Leaves-September 28, 2015

Last Friday we headed to the mountains. It was a great day to get away and take a break from our routine. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. The Aspen trees had not all changed yet so pictures were few and far between.

We had barely left home when we saw a hot air balloon landing.

Funny how the balloon looks so much smaller than the water tower.

 

Most of the drive west was filled with pine trees. The Aspen trees are higher up. After so many weeks of smoky air around here it was delightful to get to fresh air and blue skies. It just could not have been a more beautiful day.

Unlike other parts of the country the leaves here are mainly gold or yellow.

Sometimes you will see a shade of red. But there's never any purple

or orange, so fall here is not quite as pretty as other places. However,

any color is better than brown or bare.

 

We definitely enjoyed the day. We had a wonderful lunch and actually avoided the worst of rush hour traffic.

Things-September 24, 2015

Where on earth does the time go? I have a few pictures to share. But first, let me share that Zoey has started walking. She can do just great. Then she sits down and crawls. But what she does best right now is stand up from a sitting position on the floor and just stand alone in one spot without moving. It's almost like she likes how that feels. And she just grins from ear to ear. She seldom leans on anything now. We are so grateful for such a miracle and such a blessing.

I took this one of Hannah today. She was almost smiling which

she seldom does in a picture.

 

There's a little phone that came with the kitchen we gave Hannah

for Christmas. The phone rings and gives a busy signal. Jerry told Zoey

the phone was ringing. This is how she answered it. We could hardly stay

in our chairs we were laughing so hard. And so was she!

 

Little Miss Zo-Zo is sitting in Hannah's beanbag chair. Hannah

never cared for it until Zoey took a liking to it. Since I am taking

the picture I'll give you only one guess who this sweet little thing

is looking at. She adores her Granddaddy.

 

We are going Aspen viewing in the mountains tomorrow. We don't seem to get a lot of days off but tomorrow is one. We'll have the girls again on Saturday for a very long day. We hope it's not too late for nice pictures of the fall leaves. Our weather is 15-18 degrees above normal for this time of year so there should be leaves left to view. You know if there are pictures I will share them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still here-September 16, 2015

I did not realize it had been so long since I posted on this blog. We kept both girls Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday of last week. On Sunday morning we did not know our names and all we could do was sit and moan over a cup of coffee. This week we will only have them today, Friday and Saturday. That's not too many hours.

It has become our morning routine to stop at a park that Hannah calls the red park. As I have previously stated it is the nicest one we have found so far.

There are six different slides plus all of the walkways across the

top. It has two climbing walls and lots of monkey bars. It is

extremely clean and very well maintained. Plus it has that soft

cushioned material underneath which is visible in this picture.

 

We walked only a quarter of a way around this lake one time and

promised ourselves we would never do that again!!

 

We stopped at the park this morning and it was crawling with people.  We could not stay long because we could not keep up with Hannah with all the other kids around. The weather should be much cooler on Friday. Hopefully. We'll stop again that day.

 

We came back here and made Hello Kitty cookies and let the girls play. We have tried several times to get Zoey to crawl through the caterpillar. She has always refused until today. Once she went through it we had a hard time getting her to stop.

 

 

I'm so sorry I had my finger in the way. I had only a split

second to take the picture because Zoey was traveling like the

speed of light.

 

We absolutely love being with these little girls, but they are exhausting. We sometimes regret that we married so late in life and so did Derrick. But we are all here, happy and healthy. We are blessed and have so much to be grateful for.

 

 

 

 

Overnighter-September 7, 2015

Hannah spent the night with us last night. We had not planned on that but we were happy to have her. We went out for a quick bite and then checked out a new park. We are soon going to be park experts in this area. This particular park was fantastic, the best we have found so far. It was huge and it has a lake which we didn't need but it was still pretty. Hannah connected with a little girl named Capri who appeared to be a couple of years older. She was with her dad who was very nice. Hannah and Capri decided to play hide and seek. That meant wildly racing up and down ladders and slides and over a swinging bridge. I was exhausted following them around.

This one also had that padded foam floor which seems so much safer.

Even I love to walk on it.

 

As usual we had a tough time getting her to go to sleep. She just wants to keep playing. Finally she went to sleep but we didn't. It makes us nervous that she will forget she is not in her own bed and fall out of ours or that she will wake up and forget she is in our house and get frightened. Maybe we are being silly, but we just can't relax. She woke up this morning and I made pancakes. She loves to stand on a step stool and watch them cook. I dread the day she asks to flip them.

 

After that, while I cleaned the kitchen, she and Jerry played in the "rain" in her bedroom. She made him put a blanket on his head so he wouldn't get wet. It was so funny. I couldn't figure out how to take a picture without interrupting the fun. Later she decided her mew-mews needed a bath. So, she put them in the sink in her kitchen and scrubbed them. Then Jerry had to dry them. So when my turn came I decided to build a cat dryer/fluffer. Hannah did not get it at first but loved it when I showed her how it worked. I am not an engineer but I did get something built.

 

 

Here's Shadow emerging all dry and fluffy. Then Blackie threw

mud balls at him and we had to do it all over again. Hannah's

imagination is something else. We just go along with it.

 

We took her home this afternoon, came home and crashed. Oh my we are so tired. But we'll be fine tomorrow.

 

This is how we spent our Labor Day. I hope you had a good one.

 



A park, a rainbow and you won't believe it-September 4, 2015

We had the girls yesterday and will have them again tomorrow. We did take them to a nearby park yesterday for a little over an hour. This is the only park that has slides and swings. We need both to have fun. I think the last picture was of Hannah so here's one of Zoey.

I did not realize how long I had pushed the swing until her head

flopped over and she hit her head on the swing. She didn't fuss.

She loves to swing for hours. And as long as my back will hold

up I am happy to push the swing for her.

 

While Zoey has been slow in her development, we have actually been very excited by the progress she has made in the last two weeks. We can see a change in her every time we pick her up. She is the happiest little thing. Well, she's not little. She is in the 90 percentile on all of the marks where she is measured. But she is very active and appears to be very healthy. She makes us feel good to be around her. Derrick says she fusses all the time for them. She never fusses for us. She laughs and sings and plays. Her joy is infectious. Hannah is still struggling with a very bad case of sibling rivalry and we don't know how to handle it very well. It scares us when Hannah hits Zoey or knocks her down. Somehow we will get through it. I am open to any suggestions anybody has.

 

After we took them home, much to our surprise we backed out of the driveway and there was a gorgeous rainbow. We could see the whole thing from one end to another. When we got home one half had disappeared but one was extremely vivid.

 

This was taken from Derrick's house.

 

This was taken from our balcony.

 

Yes I know that rainbows have taken on a different symbolization than they used to have. But I prefer to think they are a sign of hope from God.

 

Later in the evening some teenagers played a prank in the high school parking lot across the street. 

 

This is the best I could do with an iPhone. Look closely.

Those are Post It Notes. Three or four kids covered this black

pick-up truck with Post It Notes. They worked very fast. Then they added foil

fringe hanging out all of the doors. And last but not least, they blew up balloons, BIG

balloons, for a long time and forced them into the cab of the truck. I am sorry but

it really was fun and funny to watch. The owner did not get back to his truck until

all of the athletic activities were over about 9:30 last night. In a very short time

there were about half a dozen cars shining their headlights on this truck. It had to have

been a time of great laughter for everybody. Surely he pulled some of the notes off before

he drove home. It's probably posted on the internet somewhere. Oh to be young again!

 

Who knows what tomorrow holds with those two girls? Will keep you posted.