Friends at Eagle, CO

 Although we've known Del and Linda since the 2nd time we headed to Spa Buena Vista, Mexico, (they were our neighbors), we've never visited them during the year, even though they're not that far away!

This year they invited us to their place so we planned a couple of days to head up that way!  It's only about 3 hours to Eagle and we had a lovely drive up there!  It was great to see them and where they lived!

After settling in and lunch, we all took a drive up to Sylvan Lake - we felt right at home up in the mountains!

The lake was gorgeous - but it's quite a bit warmer there than at home!

See the sailboat in the right side of the picture?  It was a gorgeous spot!

We enjoyed yummy ribs for dinner that night!  And then decided to do a campfire!

They have a beautiful house on 5 acres with a lot more vegetation  than we have!  Linda has lots of pretty flowers on the small hillside up to the fire pit!

After dessert of cheesecake with fresh fruit topping, we were SO full when we headed to bed that I didn't sleep good at all - way too much GREAT FOOD!

School Kids

 The grand kids are back to school!  Some started much earlier than others but they're back in the swing of things again!

Gwyn is 6 and will attend 1st grade!

Parker is 10 and going into the 5th grade!

Aleah is 12 and is going into 7th grade!

Kenzie is 12 and headed into 7th grade!

Kylan is 14 and is in 8th grade!

And Evan is 14 and is a freshman!

Rayna and Matias are taking a year off from college and hopefully will be attending next year!

Have a great year!

This 'n That

 I warned you that the first couple (or more) weeks of August didn't have much going on so there wouldn't be much use blogging - and that's exactly what happened!  We did seem to keep plenty busy although nothing note worthy to blog about!!

Glenn is tackling 2 of his major projects for summer!  I had decided that I was tired of the square pavers that we used on our front patio below the porch.  So I told him let's get some concrete poured with a little color in it!  Of course Glenn never hires out anything that he can do himself so he is tackling the job all on his own!

He's actually got a lot more done since I took that picture!  He pours a couple of the slabs a day and adds the color!  I think he said he'll have 30 of those slabs when he's all done!  It's sure looking nice!

Glenn also made the decision to sell our old pickup!  We've been paying insurance and tags for years and he hardly drives it!  It was his decision - not mine!  But I will be glad when one less vehicle is sitting around the property!  Because there was a dent in it, he has taken off the back and repairing that!  Also the paint was coming off the hood so he took it off and sanded it all down and repainted it - it looks really nice now!

City Market was having a sale on sunflowers - all of these for $4.00 - I couldn't pass it up!

And the deer are finally starting to come around again!   Not sure if we'll ever have a buck whose antlers were as big as the one a couple years ago but this one has got a nice start!

July Photo Dump

 July is officially done - August has arrived - and I'm FINALLY caught up with my blogging!  With the calendar looking kind of sparse in August, I have a feeling there won't be as many blogs!

Jane and I went to the melodrama in Cripple Creek one afternoon - as always, it was great!

Glenn's been reading up on ebikes - discovering that they should be the perfect bike to take hunting as they're not loud!  He ended up buying 2 - one that the batteries don't work (so he's been trying to figure out how to build a new battery set for it - another project that keeps him busy) and the other one that works just fine so he's enjoying riding it around the subdivision.  However, now he's discovering that a lot of the national forests do NOT allow ebikes - so he's scratching his head at that!

We've only had 1 hail storm so far this summer - it was very small and didn't do any damage!

Glenn's greenhouse is doing excellent this summer - he sells lettuce to Mountain Naturals in town (an organic store) and also to the restaurant in Florissant!  Right now he's behind because he can't grow it fast enough!

I'm not sure what else is growing in this patch besides lettuce - but I do see a flower!

In other news, I got a new IPhone 12 so am pretty excited about that!  After seeing how much better the girls' pictures were, I decided I needed to upgrade as I had an IPhone 7.  I was proud of myself as I did most of the switching of the phones on my own with a little help from Jessi!  Glenn took my old phone so got his switched around also - I'm anxious to take some pictures now!

South Slope Fishing & Camping

 Isn't it funny how sometimes you just don't see and hear from friends for a long time and then all of a sudden there is contact between you and them?  And you pick up right where you left off the last time you saw them!  Such is the case with Dave and Leslie - they actually met us a couple of times in Los Barriles and we went ATVing with them and shared several meals and happy hours!  But with Covid basically the last 2 years we've been in Mexico, we just hadn't reached out to them!

So when they called and Dave wanted Glenn to go fishing with him and the 4 of us to camp together, we said of course!  South Slope Reservoir is over off of Gold Camp Road - a place where we used to camp when we first moved to Colorado - it's beautiful over that way (not far from us - on the road to Cripple Creek) but it seemed to get really busy so we just stopped going over that way.

South Slope is an online permit only to get in the gate and only 20 cars a day are allowed in - Dave made reservations for a couple of days (although Glenn only fished one day with him) and we headed over this last week!

I had forgotten how bumpy and narrow that road is - many places it's only one way traffic and we were pulling the 5th wheel!  A little harrowing at times!

I had talked to Leslie about meals but Glenn had talked to Dave about fishing and the camping - but as guys do, they never talked about what Dave was driving now or what kind of camper they had - hmmm!  There are hardly any campsites up in that area so we went to where we thought they might be and they weren't -  we pulled off the main road on a very rocky, rough road - pulled in across from a larger camper and the guy came over and said he was leaving so we could have his spot - we thanked him and said we had to check one more place before we would come back!

So we headed up even more - I think I failed to say that it is a steep, steep hill to get up to the gate where the lake is - we even had to put the truck in 4WD to make it up the hill.  They were not up there either so we went back down and parked in the guys' spot and it was a nice spot in the trees with the rushing stream just a little ways over!

After we set up, Glenn unhooked and we went looking for them - found them right towards the bottom of the road and we wouldn't have fit into their spot anyway so it was a good thing we took that one spot!  Decided it was no problem to just meet for happy hour and dinner together so that's what we did!

They came up the first night and we went down the second night!  It was fun catching up with them and eating some great food together!

Here are a couple of pics of the stream - so pretty!

And here's a toast to the four of us!

Glenn enjoyed a full day of fishing (catch and release) with Dave - I got a lot of reading in and enjoyed some down time!  We headed out Sat. morning early - hoping to miss the traffic on that road - NOT!  We ended up meeting 2 cement trucks - oh my - there wasn't room to pass and what an ordeal trying to get around them!!  I was a nervous wreck - and decided then and there we were NOT going to camp in that area anymore - we're just too big and long with the 5th wheel on that narrow road!

Colorado

 Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE living in Colorado, especially in the summer and the fall?  My favorite part of the day is morning coffee on the front porch!  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, my front porch, just sitting there in the quiet and drinking my coffee - reading - looking at Pikes Peak - and just enjoying the scenery!

Once again, Glenn has grown some beautiful flowers in pots that I get to enjoy, along with my fountain!

What a cool cup!  I LOVE this cup when I do just a regular cup of coffee!

The front porch - just a great place to relax!

Off to the side is our new swing!  And soon to be, new concrete poured and the square blocks taken up and moved to the back side of the house - I can't wait!!

My view in front of me also includes this tree which holds one of our hummingbird feeders!  I tried to get a picture of a hummingbird but ran out of patience - ha!!

This is just our pathway over to our neighbors' house - we've worn a path!!  And this summer we've put solar lights on the path to light the way!  Great neighbors - great friends!

Loving every day of our summer here in Colorado!