Dinner Teamwork

Tonight, around dinnertime, Dallin was browsing my recipe book for an appropriate option for his Sunday night meal.  Ezra was nearby and noticed an intriguing recipe featuring pasta and bacon.  He had strong feelings about the recipe, and had a great desire to make it for dinner, so he and Daddy made it together!

Ezra does take an interest in cooking, but has never been so focused in the execution.  I think it had a lot to do with one key ingredient--bacon.  At any rate, Ezra was grating cheese, adding milk, stirring pasta, and sprinkling in green onions and bacon.  It was a true father-and-son effort!  I was so pleased to see his interest.  Of course, he was so proud of his contribution and soaked up the positive feedback like a little sponge.  Three cheers for Daddy and Ezra, the heroes of our Sunday dinner!

Ezra and Maren chipped in together to help me make brownies after dinner.  They each took turns adding an ingredient, stirring with their whisks, and then licking them when the job was complete.  Hooray for teamwork!

Memorial Day weekend

We had a great four-day weekend for the Memorial Day holiday (Dallin took Friday off too).  We took advantage of the time and did a new family activity every day.  On Saturday, rain notwithstanding, we took a nice walking tour of downtown Golden, had lunch in a local sandwich shop, and then took a drive on the scenic Lariat Loop byway up to the top of Lookout Mountain.  The byway has a speed limit of 20 mph, and 15 mph on the hairpin turns, and it is an appropriate speed given the great quantity of bikers who traverse the road in all sorts of weather.  At various points along our slow ascent, it was pouring rain, and these hardcore bikers were still out--and loving it.  We also saw at least a dozen deer browsing the mountainside in mother and fawn groups.  The views were fantastic on the way up, and at the summit.  Our scenic drive took us up in elevation about 1700 feet, and the temperature dropped about 20 degrees.  When we did reach the top, we dashed to the edge of the cliff, snapped a few pictures and ran right back to our car.

        

Grandpa Visit

My dad came to see us for a quick weekend visit in April.  The highlight, I think, was our visit to the Museum of Nature and Science.  The last time I went was when Ezra was a baby, and Maren wasn't born.  It was about time we went to see it again!  They have made some nice improvements since our last visit, especially for kids.  The museum now has an entire Discovery Zone wing devoted to younger children (0-8) with nice sensory activities involving water, digging, building, climbing, and experimenting.

I think, though, Ezra and Maren were most enamored by the North American animal displays and the Prehistoric Journey (dinosaurs).  I can't imagine how impressive a moose or a brontosaurus must feel when you are barely two feet tall!  Grandpa especially enjoyed the Gems and Minerals section.  We loved having a jolly Grandpa Scott at our house for a few days!

Spring Garden

Spring garden crops, in early May BEFORE we had a week of rain.  The broccoli is literally twice as big now.  Peas are already sending out their tendrils and climbing the wire trellis.  The green onions and leeks in the background survived the winter and are putting out flowers.  I hate to cut them back-- even though they getting tough--as they are covered with honey bees most every day.  I do love to support the local pollinators. 

Temple Site

On a recent Saturday we took a little road trip to see the new temple site under construction.  The Fort Collins Temple is scheduled to be completed sometime next spring, probably about this time next year.  We will be in the new temple district, so we decided to check on its progress.

The drive to the new temple will be about the same as our current drive to the Denver Temple, but the traffic route is so much nicer.  The highway is rarely ever congested, and the scenery is pleasant.  I was surprised to see the temple spire from the exit ramp!  Construction seems to be going well!

Ezra was excited to see the temple--and the building equipment.  The new temple sits adjacent to a chapel that happens to look very similar to ours.  He and I used the restroom inside the church, and then came out the south doors that look out at the temple.  It was a surreal feeling to walk out of what felt like our chapel, and see the temple on the other side of the parking lot!  Ezra noticed it too.  "Mommy, the temple came to our church!"

After our temple site visit, we spent some time in Fort Collins, which always seems to put Dallin in a peaceful, reminiscent mood as he remembers his college days.  We found a terrific park, played awhile, and had a picnic.  It was a perfectly lovely family day.

The Busy Month

Hmphf...a month has passed since my last blog post.

All I can say is spring and I have a love-hate relationship, and while I relish the newness and warmness of spring, it has a tendency to put this gardening girl into a whirr of activity to keep up.  I have to beat the heat, so all the hard labor gardening projects need to be completed before June!

Since my last post:

• I acquired a small quantity of retaining wall blocks (40 lbs each) and built another raised bed for warm season vegetables.  Yes, yes...that would be in addition to the two existing 20' beds already built for vegetables.  Sharing vegetables is one of the ways I try to be a good neighbor, and we often have much to share.
• I (tried) to solve a drainage problem by diverting water to a little runnel and then built up a short wall around it for asparagus.  The little canal has been filled in with good earth, and one year old asparagus stock was planted on April 1.  Asparagus does not start producing until it is 3 years old, but we are looking forward to that time!
• The early spring crops in the two main vegetable garden rows were also planted April 1.  This year I am trying broccoli, and so far so good!  It rained for a solid week at the start of May and has been cool and overcast ever since, so my plants are doing marvelous.  I anticipate a BUMPER crop of kale again--it is hardy vegetable even at 2" tall. 
• Our backyard is overflowing with landscape rock of the 1-2" variety, but also has an abundance of interesting boulder-size geological specimens.  I picked the most interesting ones and build another rock wall raised bed for a perennial flower garden, which is something I have hoped to plant for years.  It is in!  I selected a dozen or so of the sun-loving, long-blooming types, and hope to attract many a butterfly.
• Oh, and I forgot to mention that we brought in 2 yards of good garden earth for all the new planting beds, and another yard of well-mellowed compost for the existing garden beds.  One wheelbarrow full at a time...
• Dallin and I worked for the better part of two weeks with a pick axe at intervals (long enough to rest sore muscles) on the LAST tree stump in the yard.  At long last, the Siberian Elm stump has been removed.  Please folks, don't ever plant such a tree in your yard, especially 10" from your AC unit!
• I dug a foundation for a shed, then we brought in a yard of road fill, and then we laid concrete slabs on top the road fill, and then we built a shed.  
• We built a shed--it really needs its own bullet point.  Dallin hopes to never, ever, ever do that again.  It took 8 hours--enough said.  
• And finally, we found a very cheap play fort on Craigslist, we rented a U-haul to pick it up, we mended the poor broken thing, made a "kid zone" area and are currently in process of assembling it.  It is still in need of a several more repairs, but it much more stable and play worthy now.

Whew.  That was my month.  I have pictures, and good arm muscles. 

Perennial flower garden bed with rock wall (to the right of our back door).

Raised garden bed: future home of warm season vegetables (to the left of our back door).

Foundation for the garden shed.

Garden shed in process.