Burning

You probably already know about the fire here in Colorado Springs. 

We are fine. 

And things are better now. 

It happened so fast. I took this picture:

And then 10 minutes later I took this picture:

Eventually it looked like these photos from The Gazzette:

32,000 people have been evacuated and very few of them 

know if their homes burned or not. 

It was a terrible and exciting night. 

No one slept well.

We walked down the street to watch and found a group of

people sitting in lawn chairs quietly 

getting drunk 

as they watched their homes and neighborhood burn. 

I could not pull myself away from the news. 

Each reporter and newscaster fell into tears as they reported the destruction. 

We all watched as they cried live on the air and tried to 

comfort each other. 

There was fear yesterday. 

Fear that the fire would attack again. 

Everyone you talk to has a friend or family member who lost a home. 

Yesterday I ran errands and the fire was all anyone was talking about,

on their cell phones, at the teller station, at the gas pump, in the checkout line, 

in the dressing rooms. 

Where they were, how far it is from their home, what will happen next. 

What will happen next. 

That is the big question. Evacuees are being told to wait, they can't say how long to wait, 

to hear what has happened to their homes. 

Yesterday Ike told me that he and the boys from the Springs were fasting at 

BYU Basketball camp. 

Fasting for the fire. 

Twenty minutes after that call the rain started. It didn't rain buckets,

but it helped. 

It rained lightly off and on all day.

Today looks smokey but good. 

There are spot fires all over the mountain sides.

We worry that the wind will pick up and it will start all over again.

And we worry for Woodland Park and hope they don't have the

same experience we did.

Thanks for all your prayers and well wishes.

Be My Guest

OH! It has been so fun.

My darling cousin Kelsy stayed with us for the weekend. She was here for a wedding but we got the benefit of hanging out with her. She is truly delightful. She is the same age as Hannah so the boys (who miss Hannah) loved having her around and she was sweet and kind as a big sister should be.  We dragged her around town. Kelsy is petite and Noah is very tall. It makes for awesome pictures.

Love love love her.

Chapel at the Air Force Academy

We look like a happy family hu? Well, we are.

Soaking up the Colorado Sun at Garden of the Gods.

I have been wondering why I hate house work so much. It seems like for the last year or so I have a hard time enjoying meal prep, housework, and all the menial tasks one must do to stay on top of things. Noah is home for 2 weeks before school starts up again. Suddenly I realise that I used to save all my housework stuff for when he practiced. For hours on end I would do my boring jobs while he worked through beautiful music and I hummed along. Now that he is home I am enjoying my chores much more! I've tried listening to beautiful music on CD and that is nice, but just not the same thing as having a live pianist in the house. Not only am I serandaded all day long, I now have this amazing music stuck in my head. Noah constantly has music playing through his head. He dreams of music. Oh, so nice to have him home.

Uncle Joe!

Joe is married to my sister Emily. They and their 2 children are hip and cool and we adore them. He visited us last weekend and this is what we did in 4 hours:

Hiked around Red Rock Canyon: 

 Visited Manitou Springs where they have funky art:

Cool toy shops:

And mineral springs where you can drink the water as it comes out of the ground, naturally carbonated:

Then we zipped over to Garden of the Gods where Joe and Ike held up Balanced Rock:

Finally, after Joe had seen a few Colorado Springs highlights we headed home for tons of food and "Gentlemen Broncos" an odd movie made by the people who did "Napoleon Dynamite".

It was a great day! Come back Joe! We Miss You!

Farish

Every year our ward goes sledding at Farish, a recreation area owned by the Airforce Academy. Ike went up the night before for a camp out in the snow.

 

Noah, Jerry, Rodney, Ike. Jerry (the guy you want to be with in a crisis) organizes it each year.  

There was a foot of fresh snow which made for perfect sledding. The sledding runs were long and full of jumps. Daredevils and brave men sledded. We saw some spectacular sledding stunts. The best was when they loaded up a tube with 5 or more people. It was awesome to watch those bodies flying through the air.

The climb back up the hill is long and tiresome.

 

Of course there was a rocking horse on skis. Duh.

 

These are our fearless missionaries. They wore their name tags on their coats and you can see the white shirt and tie. They sledded and built a snowman investigator (already in white!) in their nice black dress pants. I promised I would email this picture to their moms. 

 

Ike goes into the jump.

Ike and Noah were busy sledding, ice fishing, playing ice hockey, having snowball fights, and Roland and I visited with friends. After a warm lunch of a large variety of soups, desserts, and scones (made by the Bishop) we headed off for a snowshoeing adventure.

Rosalia, Angie, Kelly, me, Kathy

I am lucky to be in a ward full of women who like to hike, snowshoe, bike, run, play hard. It seems they are always up for an adventure. Being the klutz that I am I was worried about falling, or possibly dying, on the 1 hour snowshoe adventure. But I survived and only fell twice and only stepped on other people 3 times. Snowshoeing is excellent exercise and so so pretty.

Snow Day

Five days a week I loudly open my boys' doors at 5:30 AM and cheerfully announce that it is time to wake up. Usually there is no response from their dead bodies so I jump on the bed and scratch their backs until they make some sign of life. But today we had a snow day (I know, right?) so I still loudly opened the door at 5:30, called their names and when they moved I cheerfully announced, "It's a SNOW DAY!" Their response? Noah said, "Oh mom! Thanks!" and Ike looked like it was Christmas morning .

It's gonna be a snowy winter. We have 6 snow days built into the school year and I bet we use way more and have to make them up in May.

There is a science to snow day. You have to follow a ritual that goes like this:

Night before desired snow day wear PJs inside out and:

• Spit on the back porch
• Put 3 ice cubes on the front porch
• jump on the bed
• sleep with a spoon under your pillow

It works about 60% of the time. I bet we have a snow day tomorrow.

24 Degrees!

The temperature reached a high of 24 degrees today! Wohoo! I am sipping hot chocolate snuggled up in Roland's big hoodie, sweat pants, fuzzy socks, and slippers. Everything outside is coated in ice. Roland fell on the ice twice yesterday, both times he was telling me to be careful. I'm usually the one who hits the pavement.

I took my fancy Cannon Sure Shot out to see if I could get a picture.

The entire yard/neighborhood looks like it was sandblasted with granulated sugar.

This will be the death of my petunias. Waa.


We are supposed to back at 70 degrees on Wednesday.

Old Stage Road

Roland and I went for a drive to see the fall colors in our Rocky Mountains (we feel like they are ours because they are so close to our house.) We took Old Stage Road (behind the Broadmore) to Cripple Creek. It was beautiful! But we jumped the gun by about a week. I think this weekend will be much more colorful.

Cathedral Rock Ranch - one of my favorite places.

Tunnel shot.

The yellow aspen, white bark, lush green undergrowth, and red rocks combine to make a breathlessly beautiful drive. If I had a REAL camera, rather than this Cannon Sure Shot I could have amazing pictures.

Cripple Creek at night (Not a big fan of Cripple Creek. Victor is much cooler.)

Today-bor-day is Labor Day

Hannah came home from BYU for the weekend. It's always nice to have another woman in the house. She makes us laugh and says nice things to everyone.

We went to a Powwow in Woodland Park. There were famous Indians there, Indians who had been in movies like Dances With Wolves and Last of the Mohicans. I told the kids that if we were Indians we would be Indian all the way - participating in pow wows with real fancy clothes - we would max out the Indian life. Roland would have long braids and wear lots of large turquoise rings. I would make beautiful fine pottery and paint it with dye made from plants.

Noah said he could totally get into that. But I don't think so, we saw sullen teenagers dressed to the nines, "dancing" in the grand entrance. You knew their parents made them participate.

Me and Lenord Ray. He came from New Mexico. I told him I'd send him a copy of the picture. He was the first stranger I talked to that day. Hannah and I talked, really had a conversation, with 5 strangers on Saturday. It was exciting.

After the pow wow we drove down to Manitou Springs and picnicked in the park. Long ago Manitou Springs was Hippie Central and still has a real hippie vibe. Hannah and Noah have embraced their inner hippie and I went through a macrame stage so we like Manitou Springs. We went to an art show with lots of pottery and funky jewelry. Hannah and I shared a Baklavah. Noah had his characture drawn but doesn't like it, he thinks it looks like Michael Jackson.Michael Jackson or Noah Smith? You decide.

Then we came home and ate Cafe Rio style salad/burritos and took naps so we would be ready for the balloon glow. Colorado Springs has a great balloon festival every Labor Day. The kids entertained themselves by loudly repeating everything the announcer said in a nasally southern style. It was entertaining. And it was beautiful.
On our trek back to the car we stopped at the skate park and got a great show. I've never been to such a big active skate park. Skaters were doing amazing tricks. We stood and watched for 45 minutes. It was probably the highlight of the day and even better because I captured this on video:



We topped off the weekend with a labor day dinner with Colorado Springs Smiths, Mike's famous BBQ ribs, and Mandarin Orange Pineapple Cake. Hannah went back to BYU and we miss her.

Florissant Fossil Beds

Florrisant Colorado. Adline Hornbeck and her 4 children homesteded here in the 1870's and by 1904 owned more than 280 acres and 40 head of cattle. She also served on the school board and worked at the general store.

You could spend every Saturday of the summer visiting cool places in Colorado and not run out of places to go. Last Saturday we took the boys to the fossil beds at Florissant National Monument. I missed my calling as a Geologist so I love visiting national parks that are based on rocks (Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon, Great Sand Dunes, etc.) and the fossil beds didn't dissappoint.

Wasp Fossil - Symbol of Forrisant National Monument

We started the visit with the video that showed how the fossils got there. I love national park videos. Watching the computer generated volcano flows, the paintings of dinosaurs and extinct flora and fauna gets me worked up to the point that I am ready to hike and find a petrified tree!Those 2 blue spots on the left of the picture are Ike and Noah who like to hike without their parents. The meadows and mountains are remarkably green for the first of September.
Tight spot. I couldn't squeeze through.

"Here Mom, I'll help you!"

Ike and Roland on the trail home.

One of many petrified Redwood trees - over 14 feet in diameter.

Proof that media shy Noah was with us (and refusing to smile - he just loves spending Saturdays hiking national monuments with his parents). Please note the half mast flag for Ted Kennedy RIP.

Butterfly fossil. My favorite.