Wild Horses and Wine Tasting

 Thursday morning found us walking the cemetery again before we headed to the grocery store!  I wanted another coffee from Moka's so we went through the drive in and I got my coffee fix!

Today we headed to Lindsborg, which is a small Swedish settled town with the cutest herd of Wild Dala Horses!  They're a Swedish handicraft item and the main street of town has these charming wooden tailless horses!  Early Swedish loggers would whittle tiny Dala horses for their kids during the long winters!

Joleen and I walked the streets of downtown so we could see several of them - they were sure cute!

We went into an amazing Swedish gift store - gosh they had cute things!  And then took a quick walk on a trail - this bridge is lit up at night and would have been fun to see then!

We headed back to Salina and went to the Smoky Hill Vineyard and Winery!   Our host was a wonderful gal who was fun to visit with!  I like the sweet wines and Joleen likes the drier wines so we both had our own selection!  I ended up buying a bottle of the River Valley Red!

After a couple of errands, we headed home - took another walk - ate a delicious dinner - and then watched a movie with some popcorn!

I headed out early Friday morning for my journey back home!  What a wonderful trip to see Jo and experience "Kansas".

Road Trip With Jo

 Joleen has a dog named Molly so I enjoyed our early morning walk through a huge cemetery  - it has nice walkways to walk on and several paths you could take!  And how fun to see all of the blooming flowers around!

We met Jo's daughter Becca at Moka's for coffee - hooray for not having to wear a mask in!  It's a busy place but we found a table and I had a great coffee - it was fun to catch up with her!

After coffee we headed home for a quick lunch and then went to the neighboring town of Abilene!

We toured the historic Seelye mansion which was built in 1905 for a cost of $55,000 back then - can't imagine what that would be in today's market!!

The owner of the home (who lives there) greeted us and took us on the first part of the tour!  He purchased the house from the two daughters of the original owner - and he allowed them to live there until they died!  Neither one had married and they both lived to be in their upper 90's!  The house was completely remodeled but retained all of the original furniture!  I LOVED the library which was filled with many, many books and a lot of them were first editions!

Most of the rooms still had the original Edison light fixtures and it was so fun to see all of the beautiful furniture from the early 1900's - a lot of it had been purchased at the world's fair in 1904.

We enjoyed hearing our tour guide play the beautiful Steinway grand piano AND an old pipe organ!

We toured all 25 rooms, 11 of them bedrooms!  And there was even indoor plumbing put in when the house was built - yes, they had money!

Down a beautiful circular staircase off the dining room was this bowling alley!  I guess after a meal, the men would head down here to bowl and smoke their cigars!  So many details and stories were provided by the elderly sisters before they passed on and now the current owner passes all of that down to us - pretty cool!

We were each allowed to "bowl" and throw 3 balls - the balls of course were much smaller and were made of wood!  

Along one side of the bowling alley was a HUGE collection of nutcrackers!!  WOW - you could sit and stare at those for hours!

It was a wonderful tour and if you're ever in the area, stop and take that tour because it was well worth the cost!

After walking around downtown a little bit, we headed back home to relax and eat dinner.  Becca's son Kayden was bowling that night so we went to the alley and watched him - he's an excellent bowler and it was amazing to watch him get 7 or 8 strikes in each game!

A wonderful day with an awesome friend!

Kansas Bound

 It was definitely time to go to Kansas to visit best friend Joleen!  She comes to Colorado about every 2 months and always stays with us while she visits her son and grandson, but has wanted me to come back out for a long, long time!

And what I needed to do was to just put in on the calendar and GO!  Glenn had decided he would go with me and take the boat to fish at nearby lakes, camping at wherever he was!  It was a good plan and he spent hours and hours on the computer finding what lakes to fish and downloading articles, etc etc.  But about 2 days before we were to leave, he decided it just wouldn't be worth it because the weather showed rain every day in KS - and we all know how much fun camping and fishing are in the rain.!

So early Tuesday morning I headed out by myself on the 7 hour drive to Salina in the mist and the rain!  It wasn't a fun first 2 hours because of the heavy rain and fog but I made it to Limon where I stopped for a bite of breakfast and from then on, it was just a little bit of rain!  I had brought many old CD's to play in the car and that sure made the drive go a lot faster!  

There isn't a lot to see on the way since you're on the interstate but I definitely noted how GREEN Kansas was as opposed to Colorado - with all the cold weather, snow and rain we've been having, it still feels like the tail end of winter!  So the greenery was fun to see!

I made great time driving as I had brought my lunch with me to eat in the car but I did stop a couple of times at rest areas to just walk around which helped my back a lot!  And seeing how I am so directionally challenged, I made sure to put Joleen's address into my car navigation so at least I wouldn't head the wrong way on the interstate - ha - I'm not really THAT bad!

It was great to pull into Joleen's house in town and get out of that car - we took a tour of her house and garden - she definitely has a LOT of plants and flowers growing (which looks like way too much work!) and we stopped over at "Grandma's" place and visited with her and then looked at the huge garden that Joleen plants and tends to!  No wonder when I call her, she always says she's working in the garden!

We headed to a Mexican place for margaritas and cheap tacos for dinner - Taco Tuesday!  It was definitely a "Mexican" place as you can always tell when the workers don't speak a lot of English - great food and drink!

After dinner we did the walking sculpture tour downtown - they have sculptures brought in each year and you can vote for your favorite!  This longhorn bull was amazing!

And I especially like this one entitled The American Farmer - reminded me of Iowa!

And we couldn't leave downtown without each buying a HUGE slice of cheesecake at this place!  I took a picture and sent to Jill so she could show Robby!

I chose the regular cheesecake and had the gal put raspberry topping on it - Joleen chose kit kat!  We both made pigs of ourselves that evening and each ate our entire piece!  I think we both suffered from that the next day!  I woke up in the middle of the night and had heartburn and Joleen didn't sleep well either!  That'll teach us!!

Mothers Day

 What an honor it is being a mother to the best 3 daughters in the world!  I don't always get to spend the actual day with all of them but I know they're thinking of me!

Jaime had actually brought me an "extra" Mothers Day gift a week before the day - she knows how much I  LOVE coffee and gnomes and here is the result!

They look darling included in the coffee display on top of the refrigerator!

I had decided I wanted chocolate covered strawberries for Mother's Day so that's what I made, with even a few chocolate covered banana slices!

Jaime had told me she was coming over for coffee on Mother's Day, but then later invited us over for steak and shrimp dinner so figured she wasn't coming for coffee!!  But she texted that morning saying she WAS still coming for coffee!!  I was totally surprised when she walked in with a cup of my favorite special coffee from Human Bean in town, along with caramels, cookies and cinnamon rolls!!  Talk about sugar overload!!!!  It was way too cold to sit outside so we enjoyed our coffee inside!

Later that afternoon we headed to Jaime's - the kids came up too so it was fun to see them!  Kylan had taken a ball to the face on Saturday during his soccer game so was recovering from a concussion, hence the sunglasses!

And did I remember to take a picture of Jaime and I, or our fabulous meal or anything else???  Nope - I took a picture of all the dogs lined up on their beds!!!  HA!

We had an excellent meal and enjoyed visiting with everyone - what a special Mother's Day!

Finally to Ft. Collins

 It was FINALLY time to head to Ft Collins so we could see Jill, Robby and the kids - we hadn't seen them since we'd been home from Mexico!!  And we wanted to make sure it was on a weekend where we could see Parker play flag football!

In the meantime, Glenn had bought a kayak (which will be Mexico bound come next Feb.) and he wanted to try it out at Aurora so we headed to Jessi's house on Friday - Glenn dropped me off and went fishing and I hung out at Jessi's place until it was time to walk to the school and pick up Gwyn - she was thrilled to see me!!  And I was thrilled to see her again!

Glenn cooked fish for dinner (good thing he brought frozen fish as he didn't catch any!!) and Jessi cooked a couple of sides to go with it!  Gary had asked what he could do so Glenn told him to go out and fill the deep fat fryer that we had brought with oil and plug it in!  About 15 minutes later Glenn went out to put the fish in and realized that Gary had put the plastic lid back on it while heating it - the plastic lid had melted down into the oil and oh what a mess - oops!!!  Gary admitted that HIS fryer has a different type of lid  that you DO leave on when it's heating and cooking - oh well, they got it all cleaned up and started over again and eventually we ate!  Luckily Jessi had a pyrex lid that fit the fryer so we at least have a lid to still use!

It was a nice evening with the Keppys and we were up early and out of there to get up to Ft. Collins by 8:30!  It was wonderful to see everyone up there and to meet Penny, their not so little puppy anymore!  Penny still likes to jump so I was quite cautious around her for awhile but eventually we became friends and she slept beside me on the couch when we watched TV!

We headed over to the park where Parker was playing and enjoyed watching his game - it was quite a walk to the field but it felt good to walk and get some fresh air!  Oh, and the weather was gorgeous - even almost hot!!

We enjoyed the game in the wonderful weather - Jill had to get to a bridal shower so the rest of us rode with Robby (they had brought 2 vehicles) and the kids and I enjoyed playing games.  After Jill got home, we decided to head to Windsor to watch Evan play basketball!  Here we are walking back to the car after the game.

Jessi snapped this picture before we left!

The guys worked on a multitude of projects during Sat. and Sunday - Jill and the kids and I did church on Sunday morning and then dropped the kids off back at home and we headed to get coffee!  Because it was raining out, we just drove to the park and sat in the car and talked for over an hour!  It's always good to catch up with your daughter!  After a quick stop at Kohl's, we headed home for an afternoon of cards and games!

Parker just can't decide if he likes that hand or not!

Papa and Aleah goofing off during SkipBo.

Robby did an excellent job of cooking baby back ribs and chicken for dinner that evening - yum!

And then it was time to celebrate Mother's Day!  Once again, a beautiful printed book of my blogs - the perfect gift year after year!  THANK YOU GIRLS for this awesome gift!

Monday morning it was time to head back home - I had a dermatologist appointment in Co. Springs so we were hoping for decent weather to drive in but that wasn't to be - between Castle Rock and the Springs it was snowing hard which made for a miserable drive - but at least I made my appointment!

Thanks Robby and Jill for a great weekend!!

Sports, Sports and More Sports

 Glenn and I are both excited that the 3 grandsons are all back in sports - it was a LONG year without seeing many games and we're thrilled that they're able to play again!

First up is Kylan who plays soccer!  We went down over a week ago to Co Springs and watched him play - this kids has not only GROWN but has improved a bunch!!  It was great to be outdoors and watch him!

Next up is Parker who is in the 4th grade and is playing flag football!  We were in Ft Collins this last weekend to watch him play - he's all smiles when he plays and is great at pulling those flags off!  He has a much better understanding of the game now and is quite the player!

Last but not least is Evan who is playing competitive basketball - he happened to have a tournament at Windsor which was only a 15 minute drive from Jill's house this weekend so we drove over to watch him play!  He has improved considerably and is one of the best defense players on the team!  

What a fun couple of weekends watching the boys play their sports!