Snowing on the weekend. Again.

nice view coming in from Strawberry Park

  It's snowing and grey and bitterly cold outside.  AGAIN.    We are snuggling inside watching the snowflakes swirl.  Except for Jenny, who is outside guarding us.  She is so diligent in her duty to protect us. Her flock.  Alerting us (quite often) to possible dangers approaching.  Adi is in her room setting scenes of life with her things.  Little pieces of pink and purple plastic intermingle with dolls, stuffed animals, ribbons and strings.  Creating little worlds in her own little universe.  Theo is in his room ensconced in his own world of technology.  Playing some game on his most prized possession: his I Touch.  I am in the office taking a break from editing and sorting photographs.  Are they even photographs if they never make it off of the computer screen?  Digital images.  Cash is graduating from Little Bear soon and I'm trying to prepare a final slide show for him.  There are ALOT of images to sort through.  And then, I really should spend some time in Quicken.  Which is always more of a chore than anything, but I always feel so much better when my Quicken is up to date and accurate. I was hoping for a warm sunny weekend, but I guess sometimes a cozy weekend inside is okay too.  Here are some of the images I've been working on:

Wet Snow Storm

Leftover from the gang of kids that smokes across the street from the High School

Melting Snow

Pet Vacation

The dog jumped off the deck today to chase the neighbor's cat.  The deck is one story up, bonehead.  I'm glad she didn't get hurt.  It's actually my Mom's dog, whom we are caring for while my Mom is out of town (for two weeks).  A few days ago it got into the puppy's food and then got sick (in a bad messy way) all over the house, two dog crates and, by far the worst, all over the interior of my car.  Yuck.

The cat spent the morning in the chicken yard, trying to hunt down a nice fat little Starling, similar to the one it caught yesterday during lunchtime, brought into the house through the kitty door and then let go to fly around the kitchen/dining area amidst our lunch.  The Starling finally ended up in Adi's room where I cornered it and got it to fly out a window.

My Mom attempted to shave the puppy, but only got halfway through before her clippers malfunctioned.  Now our matte of a puppy is a 1/2 shaved tangled mess.  He looks ridiculous.

Peep, the littlest chicken, has an impacted crop.  She spent all last week on our kitchen counter (in an animal carrier mostly).  I administered lots of apple cider vinegar/olive oil treatments with added crop massage.  I thought it was better, but upon inspection today, she seems to be "ballooning up" again.  Darn.

My Mom's dog is not only very interested in cats, but would love to chase a chicken too.  Having them both in the house, along with our cats, have proven to be very stressful.

To wrap it up, I guess what I'm saying is... I need a pet vacation!

You’re my blue sky… you’re my sunny day!

      The skiing this winter has been spectacular.  Really superb.  It might be because I haven’t had a season pass for a *few* years, since long before I became a mother to Theo, who is now 9 and Adi, who is now 7.  In my 20 and 30’s before I became a mom I was excited about backcountry skiing with my dogs.  I didn’t own a ski pass and didn’t want one.  And then, after I became a Mom, Howelsen Hill was our mecca.  We would spend every weekend over at Howelsen Hill, lugging children up the Poma and making laps through the “Bald Eagle Forest” (named after a favorite episode of Little Einsteins) and on Mile Run.  Show me a momma that lugs both of her children up the Poma at once and I’ll show you what mountain women are made of.  We are tough and tenacious.  Riding up the Howelsen Hill Poma carrying two children is HARD!  And then, for the last few years, my kids have had passes to the ski area (it’s free up until you are six) and I’ve gone a few times when I’ve gotten my hands on a free ticket.  Last year after it took Adi and I over 1 ½ HOURS to ski down one tiny little section of Vagabond (for you old downhillers out there, where the jump used to be) I enrolled Adi in the SSWSC recreational program on Saturday mornings.  She loved it so much that we did it again this year too.  And, because Adi is no longer free, I scrimped and saved and bought us all passes.  To the big mountain.  And we’ve enjoyed them thoroughly.  Everyone is finally confident enough to SKI.  And enjoy it.  Together.  As a family.  We can all have fun together.  It’s been 9 years in the making I tell ‘ya.  And now, I am reminded about how blue the sky looks riding up Priest Creek lift with the white trees all around.  Really, there is nothing prettier.  And I get to share it with my kids.  Lucky Lucky me.  Happy Skiing!

Life....

Christmas Lights

Getting the tree

Christmas season is upon us... the kids are amped up on sugar, with visions of gifts dancing in their heads.  The tree has been up in our house for two weeks, but the lights have yet to be put on.  The lights are in a lump, in the bag I shoved them in when I took them down last year.  There are MANY burnt out bulbs and entire strands that are tangled and faulty.  I can't seem to bring myself to go through those damn lights and find and replace the faulty bulbs.... the kids have been asking every night if we can light up the tree and always. always. we run out of time.  I'm tempted to throw the whole mess away and start from scratch.  But then I think of that ocean of plastic floating in the pacific and I can't bring myself to chuck it.  HELLLLP. I'm drowning in Christmas lights.  Last night, instead of untangling the mess, I drank a bottle of wine (thanks Suie!).  I drank the wine because I found a lump (!) on my left breast the other day and I've been in a bit of a panic.  I thought the wine would mellow me out.  And it did. Beautifully. :0)))))  I'm going in on Monday for a mamogram and whatever else.... it turns out that many people find lumps on their bodies that aren't cancerous.  Who knew?  I've been obsessively feeling the lump and yes, I wasn't imagining it.  I don't think I gave the proper sympathy, support and/or encouragement to my friends that have gone through the cancer battle.  I honestly didn't think it would happen to me.  Lesson learned.  Next time I hear of a friend that is battling cancer, I'll be more supportive, encouraging, sympathetic.  There is, indeed, a lump on my body. Damn!  Wish me luck on Monday!  Oh, and happy holidays (Holidaze).

Spooks

Steamboat's a pretty fun place for Halloween.  

The house to house trick-or-treat gang

Usually the weekend before Halloween, specific neighborhoods have house to house trick-or-treat.  We always go over to Toby's neighborhood for a quick dinner and then a night of fun.  

Cash and Adi house-to-house trick-or-treat

And then the local community college does a dorm room trick-or-treat which is nice because it's inside. And warm. 
 And then on Halloween everyone heads downtown for the main street festival.  It's so fun to see all of the crazy costumes, the family theme costumes..My kids are older so the fear of losing them in the crowds has lessened, and I can follow along after them from the middle of the street  watching from a small distance.  This year Theo was a little self-conscious about wearing a costume, decided to be a clown (from a funny episode of Kicken' It, which is his favorite netflix show) but didn't go all the way with it so really, he was half a clown.  Adi wanted to be a princess, but not with all that girly fluff (she's just not that kind of a girl) so we came up with being an Indian Princess... still a princess, but tough and NOT PINK.  We went with the Winn family, who moved into the neighborhood (and we are thrilled that Adi's BFF now lives a few houses away from us) who never disappoint in the costume department.  My favorite costume of the year was Morgan's cute little dragonfly (dragon costume with fairy wings added) costume.  I've heard so many complaints on the net from parents who just hate Halloween and the candy and whatnot. But it's really not about that.  It's about the family time, and the fun, and seeing the silly side of people, the creative side of people. Walking around at night. The excitement of it all.

 Ghost Toast for breakfast...

A cute little bumble bee

Darth Vadar

The fire breathing dragon

A great spider costume

With Grampi downtown

I love jack-o-lanterns.  

An Autumn Day Spent On Buffalo Pass

Leroy needs his "person"

I've recently become involved with Mountain Pet Rescue, an organization that takes dog from kill shelters in the midwest, plains and south and brings them to the Rockies to find homes for them.  This is Leroy.  We took care of him last week and think he's a great guy.  Loves balls, being around people, great with kids and off leash.  Is ready to be loyal to the core to some great person.  The only area that he didn't shine was with cats (he wanted to eat mine, or at least chase them)...  Won't you think about becoming Leroy's person?  Contact www.mountainpetrescue.org for more information!