Chasing Bluebirds

Busy Weekend

I spent a few hours on Saturday at a restoration event for Los Cerritos Wetlands, this is historic because the public has not been allowed to walk around on the 66 acres owned by the city because the surrounding area is privately owned. through some agreements and other special circumstances, we have been allowed to enter and WOW! what a thrill! for anyone who reads this blog and lives in a rural community, i can't tell you how much i dream of the day when i can live in a green, wild, lush and totally nature filled environment. i am literally starving for it and when i get the chance to take a walk in anything remotely open, i get euphoric. seriously. so why am i living in this cement jungle? long story and i can promise you, i won't be here forever. for now though, i am working tirelessly on saving these 500 acres of wetlands that would be a welcome reprieve to us nature loving locals. 












we picked up trash, learned about native and non native plants, seed collected (did you know the southern tar plant is endangered and growing right here in these degraded wetlands??) and then sunday:
we had a little garage sale
that took ALL DAY and left me totally drained but
happy all the same! :)

rocky mountain national park

yep, i am officially a fan of all national parks. you just cant beat them!

 

we stumbled on to rainbow corner or bridge or something like that, EXACTLY at the tail end of a misty rain when the sun came out and produced the most amazing rainbow ever with the glorious valley below we go to this park whenever we are in colorado and were hoping to move to estes park at one time (ahhhh maybe someday!) it is just a glorious community and an overload of beauty. we are planning a thanksgiving trip to portland oregon now, so my thoughts are still in vacation mode even though i am physically back to the grind. gotta have something exciting on the planning table at all times, thats how i do it anyways. happy friday!

close encounters of the family kind

i had to use that title again (i had it on my facebook status and really liked it) i could use it for our entire vacation so far actually, close close close. we are road tripping each day, seeing the local sights of colorado, wyoming and southern south dakota and have settled in to a pretty good routine. i have always enjoyed reading books on families who take a year off and travel the world together, what an awesome gift you could give your kids. i am not willing to sell my house and do that just yet, but i really admire those who can manage it. the girls are finally able to entertain themselves and work together on projects without constant help, it makes the sight seeing so much easier. all this togetherness has its ups and downs, mostly ups which include lots of lovely conversations with the girls. lizzie is growing up so fast, she has wonderful ideas and thoughts, so chatty and fun. being the baby of the bunch, her neediness and whining can get on nerves and its nice to see her maturing and joining in on conversations in a productive way. of course she still has her moments (like pooping out halfway around the tower) this is devils tower in wyoming, it is the first national monument and a sacred area to the indians who lived here. it was also used in the movie "close encounters of the third kind" which we are dying to see now. i recommend it as a nice day trip visit, it is relatively close to mt. rushmore. we really enjoyed coming over the rolling hills to see it off in the distance (the surrounding farm land is gorgeous right now as well). we took the short hike around it (liz made it about halfway) and enjoyed it from all angles. i'll leave you with some prairie views on our way back to colorado being the bookaholic that i am, i always choose a book to read to give my trip a "theme" and this trip i brought the third olive farm book (i had read the first third but couldnt get into it, moving on to the twilight books). it was a perfect choice and i have enjoyed moments of quiet reading, traveling to the south of france each day. carol drinkwater is a fantastic writer, very sensuous and lyrical, i cannot get enough! lucky for me she has two new books out making that FIVE olive farm books (i also have the companion photo book which is glorious all by itself) so i get to continue my journey with her when i get back home. we have one more day here and then its a two day drive back to so cal, back to house cleaning and work...back to school starting and camp fire meetings... energized, refreshed and ready to go!

colorado summer

well i spent 4 days in vegas at an ultrasound seminar stuffing my brain full of ultrasound physics and vascular facts. having been to vegas many times, i am afraid i am not much of a vegas person. the lights and over-the-topness of it is interesting but the gambling and seediness is overwhelming to me. i dont think i have never seen so many straight up WEIRD people. risque clothing on all the wrong bodies, kids in tow through the casinos in the middle of the night (oh wait, that was US!) and gross expensive food (what happened to the CHEAP food vegas used to lure people in with? GONE!) i enjoyed my first night alone, read for hours and hours but by day three i was ready for the family to arrive. they spent the last night with me and then drove on to colorado where i met them that evening (i flew). so here we are in colorado!! it is gloriously green here and i spent the day learning how to can tomatoes, FINALLY!! maybe a little out of order (and yes i am still using the phone for pictures, so dang lazy these days!) i finally got to hear the POP of the lids sealing and am very proud of myself (it was soooo much easier than i thought it would be) cant wait to do some different sauces when i get home, hoping my tomatoes are still producing. i will leave you with some amazing clouds, the skies in colorado are thrilling to me.

my day

groceries clouds ikea visit 20 minutes on the trainer = 200 calories burned sewing projects the tutorial for these was found here and last the tree fabric from ikea i have been dying for...found at last! i saw the idea to make pillows by just cutting out the trees somewhere but cant remember!! there were examples that had embellishments like birds and critters in the tree that i really liked. i just dont have the time for that right now. getting ready to visit family in colorado and wanted to make some quick gifts. i havent mentioned here that i am in training for a half marathon in october, on my second week of serious training and so excited! i feel so good and am up to 6 miles (just run/walking) already! it is hotter than hell here right now so we are spending time in our little blow up pool and drinking gallons of water. really feels like summer! so my day off went well, back to work tomorrow and then off to vegas (for an ultrasound conference) then colorado (with a visit to mt. rushmore thrown in) i will try to post pictures of our trip!

summer love

what i am loving right now:

concerts in the park these shoes this book and movie i have been reading it and thinking (since i watched the movie first) that doc must have been a difficult father but he has a lot of interesting ideas. everything about this book and movie are intriguing to me. and the last thing i am loving is lots and lots of garden time: tomatoes (salsa, pasta sauce, "everything but the kitchen sink chili") watermelon and peppers. this year i planted two different "purple" tomatoes and they are both super tasty. the winner in flavor (besides the purple tomatoes) is "sulpice" which i planted last year as well but is much better this year. i even got two juliets to come up after planting a thawed out frozen tomato right in the ground!!! i put about 4 or 5 in and got two plants. not sure how i did it since i plant seeds and rarely get them to work. onions are of course still cranking out (i think onion farming is in my future). so my daily goal is to blast through work as mindless as possible so i can get home to enjoy the bike rides and family time. emily is at camp wintaka for a few more days, very odd having just one kidlet around but liz is enjoying the one on one time for sure. hold on to summer! it's moving by fast!

summer zooms by

everyone says summer is passing fast, but seriously, i feel like i am in one of those movies with a zillion cameos flashing on the screen as life skips from one thing to the next. even at the cabin, where time slows down some, i felt the rush. i wish i could just wake up to nothing on the schedule, day after day but i guess thats retirement and i am no where near that. besides i dont know how to turn of my ever planning mind, oh well! the garden is in full swing, bursting with tomatoes:

the girls still complain about visiting the garden, but picking veggies and finding bugs still entertains them enough to get some chores done. i am finally able to get emily to try a few new fruits and vegetables (watermelon has been the latest attempt with some success) a kid who doesnt like watermelon??? crazy! as much crap as i ate growing up, fruit was always a treat. i remember eating carrot sticks straight from the fridge, neither of my kids will do that. but i am working on it! a few cabin photos, i am getting lazy with the photo taking. i am thinking of getting a new camera... we took the truck back behind our cabin and drove some of the off road trails. a jeep would be awesome! but a car payment would suck! what to do? since it is fire season again, we had a fix it ticket to clean up around our house. a new address sign was needed so i knocked this out, turned out ok but i know where a to get a great sign! someday. happy tuesday!

always asking

let summer begin!!!

glad to have a completely errand free day! now if i could just stop my mind from spinning on to new projects, stop it already! happy sunday!

hiking

fun times

some cool guerilla art along the way jacuzzi and dinner, soreness tomorrow, its all good.