Chasing Bluebirds

silverado cousins

we spent the day at silverado canyon, visiting cousins and enjoying the spring weather

what an enchanted place, i could easily live here! lucky we have relatives close by to visit! so of course we had to finish the day off with some yogurt at the newest yogurt shop... forget about dinner!

wendy crabb love

yes we love wendy crabb!

a special painting for lizzie, we love elephants! you can check out a cool video of the painting here. wendy crabb is the coolest, nicest and most rad artist ever. i highly recommend her! we are hoping for a polar bear painting for emily in the near future... and on another note, here is my neutral doll. stolen from someone somewhere this was just a first draft and quickie sew job. liz thankfully loves it and embellished it with her own face and clothes (photo to come later). i just drew it out right on the fabric and sewed it up. this i also highly recommend. it was fast, fun and easy!

game warden camp fire meeting

we had an awesome meeting tonight with a game warden who spoke about her job, protecting the local wildlife. it was very informative and made me re think my own career (as usual)

this weekend is grand council fire, our big end of the year celebration and this year is almost over. three years in camp fire, three years blogging, wow!

grandma rosalie

down at the beach by their house decked out in fur (thats me!!) a few more of my grandma, she was something, huh? because emily was the first grandkid and my grandpas first great grand kid, we used rose as her middle name. he always thought that was very special and i am so glad he was young enough to appreciate that. my grandparents always seemed happy and close, also a little wild and daring. it has been a great gift to stumble on to these photos and i cant wait to see more.

all camp clean up

this is our first year attending the all camp clean up for our local camp fire council. i was grumpy as all get out this morning but after five minutes of hard work i felt good good good!

we chose weeding the baby trees we planted our first and second years in camp fire (plus the grove of oaks we took over for a wohelo recipient last year)... a cool moth we dug up (and rescued) for some reason our little struggling baby oak foamed up when it was watered, crazy but hoping it survives. we put red flags and stakes around every single tree... they are tied up in red bows and ready for camp! and somehow i lost the right hand side of my blog... i have been working on this for 2 days now, yikes!!!

back to work

wow, what a fun week we had! i highly recommend a road trip between colorado and california if you live in either state. the one thing that was really amazing this trip was the girls, they hardly fought at all. i think we hit some kind of plateau with lizzie, she was sweet and caring and able to entertain herself for hours. i packed pads of paper and a variety of drawing tools along with some old workbooks that needed to be finished off. they filled up everything and asked for more and more. 

     two days before we were to leave, chris had put some portable dvd players in the truck (a super find at the thrift store my dad works at) and our truck was broken into (both back windows smashed) and the dvd player stolen. such a bummer! we had to buy a really cheapo player and i have to say, that was a really good thing. the girls watched movies and it helped entertain chris and i as well (just listening to movies). i dont think we will be watching movies any time soon, but for a 16 hour drive, you cant beat it. i think the girls are ready for more travel and you know i am already planning the next trip! we loved arches national park (the spring weather was pleasant) and i think zion and bryce would be a good choice next time, maybe lake powell as well. i have to say utah was a real surprise! just gorgeous with lots of colors, greens and pinks, reds and yellows. i had a blast sending pictures in real time on facebook to chris' family as we drove, love the camera on iphone. it makes some interesting effects with brightness and contrast. so here are a few more pictures and i may bore you with more as well. as i always say, i am hoping to get some of these images onto canvas!! clouds clouds clouds!

the grizzly rest stop in colorado, lovely! sunsets were spectacular and lasted for hours

Denver Zoo and Cousin visit

Before the storm, we had warm weather and toured the denver zoo

visiting cousins in denver, Nick and baby Sawyer labradoodle love whew! what a fun visit, so glad to have fit it all in to one day. so here i sit this morning with the snow blasting past the window hoping we can get on the road tomorrow... we'll see. the weather here in colorado sure is interesting!

stormy kite flying

well a huge storm is coming in, the mother of all spring storms and we are going to be stranded. not the greatest feeling since i am missing my grandpa's 100th birthday party and may miss work on monday... but there is really nothing to be done about it. it's coming and we can't drive over the rockies in a snowstorm. coming over the rockies last weekend was sketchy enough with just a "mild, dusting of snow" coming down, this is supposed to dump like 3 to 6 feet of snow...or maybe more. so yesterday we watched the clouds roll in

with the sun setting behind the rockies and as the wind picked up, we headed outside to fly kites of course! yep, the storm is a rolling in!

colorado road trip mish mash

people on a rock as we headed in to the rockies, past grand junction cozy cow farm, checking out the cows and eating ice-cream for breakfast nederland, colorado (home of the frozen dead guy days) nederland is a cool old mining town and became a hippy hangout. love it! we always stop at new belgium for beer refills (the good stuff!) our trip is going by so fast, we will be at the denver zoo tomorrow and visiting more cousins. there is a big storm coming in so we are hoping to get out of here friday to make it home for my grandpa's 100th birthday party saturday night! i will keep the photos coming as long as we have some down time (hit or miss) :)

California through Utah to Colorado

road trip whew! we made it! i can't believe how gorgeous this trip has been and all the crazy weather we have experienced. utah was by far the most beautiful place, i wanted to throw down an easel at every turn and paint the view. the colors and the clouds were to die for. now i know why people love the west, this was definitely an eye opener to the beauty of it. i think the rain and time of year made a difference, not sure if i would want to cruise through here mid summer. we made a stop in utah for the night, red cliff lodge which was a very fancy place for us. we enjoyed a great dinner and the view from our room was stunning. we toured arches national park and then climbed over the rockies to land in johnstown, just north of denver where we will stay for a week. stay tuned for more of our adventure!