Fun Craft Project

It's been awhile since I posted any craft projects, so here's a fun one. My mother-in-law showed me these mini-albums when we were on vacation and I made one then. I made the second with my friend Rolayne, whose baby is due any day now. You'll never guess what they are made from! Not that I'm going to keep you in suspense. You make them from empty toilet paper rolls! You just iron the tube flat, cover it with papers and embellishments and punch holes in the end. You can create pull out cards with tabs and ribbons that go in the opening created by the flat tube, and then connect the tubes with book binder clips.

As you can see, I haven't put any pictures in mine yet, but I will soon!

Visit with Jeff and Fran

We are having a lovely visit with Jeff and Fran, who arrived Monday evening. Yesterday, we went up the Poudre canyon for a picnic lunch and visited several lakes in the area. It's been rainy here all week, but we decided to get out and go for a walk around Belair lake anyway. It started sprinkling right after we set out, but a little rain is no problem, right? So, we kept going. 5 more minutes went by and suddenly it turned into a downpour, followed rapidly by a hail storm. We spent the duration of the storm huddled under a pine tree until it stopped hailing and the rain returned to a mild flow that we could walk through to get back to the car. Fran and Jeff were very surprised to get caught in a hail storm in July, in 70 degree weather, but that's Colorado for you. So, we have the dubious honor of getting our guests drenching wet and hit by hail. We were all getting cozy with that pine tree!

Today, Fran had to work so we stayed at the house. Mike and his dad got the new shower door installed (finally!) and poked around in town. I spent the morning making, rolling, and cutting fettuccine, then made a Bolognese sauce, an apple cobbler, and 2 loaves of zucchini bread in the afternoon. Tomorrow, we'll have fresh pasta for dinner with the Bolognese so I won't have to cook much. Tonight, we are having homemade pizza, but I made the dough yesterday and cut up the veggies this morning, so that should be easy too! I think we are heading up to Estes Park tomorrow for the day.

Oh baby! And new carpet and a new bathroom!

I spent a great three days visiting with my dear friend Rolayne, who's due to have a baby any time now. Little Austin or McKenzie (they don't know which) is due August 8th officially, but they are hoping the baby comes early. Right now, their biggest issue is keeping the cats out of the baby's crib and beating the heat.

Then, I came home yesterday in time for the installation of the new carpet. The workers worked from 8:30am to 9:30pm to get it done in one day! Today, we have been working on moving back in. The house isn't quite back together yet, but we are making progress. We are also looking forward to Jeff and Fran coming to visit this next week, which means getting things back together by Monday!

Oh, and we did get the bathroom done somewhere in there (mostly anyway--shower door hasn't been installed yet, but it has arrived). It looks much better now, although it's hard to take good pictures.

Carpet is Here!

Our carpet is finally in town and will be installed Thursday, so I've spent the last two days packing up all the small stuff and moving the boxes downstairs or upstairs as the case may be. Tonight Mike and his friend Kasey moved much of the furniture into either the garage or the living room. We'll have a little more to move that we still need to use for a day or two.

Tomorrow, we are finishing the bathroom, so I'll post pictures of that soon.

Sunday morning, I'm going to visit my friend Rolayne who's due to have a baby in about two weeks.

It's a Jungle Out There!

We’ve had even more rain while we were gone, so when we got home, the yard was a jungle. My pumpkin plants exploded out of their pen and went trailing 4 feet across the lawn. We had to use clippers to cut the fence away since the plants had grown through the fence, and then once we removed the fence, I could redirect all the plants in a different direction and off the lawn. We also had to chop down yards of vine that was growing on the deck, over the windows, and into the garden, as well as mowing the grass and weeding. Aspen loved all the extra green because it offered cool places to lay down. She crawled right into the thicket.

Nevada 2009

Our second stop was a visit to Nevada to hang out with my family. I have officially learned to wake board after two summers of trying, although I still fall down pretty quickly. We all enjoyed the water sports, tubing, jet skis, boating, and getting a chance to see everyone. Aspen liked riding in the boat, but she would get very nervous when I went off the back of the boat to ski or tube. Then she’d pace and crowd the back of the boat. She also liked the chance to play with all the other dogs and her first introduction to beef rib bones!
We also got the chance to meet Lesa’s boyfriend Colin and spend some time with them at the lake, which was great. Then, we headed back to Winnemucca for a few days, where we enjoyed riding the ATV’s in the mountains and several family dinners. Aspen ran about 8 miles round trip behind the four wheelers. She could have ridden in the back, but she wouldn’t stay put. She loved running with the other dogs, but she’s had sore feet for the last couple days as a result. She’s never run that far, or that long! Here are some pictures from the trip:

Shaver Lake 2009

Our vacation started with a week at Shaver Lake with the Harper and Mandell families. We had a great time hanging out by the lake, riding the jet ski and pontoon boat, doing crafts, eating, and exploring. We got Jason and the girls hooked on fishing and went on an adventure to Dinkey creek. The weather was hot, but with lots of water to cool off, it wasn't bad. I think my favorite day was renting the boat to tour the lake. It's a goregous lake with many little coves and islands to play in and on. Aspen especially loved the small island because she could go without her leash for a little while. I highly recommend tour by boat.

Marie, as always thoughtfull and generous, had prepared with water bottles and fun beach bags filled with goodies for all of us to use. And, a special treat to me, she brought craft projects and scrapbooking matierals for the girls. I even got to try out the Circut and confirm that I do want one some time.

The week went by amazingly quickly and soon we were packing up for our next leg of the journey. I have lots of fun pictures, but here are just a few:

Everyone enjoyed watching Aspen repeatedly bury her bone around camp, and you will all be happy to hear that as soon as we got home she took the same bone and "buried" it in our closet! She looks like a little pig, rooting around in the dirt with her nose.