Craftiness

I've been working on figuring out how to do a pop-up card today. I made this one for my dad. This is the front of the card:

And, here's the inside of the card:

It was a fun card to make. And, I'm sure my dad will get over the 5" tall announcement of his 50th birthday!

It's hot out here!

Aspen takes some time to cool off in her swimming pool, which she's decided she likes.

Update

It's been a hectic week. I've been working to get ready for school to start by designing math lessons and getting my classroom all set up. I'm starting to feel like the summer is winding down and school time will be here before you know it.

In addition, I've been doing my acupuncture twice a week in Fort Collins. The sessions aren't bad really. The only needles that hurt are the ones they put into my feet. The rest I don't really feel. However, I'm not sure I feel much different afterward either. I'm having more trouble with the injections, which are producing a whole list of side effects, including muscle aches and pains, headaches, itching feet, and an inability to sleep through the night. And, my sessions with the doctor are starting to pick up pace. I have one Friday, and then next week it will be Wed, Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon...and on daily until it's over. Of course, don't really know an exact date yet.

It hasn't been all work and medicine of course. I've been doing some scrapbooking and lots of cooking too. I'm looking forward to a visit from Mike's parents next week as well.

Cherries!

I spent the morning making jam out of the sour cherries in my backyard. It takes forever because the cherries are smaller than grapes and have to be pitted one by one. It only took 15 minutes to pick, but it took 2 hours to pit them. And, that's just to make one batch of 7 seven jars! I made a batch over the weekend and a

nother today, so I have a good stock of jam, but I haven't used even half of the ripe cherries out there. Some of them are hard to get to because they are in the area of our yard that we refer to as "the jungle," but maybe I can make another batch next week or get a friend to come take some.

On a less exciting note, I've got the means to open my own pharmacy now. I wanted to sit down and cry when these two big boxes of drugs arrived today. Can you believe that all of this is for the next 3 weeks! It's overwhelming to see it all at once. I didn't give in to the urge to cry, but I did ignore the box for about an hour before I got the courage to open it and explore what all was in there. My first injection starts tonight. I keep having to remind myself that it will be worth it if it works!

A Visit with My Parents

Despite almost constant rain, we had a nice visit with my parents and grandma this week. We tried to go to a band concert and 4th of July fireworks, but both were canceled due to heavy rain. Then, we spent 2 days camping at Dowdy lake up near Red Feather. It was beautiful the first day, and we really enjoyed it. We even got Aspen to go for a ride in the canoe! It started raining again the 2nd day, so we were all a little cold and wet and ready to go home by Wednesday morning. Then, we did a tour of the Budweiser plant, some shopping, and went out for dinner, all while it continued raining. Thursday, Mike and I had to go to a doctor's appointment, so the family had to entertain themselves in the morning and then we spent the afternoon just relaxing and visiting at the house. Here are a few pictures from the non-raining day: