUMIX and I'm impressed. It takes lovely pictures, so much better than the Nikon. The close up pictures of the sculptures are far superior as well. I'm almost grateful the Nikon died. The wildlife park gave me ample opportunity to try it out.

The highlight for me was the giant tortoise exhibit. This park was a hands on experience and the kids got to feed the animals and get up close and personal. They had three 15 year old Sulcata tortoises roaming around looking for food. Wesley got to feed one. I can't hardly wait until our Billy Bob is this size. How cool is that?!

Next Stop Kindergarten

My youngest child graduated from preschool last night. She wore a cute little hat and walked across the stage to get her certificate. Crazy how time flies by! There was a little program that went along with the graduation that included some songs and pictures. Her teacher wanted to put all the girls on the front row of the risers but had the delima of Greta being super tall and overshadowing the little boys behind her. So she did this:

She had my super tall girl stand off of the risers. Hehehe. She's a foot taller than the rest of the girls (and boys!). I suppose being the oldest in the bunch and being 93rd percentile for height (meaning out of 100 kids, she's taller than 93 of them) will do that.

She did great singing the songs and doing the actions with each song. Miss Cindy said she did testing on each child and Greta's results were off the charts. She can spell each kids name in her class, which surprised me. Go Greta! Next stop Kindergarten.

Floating away

So it's been raining here a whole lot. So much rain that I had to turn around at a flooded dirt road to find an alternate route.....the whole time that little voice in my head is telling me to "turn around, don't drown". We're talking over 4 inches of rain in the last week and a half. It's like a rainforest out there it's so green. I love it! The kids really love it. It means mud and lots of it. It's like mud pie central around here.

Building immunity one pile of mud at a time. That's my motto. Hey at least she's not making mud angels.

She helped me get my garden planted a week ago. It's coming up like crazy. I planted everything, I kid you not. It would be easier to tell you what seeds I didn't plant than the ones I did. I'm really looking forward to fresh organic produce this summer.

I've also been planting flowers around the property in every pot I can find.

In the spring I always find some new egg being laid. Whether it's the chickens or the cockatiels or even wild birds in the yard. What I wasn't prepared to find was a random egg lying in the tortoise pen. My leopard tortoise, Cecil, finally became old enough to lay her first egg. I found that really cool. I'm not going to incubate it but perhaps sometime down the road I put a few in an incubator and see what happens. It would be a neat project for the kids to see (yep it's all for the kids wink wink). I ran across a youtube video on how to convert a mini fridge into a reptile incubator....and low and behold we have an old unused mini fridge in the basement. See it's meant to be.

Sales

Part of the joys of spring are all the little garage sale signs on each corner. I, on occasion, will stop and see what treasures are to be found. Sometimes there are great things and sometimes it's a bust. Last weekend my friend and I went out during the garage sale weekend and I found some great things. One of which was an Easy Bake oven. Greta's at the age where she's toying with the idea of baking and this little thing is such a fun intro to that. Oddly enough, I've had more fun with the tiny oven than she has. It didn't come with any of the pre-made baking mixes (which is good, garage sale baking mixes aren't anything I'd use) so I got on Google and found all sorts of Easy Bake oven recipes. They're funny because they call for 4 teaspoons of flour, 2 teaspoons of sugar....and so on. Tiny little measurements that make tiny amounts of cake batter to go in tiny pans. After the kids went to bed last night I told Sean I wanted to make a tiny cake we can eat and not feel guilty about eating (because I could easily have made a big cake we would have eaten). The end result was a delicious tiny double decker chocolate cake and frosting.

One of the other things I found was an old dog house that's in need of a good staining. It's sturdy and well made and was just what I was looking for. The tortoises are outside during the day now if it's above 65 degrees. They needed a shelter in their enclosure but I just didn't want to build anything, so this works great. They've already thoroughly checked it out and gave it their stamp of approval.

On a (kind of) sad note, the hubby decided to sell his corvette and it was picked up by the new owner a couple of nights ago. Sean spent the whole winter tinkering around on it, replacing this and that, and he decided he was done. It was a fun car but I think he is ready for something newer that doesn't require the maintenance that a 20+ year old car requires. An older gentleman just south of us bought it so I'm sure we'll see it around.