Weekend Fun

It's been a LONG time since we've attended a wedding - seems like the last few we've been invited to have all been out of state so we were unable to attend.  But last weekend that changed as we had a local wedding!!  The bride was friends with the girls through 4-H and her mom and I have been involved in 4-H for years and years............

 

Jill and the kids headed down Friday night and arrived late - Denver slowed them way down with an accident...........Robby had to work.  Of course the kids woke up when they got out of the car so we had a snack together and visited before all heading to bed!

 

I let Jill sleep in - she deserved it after that long drive - and we fixed the kids pancakes for breakfast - they LOVE choosing what they want for the "design" and Papa has fun trying to make the pancakes look like what they want - since Parker loves balls, that's what he usually requests - Glenn doesn't get to use his artistic ability too much on that!

 

 

I guess Aleah didn't make the cut this time - all my pictures are of Parker!!

Him and Aleah love to play on the pool table and even though this picture has way too much light on it, it's still cute!!  When I went down, he was just lying on the pool table holding his head up with his hand!! 

It was cool outside but we donned jackets and the kids had fun riding the bikes around and helping Papa dig a hole!!

Soon it was time to drop Parker and Aleah off at Robby's mom's house who was not only babysitting them during the wedding but keeping them all night!!

We headed down to Co Springs and the actual wedding was held in an old refurbished church - it was beautiful and the front looked out on Pikes Peak - they served champagne punch while we waited for the ceremony to begin which was delicious and we enjoyed visiting with people.  Gary and Jessi had met us there too and it was a short and beautiful wedding!

With an hour to kill before the reception at Phantom Canyon Brewery, we headed there and just hung out on another floor and visited!!

It was kind of fun to dress up as we don't do that very often!!

The reception was fantastic - open bar for the evening and yummy appetizers - a family style meal which was delicious - beautiful flowers - and just lots of fun!!

The bride, Natalie, baked and decorated all 5 layers of the cake and each layer was a different flavor - she really did a great job!!  We took lots of pictures of the "4-H" bunch and enjoyed some dancing too!

I see now that 1/2 of my pictures didn't download on the blog - oh well - such is life!!  I'll leave you with a group shot of our table - the extra couple is a Woodland Park couple who we had never met before but knew of and we enjoyed visiting with them throughout the evening!!    Believe it or not, I did NOT take my camera to this wedding but snapped a few on my phone - and finally learned how to download from the phone to the computer - pretty easy !!!

It was nice to sleep in Sunday morning with no kids!!  Jill stayed for a while and we had a fun time just hanging out while I drank my coffee - and then she was off to gather up her kiddos and drive back to Ft. Collins.  After doing the weekend laundry and chores, I decided I better start laying out clothes for the Sisters Weekend in Chicago which is coming up this weekend!!  Even though it's only 3 nights and 4 days, my suitcase looks like it will be pretty full - but what's new???  I ALWAYS overpack.............

The Bear Had A Picnic

Sounds like the name of a childrens book, doesn't it?  I only wish it was...........

 

The trash at work is getting out of hand. You see the trash company and our business kind of went round and round and bottom line is:   they pulled their dumpster almost 2 months ago!!  No problem you say, just get another company!!  Believe me I have tried!!  I've checked into rolloffs which are extremely expensive - I've checked into another company who won't have dumpsters till Oct. - and I've called another company who also isn't willing to work with us.  When they find out we deal with granite, it's a NO GO, even though we tell them we won't be putting granite in the dumpster, only trash!!

 

Bottom line is we are STILL waiting to get a dumpster from a company who claims they WILL have them in another week or so - we shall see.............But in the meantime, all the trash has been put in this outside shed and it piled up to the point that it was smelling really bad when you walked by the shed - so the guys put it on the trailer (which is also full of tear out material from installs) and covered it with the heavy stuff.  The trailer was SUPPOSED to be dumped before Glenn went to hunt - it didn't happen!!!

 

Tuesday morning one of the guys went out back to dump some granite scraps and this is what they found!!

 

 

Oh yes, a bear or bears had gotten into it - not the bears' fault, strictly ours because at this point in the fall, the bears are extremely hungry and stocking up for the long hibernation - and our trash was a prime place to root around!!

So guess who got the lovely job of cleaning it up - yup - it was yours truly as the guys were so busy they didn't have the time!!  I donned rubber gloves and headed out - I think they had clawed through and ripped every bag in there, probably to the tune of 20 white garbage sacks and a couple of big black ones.  Not only is this the trash from work, but from home!!  So you can imagine 2 months of smelly, yucky, gross food that was once in the trash.  It was all wet from the rain - it was literally disgusting...........

15 heavy duty black garbage bags later, I was DONE!!!  There was NO QUESTION in my mind that the trailer had to be dumped yesterday because everyone knew the bears would be back for another go at it!!

Luckily I can blog about it now and smile - but I sure wasn't smiling yesterday!!!

The First Of The Season

 

Snow that is - on top of Pikes Peak!!  It did turn pretty cold last night and since it rained non-stop for many, many hours,  it was no surprise to wake up to this!!  I'm sure very soon we'll have that in our own back yard!! (I took this picture out of the window at work so it's not the greatest!)

 

Funny thing is that our fall is late this year!!  Usually this upcoming weekend is our fall trip but due to a wedding and a potluck, we are unable to take the trip.  But by this time, the fall colors have peaked where we usually travel and are on the downhill side - not this year!

I finished up my "projects" that I wanted to get done this last weekend - the final closet to clean was our bedroom closet which goes way back in among the rafters!!  Why I had stored some things back there I have NO IDEA but of course they're now at Goodwill and the last box of pictures I found is all sorted and categorized!

But the MOST exciting thing to come out of cleaning that closet is ONE FULL BLACK garbage sack of CLOTHES AND SHOES that are now also at Goodwill!!  It was time to  put summer away and bring out winter - which means dragging the hang up clothes from downstairs to upstairs and vice versa and switching out the cubbies.  I sorted and sorted and just decided that I did NOT need to keep these things that I haven't worn for years..............usually I will take down a few things a year and stick them in a bag in the closet, knowing that if I absolutely needed it, it was still there!!  Not this year - I stuck it all in a bag and took it first thing this morning to Goodwill - GONE !!!!  And I feel SO GOOD about looking in my closet and not seeing jam packed clothes so tight that it's hard to even see what's in there!!

I even gave myself a pat on the back when I finished!!

Monday Morning Mayhem

It's Monday - and Glenn is gone - so you know what that means, something is going to break down at the house.................

I got up at my usual 5:45 time and donned socks and my workout outfit and headed downstairs - I walked into the bathroom on the main level and stepped on the little rug in front of the toilet and that certainly woke me up as it was cold AND wet!!  I peeked down at the hose that goes from the floor to the stool and could see it was dripping!  Any 1/2 way intelligent female knows that when something like that is happening, you turn off the valve - and that's when the excitement began.

I no sooner touched the valve turnoff and the hose flew off and water sprayed everywhere!  My mind immediately went into panic mode as this icy water is soaking me and I grabbed the hose and tried to stick it back in the other hose but of course it was pumping what seemed like gallons of water out on the floor...........

That didn't work at all - and I knew I had to get the water shut off before it completely flooded everything - so I stood up and dripping water from not only my clothes but my face and hair, raced (and I mean RACED) down those basement steps (almost knocking the graduation pics off the wall that are hanging in the stairwell) and threw stuff aside in the storage room (as there's always something in the way when you're in a hurry) and shut the main water breaker off.

And you can't believe how much water came out on the floor during that trip to the basement - the bathroom was of course flooded but it had run out onto the wood floor in front of the pantry and was about to head in there when I grabbed towels and got it stopped. 6 dripping wet towels later, I had the mess cleaned up and headed down to the laundry room to see the damage down there because that's where the water goes through the floorboards into.  (we've had one other major issue with water so I KNEW what would happen).  Sure enough, it's dripping from the ceiling behind the washer and also running into the light fixture and running out of that at a pretty good rate.  I grabbed more towels and cleaned up that mess.

OK - what to do - and at that point I thought to myself - you dummy, why didn't you turn off the valve????  Back upstairs to check on this point and I guess the reason I didn't think to do that was because the valve part was on the hose part hanging from the tank!!!  All that was left on the floor was this little white hose sticking up through the tile!

I really wanted a shower - I could do without washing my hair but a shower would be nice.  I tried to put the hose back in and kind of screw it in and it did stay - I thought MAYBE if I put duct tape on it that might hold - but of course there's no duct tape to be found so I used strapping tape.  I put a dry towel around it and decided to go for it!!

I turned the breaker back on in the basement and raced upstairs - the tape held it for 2 seconds and then it was a repeat experience of the paragraph up above..............sigh....................Now there's 12 sopping wet towels - water pouring down the light fixture again in the basement and NO water whatsoever in the house for my sponge bath.   I did have enough in a spray bottle to wash my face and brush my teeth!

After I drove in to work, I called the plumber that we always refer our clients to and told him the problem - he was out to my house an hour later and called me to tell me that there was a part missing of the hose that SHOULD have been there when the house was built - some type of clamp deal - I honestly don't remember the terminology and he asked who did the plumbing in our house when it was built?  I told him it was Glenn - so that may be something the plumber will get a chuckle out of when he sees Glenn the next time!

Anyway, the fix was extremely easy - my water is back on - and now I only have to go home tonight and wash 12 sopping wet towels!  I can live with that - because that hose could have come off AT ANY TIME and if it would have been during the day, we would have had a flooded home with thousands of dollars of damage - an angel must have been with me this morning!

According To The Weatherman...................

it's not supposed to quit raining till next week!!  By that time, we'll have to build an ark!  Seriously, it's not a pretty picture here in Colorado -  the photos I'm seeing of the flooding are hard to believe - I mean first we're so dry that we have wildfires and now the rains have come and won't stop!

Hwy 24 to Colorado Springs has been open and closed so many times the past few weeks that you have to check and see if it's even open before you head down!  Yesterday, our 3 employees (who all live in Co Springs) did not get out of here in time and the pass closed - so they all rode together in one of the guys' truck and took the back roads - I believe it took them close to 2 1/2 hours to get home over a really rough, rain washed road!!  In fact, I no sooner got to work this morning and I received the text that the road they took was closed, due to a large sinkhole.

Glenn couldn't pack his truck with his hunting gear last night because it was raining so hard - but it didn't help to wait till 4:30am this morning as it was still raining..................I don't envy him and Brad hunting in the rain!

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As we know, inconvenient things come in "3's" and I've had one a day for the last 3 days so I'm set for another year - hopefully!!!  All computer related!!  First of all I had went to a website where I'm going to mail my video tapes to get transferred to DVD's and after filling out everything, I had to print out the paperwork to enclose in the box AND the shipping label - the printer worked but it was so light you couldn't read it - ink jets were full - what to do????  We hit the help button and started reading and decided we would try to "clean" the printer, even though we had no error showing!  But it worked - and that's all that counts!!  We were pretty proud of ourselves for figuring it out ourselves and not having to call Robby!

2nd - yesterday when I came into work, all of my documents would not open - Microsoft said that I had to purchase their product OR put in my 25 digit password deal to continue on.  That problem had to go to Robby - and a couple hours later, he had me up and running!!!

Today - I couldn't print out anything off of Glenn's email account - kept getting an error and tried everything I knew.  So called Steve (employee) up to check it out - he's pretty good at computers too!!  And after checking things out, he decided it was NOT the printer, it was Internet Explorer - I should have known - this has happened before and sometimes takes a few days to get resolved!!

I'm good to go!!!

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The weekend IS MINE!!!  I'll be meeting a friend tonight to hear a speaker and doing dinner and maybe a movie with the choir girls tomorrow evening.  And I have a list of "projects" that I hope to accomplish this weekend, along with watching some chick flick movies.  Not on my list is cooking for the next week - no way - I can eat whatever I want and most of what I eat will NOT involve cooking!!

City Wide Garage Sale

 Do you think we need a new office chair for the house?   I'm trying to think how old this chair is - it belonged to a dining room set and we had that set in Arizona - and let's see, we moved to Arizona right after we were married in 1985...............gosh, is it REALLY that old??????  YES!!

Since Glenn and I had no plans for the weekend, of course we had to MAKE plans!!!  First stop - the city wide garage sale!!  I met a friend there and we all walked around to see the goodies!  The ONLY thing I had on my list was books - so of course since I had a list, there were hardly any there!!  I did manage to find 4 of them but that was disappointing...........

As we walked by a place, we saw several office chairs and then I remembered that we really did need a new chair - the price was good but I offered $10 less and they said yes!!  HOORAY - a new chair!!

The same people also had a 2 drawer filing cabinet for sale - which I had just told Glenn the week before that I needed as the one at work was FULL!  So a deal was made on that and we loaded up our things and headed over to grab coffee before we headed to Colorado Springs.

The next several hours were spent in car lots looking at trucks - and it was hot out in the Springs to the tune of 92 degrees!!!  I don't sweat much up here in the mountains but you can bet I was sweating down there..............we looked and looked and of course didn't buy anything but did get a good idea of what we WANT to buy so that was good!!

We did swing down to Camping World after lunch and looked at a few 5th Wheels - Glenn gets to pick out the truck he wants and I get to pick out the 5th wheel!!!  It was fun to peek in a lot of them but there wasn't exactly what I was looking for so that meant I wasn't tempted!!

And then it was back to looking at trucks again until 5:00 hit and I told Glenn - I'M DONE!!!  NO MORE - TAKE ME OUT FOR DINNER!!!  We ended up at Salt Grass Steak House and after a wonderful yummy drink, we had a nice dinner and lots to discuss!!

August Back-Up

 

What happened in August?  PLENTY!!

 

First of all, we did the granite in a new home in Colorado Springs that was featured in the Parade of Homes - this was a home that had burned in the Waldo Canyon fire and was a rebuild.  The house is absolutely gorgeous!! 

 

The construction company asked if all of the sub-contractors could help man the house during the Parade of Homes (which lasted for 16 days) and since Glenn couldn't get away during the week, I was chosen to help.  I worked 3 days there and was actually in the lower level where the beautiful bar was located - even though the granite in the kitchen was pretty, most people had questions about the bar granite since it was leathered, kind of a new concept!  I handed out cards and talked to many, many people during those days. 

 

Glenn and I both worked all day on a Saturday - it was constant people as 1000 people went through between 10:00 and 6:00 - we were sure beat at the end of that day!!

 

 The granite turned out beautiful all over the house but the next prettiest was the laundry room - wouldn't you like to have your laundry room look like this?

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I FINALLY, FINALLY beat Jessi at Ruzzle - this is an IPhone game that I play with her - I have played probably hundreds of games and never won because as we all know, Jessi is FANTASTIC at word games.  So I'm not sure if she just LET me beat her or if she was having a bad day - needless to say, I was VERY EXCITED that I beat her.  Probably will never happen again...........

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Work has been very busy!  We're booking about 3 months in advance and I have taken on a lot more responsibility to free Glenn up!  We have 4 full time employees now and things have finally settled down to a happy medium.  The organizational skills that I have implemented to the business are working out great and things are running smoothly - which is always a plus!  Many days I bring home files for Glenn to get quotes ready so I can email them out the next day but all in all, we've happy with the business and are thrilled we have this much work!

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I finished one of my projects that has been looming in the back of my mind for a while!  Because I'm so organized, I think every picture I have ever taken since high school was in a photo album - which meant that every time we have to pack up to be ready for evacuation during wildfire season, I had 15 boxes of just photo albums - heavy boxes!!  And of course the albums were old, some were those sticky ones with the plastic covers, etc. - and I just decided it was time to downsize!  So I bought those nice perfect boxes from Hobby Lobby, pulled pictures out for hours (and also made piles to give to Teri and Patty of pictures of them and their kids) and then placed them in the boxes according to years.  I now have 4 boxes full of pictures placed right along with my scrapbooks so they are not only all in one place, but 4 boxes will fit into one box when and if we have to evacuate.  A project that I can now cross off my list!

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The 2 businesses on each side of us are gone.  The auction house has moved to a new location and the Hydroponics store went out of business.  It feels rather desolate around here now -  but the parking is wonderful since it's only us!!

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Glenn FINALLY got the fuel pump back in the explorer - he drove it a couple of days and then it died at the bottom of the driveway.  I guess the good news is that he was almost home when it did that - but so far he hasn't been able to locate the problem - good thing we have kept that old explorer for him to drive when we need 2 vehicles. 

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And the exciting news of the day:  we are HOME this weekend with NO PLANS.  That doesn't happen very often around our house!!  Glenn has already informed me that he wants to go pickup shopping and I think I'll tell him I want to go 5th wheel shopping (I should say looking) and he actually said we might go to a movie!!!  WOW - I have been out of the loop looking at movies for ages so guess I better see what's even around and read some reviews!  I'm already excited!

Labor Day Weekend 2013

Did I miss the last two weeks of August?  I'm getting as bad as my two girls who always have to "catch up" on their blogs!  And they have KIDS along with jobs - what's my excuse??  WORK - more on that in my catch up blog!

 

Labor Day weekend arrived and we were heading to Buffalo Peaks again - but the other side!  The camper was packed the night before except for the last minute stuff - and when we arrived at work that Friday morning, Glenn told me we were closing it down at noon!!!  WOW - of course I had to SEE that to believe it!!

 

We did manage to get out of there at 12:30 - a record I'm sure - and raced home and finished packing up!!  As we were heading through Florissant, I reminded Glenn that gas was MUCH cheaper there than in Hartsel but he drove on by anyway.

 

We arrive in Hartsel and guess what???  THEY'RE OUT OF GAS!!!!  So the next 40 minutes was spent driving out of our way to another town to get gas for the ATV!!! 

 

We found a lovely place to camp and I would love to show you a picture of that perfect spot but my camera conveniently forgot to take that picture........sigh..........Just know it was off the road around a bend all by itself, surrounded by aspen and fir trees!! 

 

After setting up and then going for a quick ride on the ATV, Glenn started a nice campfire and we roasted hot dogs and ate with a yummy salad I had picked up at the store - and then it was on to marshmallows - yum!!!  And it was a good thing we enjoyed that campfire!!

 

Glenn headed to bed early and I read till my normal bedtime and then was too lazy to go back outside and bring in my night light, a solar light...........which means I did NOT sleep well - because of the close ceiling in a camper, I get quite claustrophobic, hence the solar light!  I won't forget it again, trust me!!

 

It's always fun cooking breakfast and enjoying coffee before heading out on the ATV - we hit some nice trails and even though it was clouding up, we decided to head for Weston Pass!!  Funny thing is, once we started up it, we realized we HAD been on it before!!

 

We stopped for a quick picnic and by this time, it was really getting dark out - we were just packing up when the thunder, lightning and rain started!!  WOW can that thunder reverberate in the mountains!!  We sat under a couple of trees for a while but it continued to rain and we KNOW how it can rain at Buffalo Peaks (remember the family camp out????) so Glenn donned his rain pants and coat and I put on my wonderful $1 disposable poncho and we headed out!!

Of course Glenn had the raw end of the deal as I huddled behind him!!  BUT at least he was covered in rain gear where my poncho only hit to my knees - by the time we made it back to the camper, the bottom 1/2 of my jeans was soaked, along with my tennis shoes...........and yes, that's the only pair of jeans and shoes I brought!!  We had to turn on the furnace in the camper to get warm and hung wet clothes up to dry - only they wouldn't dry because the rain went on and on and on and on..........

Glenn grilled in the rain - and then when it stopped for a little bit, he started a fire and put my shoes by it to dry them a little - but it didn't stop enough to enjoy the campfire so we were basically stuck in the camper the rest of the afternoon and evening!!

It rained most of the night - (I slept much better!!!) but by then the canvas on the pop up part of the camper was saturated and the end of our bed was wet, including the sleeping bag and sheet!!  I laid it all back so it would dry while we were gone!!

Sunday we ATV'd the other direction - it was beautiful weather as usual in the morning but pretty chilly riding and I wore 3 layers both days!!  We drove by this huge pile of what I thought was sawdust but it was actually chipped wood!!  The grand kids would have had fun playing in that!!

We saw some beautiful territory that day!!

And this is what Glenn does every so often - stops and looks through his binoculars at the mountain to see if he can see any wildlife!

We made it back to the camper just as it started to sprinkle around 2:00 - (I forgot to mention that my jeans never dried because it was SO damp inside the camper so we turned the furnace on in the morning and I held my jeans in front of it till they dried!!) -  and it never stopped raining the rest of the day............Glenn took a nap - I read - we played a game of Scrabble (and yes, he beat me by one point!!) he grilled in the rain again and I don't think I left the camper because of the rain!!  By late afternoon I was getting cabin fever!!

The sleeping bags and sheets were wet again but we just had to use them anyway and we fell asleep to the lovely sound of rain!!  By Monday morning, everything was saturated and there was no hope of it drying out before we packed up so we cooked breakfast, had our coffee and packed up all that lovely outside wet stuff and headed to the other side of the mountain!

We parked just off the highway and unloaded the ATV to head over to where son in law Brad was hunting to see if he had gotten anything yet - but he was already gone - he'd had enough of the rain too................so after another ride, we packed up and headed back home.

It was still a fun weekend but we're sure tired of camping in the rain - I guess we should be thankful we have a camper though and not a tent - because I KNOW I wouldn't have lasted long then!!