Life on the High Plains

The weather forecast last night said we were going to have flurries.  Imagine my surprise when I went out to feed the horses at 5:45 a.m. and this is what I saw. Flurries?  Really? This is the biggest snowfall that we've had all year--about 4-5 inches. The best thing about spring snow-- it's heavy and wet, and it's gone by the time I come home from work. As long as we don't have spring snow on May 21st, Jillian's wedding day, I'll be a happy camper. Only 52 days to go.

How cute! Even more cute! I had fun with my new lense at the San Diego Zoo. We not only enjoyed all the animals, we enjoyed all the flowers too.  Everything is still brown in Colorado so it was a treat to see all the colors. We're off to spend our last day at Disney today.  Hopefully we can convince Mr. Beans to ride Magic Mountain.  Tomorrow we have to go home. :(  I'm sad.

I thought we were going to Lego Land yesterday, but instead we ended up in San Francisco. Las Vegas New York We even made a stop at the Hollywood Bowl Mr. Beans got a chance to take a driving test and earn his driver's license.  This is a kid's driving course where they are supposed to obey the traffic signals and stay on the proper side of the road.  Mr. Beans did really good, some of the kids just drove aimlessly around. Mr. Beans and pappy had to stop and take a rest...wait a minute, that's not pappy There's pappy.  Grammy and pappy are starting to get a little worn down, but Mr. Beans said his feet and legs started hurting today also so we aren't feeling quite so old.  Maybe a day off tomorrow, especially since the rains have come back. Mr. Beans got to program a robot at Mind Storm.  Thanks to his uncle we knew to sign up for this activity as soon as we arrived at the park.  It was fun ...

Irv has agreed to start digging when we get back home so that I can have some of these. And a couple of these. A trained cat.  (Who knew it was possible to train a cat?) A Shamu of my own. Not an Atlantis though because they tend to make little grandsons very upset.  It's not his fault that he inherited the non-thrill gene from my side of the family. Of course I must have a polar bear. And lots of these little guys. I'll even take some of these birds. I now know what I want to be when I grow up...a marine biologist.  We had a beautiful day in San Diego at Sea World.  We figured out how to make it stop raining...go to Target and buy rain gear.  It makes the rain stop immediately.

Day 1 of the grand tour - Disneyland.  We ran into Mickey right away which was a nice surprise.  By the way, Mary and Dana, I made Mr. Beans sit through the Lincoln speech.  Remember how much you used to hate that? Had a great time for about 4 hours.  No lines, not too many people, but then the skys opened up.  It was cold and rainy, and I mean very rainy. We decided to leave and go check into the timeshare which is right on the beach.  Unfortunately, I forgot my surf board. Mr. Beans wants to know what we'll do if there's a tsunami.  I told him we didn't have to worry about that.  The directory in the timeshare only has emergency procedures for earthquakes and nuclear disasters.  (not kidding) We're looking for an indoor activity for tomorrow. Southern California in March...not such a good idea.   This is my second trip to "sunny" California in the last few years and both times it was cold...

The grand tour is finally here, or as Mr. Beans calls it "the man trip with one non-man".  We got up early to drive to the Denver airport. Mr. Beans still hasn't figured out where we're going.

Last week I tried a new recipe from the Pioneer Woman - Chicken Parmigiana .  I'm a big fan of the Pioneer Woman.  My brother, Yogi, has a picture of the what is probably the entrance to the Pioneer Woman's ranch on his blog today- Yogi's Den .   I know she lives somewhere near Tulsa and now that my brother has found her place, we may have to go for a visit. To properly prepare my chicken parmigiana, I decided I needed a new meat mallet.  My meat mallet is about 30 years old and usually falls apart.  I found the perfect Farberware mallet at Wal-Mart. I dredged my chicken. Fried up the onions and garlic. Put it all together and simmered it for a couple hours.  I forgot to take a picture of the finished product after it was plated up, but it was delicious.  This will definitely be a new favorite recipe at our house. After dinner I put everyone to work on the decorations for Jillian's shower.  It was a fun fa...

I'm working on a new degree through Colorado State University's Global Campus which is an online university.  When I started taking classes there I declared by major as Business Management.  Now they are offering a major in Information Technology Management.  I checked with my advisor and I can switch to IT Management without losing any credits.  I have the same number of classes to complete for either degree. The question is...should I stick with Business Management or switch to IT Management? If I stick with Business Management I will have to take one more economics class and one more statistics class in addition to a bunch of leadership, management, and other varied classes. Yuck. I hate economics and math!!! If I switch to IT Management I'll be taking programming, database, and networking classes that I'm already comfortable with.  They would more than likely be a breeze for me.  Afterall, I have an associates degree in computer science ,...

Dana left today to head back to Australia via a stop in Phoenix to check on her house and attend a friend's baby shower. I'm sad. Afterall she's my baby and I like having my babies close by. I am proud though that my baby spread her wings and has the confidence to live on the other side of the earth without her mom close by.  She's quite a woman. But she's still my baby and I miss her!  (How mad do you think she'll be that I posted this picture?  Maybe she'll learn to keep that tongue in her mouth.)

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!  I had a really nice day at work followed by dinner at Jose Muldoons then cake and presents at Mary's house.  I received a lot of great gifts including a new lens for my camera that can get really close up. Mr. Beans snapped this picture of Bella. We got a close up of him when he gave me a special birthday concert. This is another shot that Mr. Beans took. Mr. Beans thought everyone should be photographed together so here's Pappy and Brian. Apparently we have a budding artist on our hands.  Just wait until next week's "grand tour".  Mr. Beans is going to have lots of chances to take some great photos. It was a fun day!

The first pre-wedding event took place today--Jillian's bridal shower.  Dana got off the plane from Australia last night and I immediately put her to work making centerpieces. We made these candy topiaries which turned out especially nice. The shower was held in downtown Colorado Springs.  My wonderful husband came along to carry things into the restaurant, but then he had to leave.  No men allowed!  Since the restaurant normally doesn't open until 4:00 we were a little concerned when the start time was drawing near and nobody was there to let us in.  Much to our relief, the manager finally came and opened the door. The room looked especially beautiful all adorned in pink.  Jillian's matron of honor did a great job on all the decorations. The pink cupcakes in the various pink dishes were very creative and festive. Jillian was queen for the day and most importantly... she received a tool that will help her keep ...

Our new air conditioner was installed this week.  Now we have this really ugly box outside the back door. (Notice the horses taking a nap in the background.) I'm not sure they were paying attention to my lilac bushes that I have kept alive for two whole summers.  Not an easy task when you live on the drought-stricken prairie. It was a beautiful day on the eastern plains of Colorado, in the 50s. But not quite warm enough for air conditioning.  We're going to have to wait until it gets to at least 70.