Valentine's for the girls-February 24, 2017

I was so wrapped up in our Valentine's Day I forgot to share with you what we have Hannah and Zoey for that day. We got a little bit of heart shaped candy, but chose to give a big gift that we hoped would keep on giving for a while.

It's a 3 dimensional castle that has to be painted.

(Or colored pencils or markers or something).

 

We thought it would keep them busy for a number of days. They worked so hard the first day. Then they no longer wanted to paint it. But they play in it constantly. I cannot stand it only partially colored so I will have to sit down on the floor and finish it myself. I'll post a picture one day of my handiwork.

 

Our two little princess angels!!

 

Valentine's in Deadwood-February 18, 2017

Thanks to some unseasonably warm weather we were able to spend three days in Deadwood, SD. This included Valentine's Day which made the trip special along with being a business trip.

There was not very much snow in Wyoming.

 

A landmark in Newcastle, Wyoming. This is where Dana Perino

grew up. She was the press secretary for Bush 43. Newcastle was

and still is a mining town.

 

 

 

This is Deadwood Mountain Resort. It was our second stay there. We were on the top floor to the far left of the picture. Quite a view of Deadwood. No other room close to us. But the next one down the hall had "Big & Rich" on the door. We were told that John Rich of that duo owns this resort. Can't prove or disprove that fact. We like it either way.

Yes, this was a slime plant. That means they extracted gold flakes from mud. Almost the entire building was left in tact and remodeled and expanded into the resort. The inside is full of pictures and stories of the history of this building. It is so interesting.

 

 

I was given this rose when we checked in. They upgraded our room

without charge. They upgraded our status with the Rewards program to Gold.

They threw in some extra points. We felt like we had won the Lottery!

 

Then for Valentine's dinner I was given another rose. We had a fabulous dinner of steak and lobster, asparagus, baked potato and a wonderful salad. Then we had free champagne and chocolate dipped strawberries. It was unreal. What a way to celebrate Valentine's Day.

 

Everywhere we went people were talking about the weather. It was so beautiful. Crisp blue skies and nice sunshine. No need for jackets. And the clean air. No words can tell you how great it is to breathe clean air.

 

South Dakota gives in to snowmobiles during the winter months. There are places along the highways where they have designated areas where the machines are given the right of way and all other vehicles have to stop to let them cross. There were deep snowmobile tracks all over the hillsides. It was so much fun to see. We had never seen that side of South Dakota before.

 

The southwest corner of South Dakota is so pretty. It needs to be seen to be believed. We just love it there as I have stated before in this blog. It was a great trip and a wonderful Valentine's Day, one we will talk about for a long time.

 

A special picture-February 10, 2017

We kept Hannah and Zoey today almost all day. That gave us plenty of time to play all sorts of games. Hannah came up with the idea that Granddaddy was an eagle and he was going to chase them around the house. No, I don't know where that came from. He finally caught them both and held them like captives while they squealed with delight. You know what I mean. I'm glad my phone was handy because I love this picture.

Does Hannah love her Granddaddy or what?

Mountains-February 5, 2017

It has been a long gloomy spell with the weather so when we got a chance, we hit the road for the mountains. It was extremely cloudy and very cold, only 26 degrees when we left the house.

As we drove west on I-70 this was the first view of snow we could see.

It was so white it almost hurt our eyes. This is the "pure driven snow".

This was such a pretty sight.

 

 

Closer to Black Hawk the snow sort of disappeared but evidence of the cold was apparent.

Frozen Clear Creek. This was also pretty.

Sorry about the mirror showing in the picture.

And no, it is not cracked. Just a reflection of the guardrail.

 

When we got to Black Hawk, the sun was shining and it was 56 degrees! What a treat.

 

On the way back we hit fog that was moving like an animal across the highway. Neither of us has ever seen fog that moved like that. It was dense and it was alarming. The fog lifted near Denver and it started misting. As we got closer to the house Jerry turned on the wipers to clear the windshield. It was solid ICE!! I looked out and the truck was completely covered in ice. We carefully made it back safely. But five people died in that ice storm on Wednesday. We feel so blessed. It took two hours inside the garage for the ice to melt off of the truck.

 

When I think about it we had planned to stay longer in Black Hawk but I was having a really bad day so we left early. Do you think it was luck? No, indeed it was not. If we had waited later to leave our contact with the ice would have been so much worse. I call it a "God thing". My sister in law calls it a "God wink". Either way we were watched over all the way back.

 

We look forward to Spring so we can get out of the house more and travel safely.