Labor Day Weekend: City Park

Really, I should be titling these, “The Saturday of Labor Day Weekend”.  I told ya I had a load of pictures.

While the girls were still napping, we drove to a new brewery in Fort Collins.  Forgive me, I don’t know the name of it, Adam didn’t think the beers were that great, and I sat in the car anyway because the kids were sleeping and I will still working off my buzz from the previous places.

After that, I decided we should go to a park, and we found City Park in Fort Collins (funny, I was in two different City Parks this weekend… today we were at City Park in Denver).  The girls had a great time and Adam and I tag-teamed them (while the “off” parent got to sit in the shade at the picnic table).

erin

Labor Day Weekend: OBC & FCB

What is a trip to Fort Collins (or anywhere, for that matter) without a few brewery stops?

Our first stop was Odell Brewing Company, and before heading in, we allowed the girls to play a little bitty outside.  Little does Odell know that their bike racks make good jungle gyms.

Odell also had quite the number of grasshoppers jumping around, so Adam took a few moments to show the girls some grasshoppers, and even got Raven to touch a very dumb one.

Both Adam and I enjoyed a flight of beer.

Raven and Julia enjoyed the complementary water.  (You can see why we needed a mop.  Twice.)

Uh, oh!  Someone is getting sad and HUNGRY! 

Julia says, “Let’s head over to Fort Collins Brewery!”  (Or maybe she said, “Let’s get some CHICKEN!”)

So off we went.  We ate at Gravity 1020, which is the restaurant connected to the Fort Collins Brewery.  Seeing this place was amazing, as I remember both Odell and FCB being much, much smaller!

I tried their Chocolate Stout and drank a bottle of their Vanilla Bean soda.  Adam also tried some beer.  While we waited for our food, Julia pretended to be the Little Mermaid and Raven played with a napkin on her head.

Adam and I enjoyed the food a bit, and I had my first ever Polenta Fries… yum!  Three is WAY too many, though!

After lunch, it was naptime for the girls (and Daddy too), so Adam dropped me off at Lambspun, conveniently across the street from FCB, and I shopped while Adam took the girls for a drive to get them to fall asleep.

erin

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.)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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