Labor Day Projects

The Front Yard! We are getting the front yard project under way this weekend. This mess of dirt and dead grass will soon be lovely desert landscaping complete with cute little ball cacti! The master plan calls for a flagstone sitting area under the tree enclosed with narrow raised garden beds. Under the front windows will be two rows of sea grass and we will include a flagstone walkway from the street.

Work officially began yesterday. JP spent some time in the front yard with his "ho" and cleared a bunch of the dead grass. We hope to complete the weed removal today and be able to put the weed barrier down as well.

As luck would have it we also had some work to do on our tree from the storm we had on Thursday night. It was quite a storm! I have never seen palm trees bend like that except on the TV while watching footage of hurricanes in the Tropics. I also saw storm damage in Tempe yesterday that included trees uprooted. I haven't seen something like that (in person) since Andrew came through Louisiana 16 years ago. Not far from our house a whole street lost EVERY power pole . . . they were just blown right over into the street like they were a Lego tower or something.

Luckily our only damage was a few branches that JP has cut down today:

Other projects we've got in the process are . . . yes, the cabinets/ pantry are still in progress. I am really hoping to get those completed as soon as possible. And we are working on knocking out the tile little by little! Yahoo! Honestly, I dislike this tile so much that I would rather have old linoleum covered in Thin Set/ glue.














I better get off to the front yard and get to work . . . .

This Is How I Roll

Jessica at Farm Fresh took a maternity leave from the "Real Life" posts but she's back with a request for "How We Roll" . . . pictures of our car.

As luck would have it, I just had my car cleaned and I de-cluttered the trunk. Had these pictures been requested 2 weeks ago you would have seen a trunk full of old baby clothes that I have tried to consign. Also in my trunk for a few weeks has been my old brakes. When I got new ones they offered to give me the old ones so I said sure. I'd rather put them in the alley for metal scavengers then have them put them in a dumpster behind their shop.

I roll in a 2000 Honda Accord that I bought from my mom in 2002. It is a great car and has held up well. JP just fixed my sun visor that had lost its hook and he cleaned out the melted crayons that were in the cup holder as well. Inside my car is pretty clean right now - just Ranger's extra booster seat for when I get to take him to school. I also keep on hand a pair of flip flops for when I get to sneak off to get a pedicure.

More from The Climb

I left out the best part of our big climb while in Colorado . . . .

Once at the top we ate our sandwiches and looked at the view for a bit but as the clouds began to roll in we thought it would be best to start heading down. Going down may sound easier but it is tough on the legs and the steep part was pretty slow . . . . Once we got back on the jeep road we began to move a little faster especially as the thunder started. Coming up the road was a family on Quads.

Let me stop and get on my soap box about motorized vehicles in the great outdoors. I am from Louisiana and certainly see the value of having an ATV of some sort to get to the duck blind or do some work around your property, BUT can it really be that much fun to just ride around on dirt road? Okay, yes I do remember having fun when I was younger goofing off on them but for me it was more the chance to drive; I didn't really care what I was driving.

Here's the deal, to really enjoy the outdoors shouldn't you be quiet? How can you hear the waterfalls and river, or the bugling of an elk, or the weird sound a marmot makes, or get to enjoy the company of your friends and family when you are revving up your engine? Park your noise maker and try walking in the woods for once.

Okay, now back to my story . . . . So as we are coming down the road a family led by Gunnin' It Granny was going up to the saddle. Dad (or so we assumed) stopped and said: "Y'all hiking?" I was so dumbfounded by the question that all I could say was "yes." It was one of those moments where we thought of plenty of things to say once we started to walk on. Did he think we parachuted in? Were we dropped off by our space ship? Did we look like we were grocery shopping (Warren's suggestion). Amazing . . . he had probably been breathing too many of the ATV fumes.

It was pretty much just a nice walk in the woods after that except for the hail, but we survived.

New Post

There is a newer post below Vacation: Voume 1. I had started it on Wednesday and finished it this morning but it kept the Wednesday date. Please scroll down to see it. More to come!

Vacation - Volume 1

We headed out on Friday the 1st fully prepared for a long day of a yelling Pickle and an energetic Ranger. I wedged myself between their car seats and settled in for the long haul to Colorado. As expected Pickle yelled a lot and slept little . . . about 1.5 hours total while her brother took a good 2 hour nap. We pulled into Cuchara right around 7pm just in time for dinner with the whole clan.













Now's a good time to explain a little about our annual trip to Cuchara and why this year is a little different. JP's family has been going to Cuchara every year for over 3o years. This is a very special place for him and he has promised that his son will not miss a summer. Harold & Betsy (JP's Dad & his wife) have continued the tradition of his parents by renting a cabin and inviting family to join them. Typically it's just Harold, Betsy, and our little family; but this year many Christensens came for a reunion and to celebrate Great-Grandad's 90th birthday. At dinner the first two nights we had 24!

Staying at our cabin was Grandad, Betsy, JP, me, Ranger, Pickle, JP's sister, her husband, and their 3 kids. We had three boys (9, 7, and 4) and two girls (17 months and 8 months).













That's our beautiful niece . . . very photogenic! Days in Cuchara are filled with eating, visiting, hiking, and reading - no TV or Wii. Ranger could not wait to play in the dirt/ mud and there was some deconstruction of the retaining wall.














JP's cousin, her husband, and their 4 kids were also there this year. They have twin 10-year-old boys and two girls ages 8 and 4. On Saturday night we had everyone over to our cabin for chili and soup and the kids were kept at bay by ice cream! That's Harold's cousin Kay in the picture with the kids.

13,480 feet

Ten years ago this August JP proposed to me at the top of this mountain in Cuchara, Colorado.

JP and his family have been going to Cuchara every summer since before he was born and 10 years ago was my first opportunity to see this gorgeous part of Colorado. We drove our Jeep to the "saddle" and climbed the rest of the way to the top where he completely surprised me by asking me to marry him. He had planned all of it and hiked all the way up there with the ring in his pocket! In celebration of our 10 year anniversary of that proposal, I suggested we climb once again. This time would be just a bit different from last time. 1) I'm 10 years older and 2) we don't have our Jeep to drive to the saddle. This would be a much longer and tougher hike than last time . . . and no jewelry at the end.

We left the kiddos with Grandad and Betsy and drove up to where we could park at the base of the Jeep road to begin our hike..
The road had been recently visited by "Bugdozer" as you can see. We made really good time getting up the road and out of treeline in under 2 hours. I felt good and my summer of hiking really paid off!













Do you see that dot on the ridge? That's a mountain goat on super high zoom. He was an awesome sight standing way in the distance and I know he was watching us as we climbed. We also saw a heard of elk traversing the mountain just down from this goat.

Once out of treeline we got off the Jeep road and started heading toward the peak. This is where it really began to get steep!



















Now we've reached the saddle on the east side of the mountain (last time we climbed from the west) and the "leisurely" stroll through the grass comes to an end. The picture doesn't really do justice to just how steep and rocky it was. If I remember correctly it was about 9:45 am at this point. I have to admit I got a bit nervous going up the last part. It felt like it was straight up and the rocks were a little bit loose in places. I scrambled as fast as I could to get to "level" spots and tried not to look behind me.
I took the pictures below as I was coming up the steep part so you can see what I'm talking about.










Scrambling to the top took less time than we imagined and we arrived on top (me first!) by 10:30 (approximately 3 total hours and roughly 2 1/2 of climbing time). Here are some pictures from the top including one of JP in some snow.

We're Back

We've been back from Colorado almost two weeks and I have thought every day about blogging but have just not had the time. It seems we have been sucked into the TV and become obsessed with the Olympics. The swimming competitions were fantastic and Ranger has become a huge Michael Phelps fan. I was really looking forward to the gymnastics but was never able to stay up to see the end of any of the events. But we sure seem to get a lot of Beach Volleyball . . . .

This past weekend we had my Dad and his wife here to visit. They stayed at the Hilton Tapatio Cliffs which turned out to be a very nice hotel. I would totally recommend it. The pool was great although a bit small compared to the kid's pool at The Princess. They actually have MANY pools at the Hilton but the one we liked had the beach-like entrance and a really fast slide. Pickle even enjoyed the pool a lot!

First Day of School - Ranger went back to school on Monday.

I promise several posts this week with many pictures from our vacation but let me leave you with just a few pictures of the kids in Colorado.

He could not wait to play in the dirt.

Look at that angelic-face . . . I LOVE my new camera!

Mickey was such a daredevil at the playground.

And one of our new friends: