6-19, Father's Day

Hopefully, and I think, Sven had a nice Father's Day.  We enjoyed a morning at the Parker Farmer's Market and a visit to Castlewood Canyon State Park in the afternoon.  We still find it so amazing that we live in such a beautiful area of the country.  This State Park is only 10 minutes from our house!  Between the afternoon sprinkles and an evening tornado watch, we were able to enjoy a few hours in the great outdoors of Colorado.  

We wondered what that cave way up there was!

Hello, little friend!

Wait....are we in AZ or CO?!

On our little hike, we noticed the brilliant clouds over the hill.  Come to find out those brilliant clouds were tornadoes brewing to the east and clouds that brought thunder, lightening and hail during the overnight hours.  Little did we know.....!

Happy belated Father's Day to all you dads out there!

6-18, Dinner Guests

We were so pleased to have our FIRST dinner guests on Saturday night.  Not only do they get a prize for being our first guests, but they also get the prize for having come the farthest!  Aunti Patti is "Pittsburgh Dad's" sister who lives in Norfolk with her husband Allan.  They were here visiting family and were kind enough to take time out of their busy schedule to visit us.  It was a pleasure for Sven and I to host them as they'd always been so gracious opening their home to us during our travels while living back east.  It was a beautiful summer evening and we thoroughly enjoyed their company.  Thanks, Patti and Allan, for the visit!!

6-18, Home Run!!

A Saturday baseball game-- what a concept (we're not too pleased with all but this game being on Thursday nights -- and quite late some of them).  We were so happy to have a regular, day game!  And what a difference an energetic team can make!  See for yourselves.....

almost pro now!

 Nikolas and his team.  Nik is the one in the back with the sunglasses on (if you couldn't recognize him!).

And as I gave this away in the post title, look at our little slugger!!

6-11, Airport Open House

Not exactly an air show, instead it was the "Centennial Airport Open House".  It felt familiar....but not quite.  Airport, airplanes, runways.....the boys were quite happy.  The open house was a much smaller affair with civilian jets intermingled with military ones.  The highlight was definitely the B-17 Bomber.  (Yes, similar to the one that crashed last week somewhere in the midwest.  It's definitely a dwindling fleet of these giant beasts with less than a dozen still in existence.)  They were charging for rides in it.....at a ticket price of $500 per seat!  So, we enjoyed the view from the ground for a grand total of $0! 

Really....they were quite happy-- the picture just doesn't reveal it!

Now if Sven were at home instead of at work, I'd get the lingo right.  He's not so I'll struggle with the words to say something to the effect of 'look at the dummy in the back of the plane!'

Future aviator?  This kid's going straight for NASA!

See- NOW they're really happy!

LOVE it!

The wrong era perhaps, but this jeep reminds me of M*A*S*H!

No Blue Angels, but I guess we've already seen them plenty of times!

6-9, Yardwork

My original idea for this post was for 'before' and 'after' photos of our project in the backyard.  As we are learning, no project is finished in one day....or one week....one month....you get the idea.  So, I decided to post the 'before' and 'middle' photos for this project.  As you can see, we had an enormous shrub off the back deck of the house.  It's pretty much all you could see out the kitchen window.  It had, for quite some time, grown to rule that section of the yard.  God help you if you lost a baseball in it while playing catch with Nikolas.  Master Gardener Sven decided it was time to go.  Sure, no problem.....HA!    

View from the back deck.....

View from the backyard....

When Sven says "it has to go"....he's not fooling around.  He and Nikolas hacked away at this thing for hours.  They finally made it down to the roots....

Yes, he got a work-out in this day and didn't even have to go to the gym!

But, he prevailed and conquered that shrub.

Oh gosh....what have we done.  LOOOOK at this mess!!!  We were longing for the good ol' days in MT where we could have piled it up in the back field and set it ablaze.

Nope.  Wasn't looking any better from this direction either.  (Please disregard the rabbit hutch in the middle of the yard.  We were hoping little Rascal would enjoy the great Colorado outdoors as much as we have and intend to, but no such luck.  Foxes, and now a mountain lion, roam free in our neighborhood so poor little Rascal isn't allowed that same freedom.)

Nikolas thought the piles of limbs were just about the best playground/fort ever!  Mean mommy and daddy made him take a nap because he had a late baseball game that night.  He refused to leave his 'fort', so he dropped where he was for a little (and I do mean little) siesta.

As you can imagine, it wasn't fun cutting all of those branches into 3' sections, piling them up, twining them together and hauling them to the curb for the poor trash men.  BUT, we did it!  I didn't need to go to the gym that day either.  =)  There's something to be said for a little hard work!  Stay tuned for the flower/herb bed that will 'soon' occupy that space.....but don't stay tuned too closely.....it might be awhile.  =)

6-19, 8-month old Abby

Doesn't she look like a mischief-maker?!