Labor Day Weekend: Sculpture Park

On Saturday we headed to Fort Collins.  The ulterior motive was picking up honey for Adam’s latest beer (being brewed as I type this), but we love Fort Collins, so we decided to make a day of it.

I broke the weekend up into a few posts, mostly because I have so many pictures to share with you!  I bought a used camera off of a friend and am having so much fun learning how to use it!

The first place we stopped after picking up the honey was the Swetsville Zoo, a sculpture park where the sculptures are made from scrap metal. 

Julia was not a fan of the metal animals… at least, not the dinosaurs.

She did warm up to the bird shaped sculptures though.  Much smaller and apparently more loveable.

Raven, as always, had a blast running around, picking up sticks, and generally wrecking havoc.

Both girls enjoyed the stream that was near the park and gave each other a little love.  Of course, this was before the hair-pulling ensued.

The girls also enjoyed picking up and throwing rocks into the water.  This must be instinctual… maybe from the days when we had to kill fish with our bare hands or something?  Why else would rocks be thrown into the water?

As always seems to happen our outings, Julia became the quiet and side-clinging one, while Raven… well… Raven got a little naughty.

This landed her a trip on dad’s shoulders.  (I guess from her perspective, it isn’t the worst place to be.)

Next up?  OBC and FCBC.

erin

Is that an egret on our roof?

We came home from church this morning and I saw a huge bird swoop and perch on our swamp cooler located at the peak of our roof.  From what I can tell it was a big grey bird with black on its wings.  I tried to take a 2nd picture and caught it just as it was flying away.  Had to post a blog with these shots taken from my iphone.  Can’t say that I’ve ever had a heron or egret on my roof before, how about you?

This is why I try to leave for work at 6:30AM

Because when I don't, it is full-on sun the whole way.



(This isn't even that bad. It's partly cloudy.)

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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Oh, yes, oh, yes... it's Packers Season again!!!

Dryer Rug

Growing up, a laundry room was defined by the rug on the dryer. I am pretty sure both my grandma and my mom did it.

When we bought our first house, it seemed logical to buy this cheap $2 rug to put on top of the dryer. I'm not sure it has a real use but it makes me feel like home.



That rug traveled to Pella with us, and tonight as I unpacked a box of towels and hangers, I found the rug. Guess you could say I'm home now.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thank you!

I wanted to post quickly to say Thank You to everyone who called, sent a card, sent a gift, sent flowers, messaged (text or FB), emailed, or otherwise said, "Happy Birthday!" to me this last Friday. What a sweet day it was to have so many people in my life send me well-wishes!

There are many of you to whom I owe a nice, heart-felt thank you card, and I guarantee that it is coming... but as it is, I'm not even sure that I can find a thank you card in my house right now. So, I thought I'd use my blog for now to say THANK YOU to everyone! And, for those of you who are wondering, no, I haven't forgotten you and I haven't lost all manners... finding a box with the right implements in it, though, is proving troublesome.

Last Friday was a great day which started out with sleeping in which was what I requested of Adam (i.e., not having to get up with the girls). He obliged and even tried to sleep in their room with them for a while when they were wide awake and crawling all over me at 6 am. (I hope they slept in longer today for him!) I spent my morning drinking coffee, eating cake, doing a few things around the house, and then at 11 am Adam and I went to the Science and Nature Museum and watched a Great Lakes IMAX movie... so neat!










Afterwards we had a nice lunch at Thai Basil and then spent a few hours browsing and buying at IKEA. Too fun!

















Friday night, after we picked up the girls, we had dinner on the back patio (sweet corn and cheddar brats/wurst). We came back inside to light the candles on the cake, since it was too windy out back for the girls to blow them out. The girls proceeded to get cake... well... everywhere.



















Later, even though I was planning to get the guest room cleaned out so that I could paint it (different post), I cuddled the girls and watched a show with them before bedtime. They thought it was especially fun to play with the camera on Mommy's phone. :)






















All in all it was a most fantastic day! Thank you so much! (Especially to Adam and my girlies!)

erin

Yeah, sometimes it feels like that...

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Prost!
Adam, das braumeister

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Happy birthday to my wonderful dad, Jeff!  He turns 59 today!

I love you, Dad!  I hope that you have a great day!

love,
erin

One Last Box to Unpack

All right, so that’s a joke, because there are endless boxes yet to be unpacked.  BUT, Adam took this picture today and it is so ridiculously cute that I have to share it with you. 

The girls LOVE to play in the oodles of empty boxes laying around our house and have made many forts and houses in the last few days.  This picture is great in that both girls are smiling and playing well together.  Imagine that. 

erin

Defining a new word…

Shawshank

[shaw shaync], Verb; shawshanked, shawshanking

1. To methodically and meticulously dispose of something big, a small portion at a time.

I invented (adapted) this word back in 2005, ten years after the movie “Shawshank Redemption” was released. (one of my top 3 movies, btw) In the movie, Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, tunnels his way out of prison over the course of several decades, the whole time he disposes of the wall material “one pocketful/handful at a time” by spreading it throughout the prison yard.   I first used the word with my wife when we demolished the upstairs of our Pella, IA home.  There was so much plaster and rubble that I could only put about 3 or 4 small grocery bags in the trash at a time…..thus Shawshanking my demolition.   Yes, I hauled a few large trips to the landfill, but there is something satisfying about sneakily disposing of “building material refuge” which isn’t supposed to go in the city trash.

Fast forward to today, we are in the midst of unpacking lots and lots of boxes and have been collapsing and folding the boxes to save space.  I highly doubt our recycling company will take all these boxes in one “go”….what is a man to do?

ps. when writing this blog I decided to Google the word “shawshank” and make sure nobody else has decided to apply another definition to the word.  LOL