Life on the High Plains

Sorry, but I have one last post about Disneyland.   Dana decided we all needed to have Mickey ears. Mine are pirate ears and Irv chose Merlin ears.  Only at Disney would I walk around all day wearing ears.  It just seems like the natural thing to do when you're at the Magic Kingdom. The Little Miss didn't get any ears.  She's at the age where she rips everything off her head.  She's so cute though that she doesn't need Mickey ears.  She let Grammy and Pappy take her on the carousel at California Adventure.  As you can see, she had great fun. The reason we went to Disneyland was because Adam was running in the Star Wars Half Marathon and we wanted to be his cheer squad.  (Actually, I'll take any excuse to go to a Disney park.  Although Disney World is my favorite by far, I'm more than willing to go to Disneyland too.)  It started at 5:30 in the morning and Adam had to be at the starting line at 3:30 a.m.  Yes, in the...

Another surprise from our evening at Disneyland with Elton.  During his second song they had a gigantic fireworks display.  When he was done there was a conference on stage and he came back and told us they needed to retake the shot. Guess what?  We got a second round of fireworks.  Can you imagine the $$$$ that were spent? I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Disney does everything first class! Happy Disney Skywatch Friday!

This past weekend we flew to LA to hang out with "the kids" and to support Adam in his running of the Star Wars Half Marathon. On Friday we were there earlier than the rest of the crew so Irv and I decided to hang out at Disneyland for a while.  We were there for a few hours and decided to leave the park so we could be at the hotel to meet the crew when they arrived.  A huge crowd was gathering for some kind of concert, but nobody we asked knew who it was so we weren't too interested. Then some Disney employees approached some people next to us and offered them golden wristbands.  Well, if you know Irv then you know there's nothing shy about him.  He jumped in and said we'd like them too.  So we got our golden wristbands and were escorted to the "invited guests only" section right in front of the stage.  At this point the red Yamaha grand piano on the stage gave us a pretty good idea who was there. I was in total awe.  Did this really j...

It's hard to pay attention during a meeting when this is your view from the conference room. Oh how I long to be out on that mountain! Happy Skywatch Friday!

A few months ago I was introduced to essential oils by a coworker. Wow, the things these little bottles of oil can cure.  Naturally, without medications. My biggest complaint is sleep, or to be more specific, the lack of sleep.  I can go to sleep okay, but if I happen to wake up in the middle of the night my mind jumps into high speed.  I can almost cure all of the world's problems in the middle of the night.   Here's my little case with my oil collection.  When you buy quality essential oils, they aren't cheap.  Therefore, you have to build a collection one bottle at a time.  The secret with essential oils is to spend the money and buy a quality product.  They need to be cultivated without pesticides and chemicals which could ultimately end up in the cells of your body.  They need to potent, pure, and certified therapeutic.  You get what you pay for.  Keep in mind that you use one to two drops of these oils at a ti...

Only four more weeks until the Ralston Creek Half Marathon.  I have no idea why I agreed to sign up for this.  Probably because Mary looked at me with those sad eyes and told me it was all she wanted for her 36th birthday. I woke up bright and early this morning and when I saw the sun was shining I had the bright idea that Mary and I should do our weekly "long workout" on the actual race course in Arvada.  After politely trying to text Mary and wake her up, she finally replied and agreed. You see after signing up for this half marathon we both started googling it to find out more information.  Numerous blog posts talked about how difficult it is because of the "mountain" with switchbacks in the middle of the course.  We needed to go see for ourselves before making a rash decision to change to a different half marathon.   Mary tried to tell me I needed to stretch beforehand, something that I wished I would have listened to about five miles down th...

This past week is one of my favorite weeks of the year.  Why?  Because of the National Western Stock Show and the 4-H Western Roundup in Denver. A few years ago I was asked to come up and tabulate the horse judging contest.  This is one of my few "volunteer" activities that I actually get paid for.  I always argue about accepting the payment, but they keep reminding me that it's a national contest and a lot more work than a county or state contest.  I had to drive up to Denver after work on Thursday.  I don't have any pictures of it, but the first half of the trip was in blizzard conditions.  At one point I just wanted to cry and turn the car around and go home, but I knew I couldn't do that so I kept going.  Luckily, it cleared up and conditions improved for the second half of the trip.   It snowed throughout the night and the next morning there were winter driving conditions again.  This time it was stop and go so I took a q...

Whew, this resolution to blog everyday during the month of January is wearing me out....but, here's another one. Who loves the Pioneer Woman as much as I do?  I like everything she does.  She cooks, she has her own TV show, she has a line of dishes and cookware at Wal-Mart, she writes her own cookbooks, she home schools her kids, she's a great photographer, she is a rancher's wife, she blogs, she loves critters especially her basset hound Charlie, she has red hair, etc., etc., etc. In short, let's just say I'd like to be just like Pioneer Woman. If you've never tried any of her recipes, you're missing out. While in Idaho I made my dad a batch of her chicken enchiladas.     I started by frying up some chicken breasts rubbed with some yummy spices.  When they were done I fried up some onions in the same skillet until they were caramelized.   I lightly browned some corn tortillas and then...   ...rolled them up with chee...

This past weekend was the most amazing weekend every. Why? Because I didn't do a dang thing.  Irv was working and I didn't leave the house once. Except... to go on a 10-mile walk with Mary.  It's only two weeks until our half marathon so it was time to get our longest practice run/walk done. I'm not going to lie, it was miserable.  Mainly because I dressed completely wrong.  I knew it was going to be a warm Colorado day, but I didn't expect it to be 55 degrees so early in the morning.  I had worn my long underwear because I was expecting 20-30 degrees.  I got too hot and that made the last few miles miserable. Afterwards I had planned to go to my painting lessons, but my muscles preferred lunch and a nap so I listened to them. On Sunday morning I got up early and did some cleaning out in the barn.  Then I had another nap.  The biggest thing about Sunday was the Broncos game. I turned the TV on in my art studio and worked on my c...

I'm not a Mormon and I don't know about their beliefs, but I certainly enjoy the architecture of their temples.  This is an especially beautiful and peaceful shot of the Idaho Falls temple on a snowy, cold Christmas evening.  This temple is topped by an angel of the Mormon Church named Moroni.  Maybe it's on all their temples...I don't know. Happy Skywatch Friday!

While on our way from Christmas vacation we stopped in Salt Lake City and went down to the Temple Square.  As I've previously posted, it was amazingly beautiful.  It was also amazingly cold.  Like so cold that my fingers and face were frozen even though I had ten layers on.     When we were done looking at the Temple I wanted to snap a couple shots of the Beehive House which was the home of Brigham Young and his family.  Mr. Young was the leader of the LDS Church, Governor of Utah, and Mormons consider him to be a prophet of the Church.   Having recently read The 19th Wife, I wanted to see it for myself.  I don't want to degrade the Mormon religion, but lets just say lots of wives and children lived in the Beehive House.  The basement apparently has a kitchen and dining room that can accommodate 70 people.  I was surprised to see that they were offering tours of the home until 8:30 that evening.    Heck...

A couple years ago I decided to try my hand at oil painting.  I knew I would love it.  I didn't know if I'd be any good at it, but it was worth a try.  One thing I did know is that I have artistic blood running through my veins so there was a possibility I inherited some of that. Lets look at some of the paintings in my family.   My dad's mother lived in New England in her paintings seem to have a nautical theme.     This is another of my grandmother's paintings that my dad gave to me last year.  It is so simple yet so detailed.  She was impressionist just like me. Some day I'd like to try to recreate this one.   This is a painting done by my Aunt Del, my dad's sister.  She seems to have preferred painting stationary objects like these willows or fruit or vases of flowers.  My dad has several of her paintings hanging in his house.  She's been gone for a while now.  When I was a teenager I got to spe...