Another day with the girls-April 30, 2015

Both girls were slightly better today but both still have stuffed up noses. It's necessary to change one's clothes after a full day with sweet girls and runny noses. For the most part, we had a good day and both girls were able to take a nap which they desperately needed.

Zoey tried to eat one Ritz cracker while putting another

one in her ear. I think this look says, "Oops, I promise

not to eat another one".

"What? Do you really think I would eat an Oreo?"

 

Ok, so when they are sick, they get to eat fun food that makes them feel better. That's the joy of being a grandparent.

 

After we took them home, we saw an ominous thunderhead. We turned on the news/weather and saw it was a gigantic red cell in northern Weld county. You can tell it is huge. They predicted high winds and hail. We got the wind here, but no hail.

 

 

 

 

And after the storm, God's promise.

 

 

 

We will keep both girls on Saturday, too. We sure hope they are well by then.

 

Where does the time go?-April 28, 2015

When we took Hannah and Zoey home on Saturday a drastic change in the weather starting happening. The temperature dropped, the wind starting blowing. During the night it started raining and it rained for two days.

On the way home I snapped this picture of snow falling in the foothills.

You can see we were still dry but they got plenty of moisture.

 

Both girls were sick on Saturday. Their little noses were running like crazy and I was sure it was allergies. Both of us have had a horrible time with allergies in recent days. But now it appears to be a very bad cold. They have been so sick. We still agreed to keep them today. Hannah was feeling a bit better but could not breathe. It's awful to watch little ones when they are sick. We would have called a doctor and gotten some medication for them but their parents don't believe in that. Zoey has not slept in two days so we spent today holding her and letting her rest. That did not please Hannah.

 

Granddaddy has the magic touch. They stayed like

this for 2 and 1/2 hours. Her red cheeks indicate she must have had fever.

Jerry was in pain when he tried to get up after sitting still for so long. Zoey felt a good

bit better when she finally woke up, but she still could not

breathe. If no one else could get Hannah to sleep when she

was a little baby, Jerry could do it. And she would sleep just like Zoey does now.

We're lucky he can help them when they are sick.

 

We thought last weekend would be our last nasty weather, but it seems we have more to come. It's springtime in the Rockies.

 

 

Kensington update-April 22, 2015

A while ago I asked you to pray for Kensington, a little girl from Seattle who had suffered a very serious injury when she fell out of a second floor of a home under construction. She had surgery and was in a medically induced coma. She needed prayers.

A few days later she woke up and she knew everyone in the room and she could talk. That in itself was a miracle. She really had suffered a terrible injury.

I just recently got some pictures and an update. She has been released from the hospital. She will soon begin going to physical therapy 3 times a week.

The doctors have gone from saying they had done all they could do to having hope. That's a big statement for most doctors. I suspect some would see her progress as nothing less than miraculous.

Kensington before the fall

 

 

After the fall and after being released

from the hospital.

 

She has to wear a helmet because part of her skull was removed to ease the brain swelling. As soon as everything is stabilized the doctors will replace the skull and she will not need the helmet.

 

Please continue to pray for Kensington and her family. She has a long road ahead and no doubt there will be days of discouragement. It will be tiring, too. But at the same time this precious little girl is alive and at such a young age she has lots of time to get her life on track and overcome whatever disabilities she may have.

 

Thank you for your prayers.

A fun day-April 21, 2015

Though we only got a trace of snow yesterday morning, the mountains were dumped on.

This is what we saw when we were on the way back to our place

with the girls this morning. It was so pretty. Hannah even commented

on it. This white snow comes in a very close second to the beauty of

the sugar white sands of the Gulf of Mexico. There are no other beaches

in the world like those. A must see.

 

Zoey was having a bad hair day. I tried everything I could think of

to plaster that rooster tail down. Nothing worked. It didn't bother

her so we didn't let it bother us. But we did enjoy a good laugh.

 

The hair was a little better from this view. Note the empty water

bottle in the background. She loves that bottle. I glued the top to

the bottle on the inside so it could not come loose. It makes the neatest

popping noise when she squeezes it. She never grows tired of playing with it.

 

 

Hannah prefers blocks over dolls. We have accepted that.

This is a "car" she created to carry her mew-mews around.

Four little wheels are supporting about 90 mega blocks.

Hannah will not look at a camera and smile, so we take what we can

and enjoy the laughter when she is off camera.

 

We had a fun day. Everybody laughed a lot. We played everything Hannah wanted to play. And we played with every object that Zoey wanted to enjoy. We did all start to wear out at about the same time. Still Hannah ran and hid when Mommy came to take her home. It does our hearts good to know she enjoys being with us that much.

 

We must put fun aside for a while and get busy de-winterizing that coach. We keep putting it off. It has to be done. Then we have minor repairs to make. Plus it needs a good cleaning. How an empty coach can get so dirty is beyond me.

 

On the next blog post I want to bring you up to date on Kensington, the little girl from Seattle for whom I requested prayers. She was released from the hospital on Monday.

 

 

 

 

 

A little snow-April 20, 2015

Winter just won't go away. We woke up to what is technically called a trace of snow. While it is not really an issue, it does show you how "cool" the weather is here. As I type this it has warmed up to 38 degrees.

This is the high school football field and track across the street.

As you can see this is only a tiny bit of snow. It does not prohibit

daily activities but it does indicate it is still winter. We all think

Spring is just around the corner. Or at least we hope so. This time

of year the snow is very wet and heavy and is not icy.

 

We kept both girls this weekend. We picked them up at 10:00 on Saturday morning. Zoey went home about 9:30 that night and Hannah stayed. I thought a nice warm bath would calm her down so she would go to bed. I was wrong. I gave up at 11:30 and crashed. Jerry took over and finally got her to bed at midnight. She stayed until just after noon on Sunday. We only had the strength to sit all of Sunday afternoon. We can keep Hannah for several days but we can't keep both for extended lengths of time. We are just too long in the tooth to deal with all that activity. But we still love them dearly!

 

We will keep both of them again tomorrow but they both will go home before bedtime.

 

To our friends in the South, we hope you are enjoying Spring. We think about you with all that warm sunshine!

Weather-April 17, 2015

The weather does not know it is the 17th of April so we had a day of snow and rain yesterday. It warmed up so we have only rain today. At least the wind has let up temporarily. They call this "Springtime in the Rockies".

We found a cute sand table while shopping on Monday. It worked out that it was needed on Tuesday.

As soon as Hannah saw it she said "I really like this". It kept her occupied

for most of the day so her parents could get their gardening work done.

We were in Denver. Otherwise we would have had Hannah with us.

 

 

Rain makes me so sleepy I just want to curl up on the couch and snooze the day away. But time does not permit that.

Funny picture-April 13, 2015

I had to share one more picture (no, not a travel picture) because it looks so innocent. Pictures are so deceiving.

Yes, those are gloves on Zoey's feet. She was brought outside with nothing on her feet.

It was only 55 degrees with a 35 mph north wind blowing. We were all bundled up

except Zoey's little feet. So, Jerry took off his gloves and put them on her feet. She

didn't mind at all. We then brought both girls back to our condo and played all afternoon.

 

In this picture it appears that Hannah adores Zoey. We are unsure of her real feelings because sibling rivalry plays such a big roll right now. Hannah has tried to poke Zoey's eyes out, has tried to stuff objects in her mouth, has sat on her head and body slammed her. Zoey is a tough little girl and she has tremendous volume when she needs it. Zoey is finally showing some personality so we are enjoying her more each time she comes to visit. Hannah is......well, she's Hannah and she's going on at least 16. We have never laughed as hard as we did yesterday. Hannah was hilarious. She even got to laughing like we have not heard in ages. What a fun day. It will stay in our memories for a very long time.  

 

Our little fireman-April 11, 2015

We went over to Derrick's house today. Primarily, we needed to start de-winterizing the coach. It is as much work as winterizing was in the first place. Remember when I said we thought the generator had frozen? Well, today it started up and ran just fine. We let it run for over an hour and had no problems at all. What a relief. What a blessing.

Hannah and Zoey were gone when we got there so we had free time to finish cleaning out the coach. Non critical things had been left in the cabinets. We just put it all in boxes to bring over here and we'll go through it as we get time. Then the girls came home and Hannah was sporting a plastic fireman's hat. Technically I guess it was a firelady's hat. I can remember the day you could not put a hat on her head for any reason. Now she loves hats of all kinds.

Here's our little firelady. I guess it's really not wise to take pictures

in the shade. But you get the idea. She has a spray nozzle in her

hand ready to help wash our car, not fight a fire!

 

Today was such a pretty day. The wind should return tomorrow and Monday. I wish somebody would close the door because it's always so windy here. The cars in the parking lot still have frost on them in the mornings, so Spring has not really arrived yet. Patience is required.

 

I hope your Sunday is restful and full of blessings. 

Vestas-April 9, 2015

Those of you who have been following this blog for the last four years know that I promised this would never become a political blog. I would love to do a political blog, but not on this one. Anyway, this is bugging me so I just have to say it. Therefore you are warned that I am about to say something political but promise to be nice.

 

Just a few miles from us is a company called Vestas. It is a Danish based company located in Windsor manufacturing blades for wind turbines. It appears they make both the large ones and the small ones. It doesn't really matter. When the company announced they were coming to Windsor and would be hiring lots of local people everybody was excited. Kodak had closed and demolished their enormous facility here and jobs were needed.

 

After a very short length of time Vestas was out of money. The problem with that is that the money to build the facility was given to them by the Federal Government to begin with. So actually it was taxpayer money. They still went under. So they asked for more money and it was denied. They threatened to leave and suddenly there was another huge dump of cash. They are currently up and running and it appears a large number of people work there based on the number of cars in the fenced parking lot. They had a job fair about 3 weeks ago and hired another 400 people starting at $16,00 an hour for production jobs.

 

Not too long ago they signed a contract with China for millions of dollars. Truth be told we give money to China so they can loan it back to us. Taxpayer money, right? Now they (China) are going to spend millions on Vestas turbine blades. They normally make their own. I smell something fishy in Denmark. So our money is being given to Vestas and our money is given to China. It comes back to the US in loans but is never returned to us, the taxpayers.

 

Now I ask: aren't we really the owners of those blades? I also wonder if there is really any money changing hands or is it all on paper? Fiat money? I'm not asking for any replies or comments. I am just so disgusted I had to express myself.

 

 

Most of the blades leave on semi trucks. But on this day there were

hundreds on rail cars for as far as the eye could see. The next day

there were all gone so they went somewhere.

 

 

You can see it takes several rail cars to hold one of these blades.

I am certain these are the 150 foot blades. Every blade gets shrink

wrapped before it leaves. I would love to see how that's done.

 

I have an urge to run out there and spray paint "These are mine!" on the sides of these blades. I also want to know where these were sent. No wind farm anywhere in this country is making a profit. But they are ALL propped up by the government i.e., by you and me. Doesn't it make you feel good? And no wind farm is actually green power. That's another blog post because it is so involved. Just take my word for it, please.

 

So sorry I simply had to share this with you. Our taxpayer dollars at work. I will refrain from any political comment again in the future. Or at least I will try.

 

 

 

Go Fly a Kite-April 4, 2015

Hannah had the opportunity to fly a kite today for the first time. She didn't truly understand about how to use the wind, but she still liked the colors on the kite and watching it fly. We were able to turn her loose with it only one time.

She had good control over the kite here. But the wind was strong

and gusty so that didn't last long.

For the record, the poles are for Derrick to grow hops. It is a weirdly

complicated crop so I will spare you the details right now.

 

About two weeks ago we started hiding little plastic eggs for Hannah to find when she came over here. We put colorful fish crackers, jelly beans and Dora gummy snacks in them at first. Then one day one little egg had a miniature Kit Kat in it. She savored it so much the next day she got two pieces of chocolate. Then we changed the Dora snacks for miniature marshmallows. She absolutely could not wait to get up the stairs and start hunting. She would squeal and jump up and down and shout "EGG!!" with every single egg. There was a total of 36 eggs so we had to fill only about half a dozen and the rest were just for her to find. A couple of days ago we took her home and she took Jerry's hand at the back door and asked if he was going to hide eggs for her the next day? He said he would. Then she added, "Well, then just put chocolate in them". We about fell on the floor when she said that. She was so sincere and used her sweet little voice to make the request. What a character she is.

 

We dyed eggs on Thursday. It was such a mess that I had my hands full and could not take pictures. It was still fun. This has been a great pre-Easter week for us to enjoy with Hannah.

 

I hope each of you has a wonderfully blessed day tomorrow. It's such a Holy day, a day of hope and resurrection.

 

HAPPY EASTER!