Chasing Bluebirds

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!

black hills adventure

this trip: black hills tour (southern south dakota), mt rushmore visit, custer state park and devils tower (wyoming). i would highly recommend this part of the country to families, lots of beautiful scenery and kid friendly sights. my only complaint is the food (expensive and BAD for the most part) we did best when we made sandwiches from our cooler and stayed away from restaurants. the best place on our trip was a super grungy mexican place in wyoming, just off the highway that was EXCELLENT and cheap. here is some of the tour: this is custer state park and mt rushmore, i will post more photos and add devils tower later...more adventure today. we are off to estes park (we once had BIG plans to move there and a visit is always in order when we are in town). stay tuned!

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!

d land

my love/hate relationship with disneyland

i can dream

ok, after the last post.... gotta cheer us all up! vacation planning always makes my day, how about this place? i get emails from this website (we used them years ago for a trip to italy which was awesome!) its fun to look through the new listings and dream. here is lizzies little "vacation" her first real trip to disneyland. grandma wanted to go and emily already had a pass so liz and i got ours (thanks grandma!) the best way to "do" disneyland is to go on absolutely the worst weather days and just hang out for a couple hours. you get free parking, no crowds and you can really enjoy the place. our favorite rides are the pirates, haunted house and jungle ride. unfortunately the pirates ride has johnny depp in it now (no offense to johnny) but i like the retro/old school aspect of disneyland which is slowly being lost to a more "hollywood/movie" theme. they put tarzan in the swiss family robinson treehouse (terrible!) and nemo is in the submarine (maybe that wont be bad, the lines have been too long to check it out) so call me old fashioned, but i dread what small world will look like after it gets "renovated" for the umpteenth time (rumor is it will have movie characters in it, ick!)