Zucchini round 1!

We have had several zucchini ready in the garden for a while now, but like I said before, I was scared away by spiders every time I went out to pick them. I finally caved and brought Kevin out there and pointed out which ones I wanted and watched as he carefully, and quickly picked them - all the while pointing out to me how he was not getting attacked. Yes, he survived, he's bigger than I am and the spiders must have ran away. We happened to pick them when it was raining outside, but it was actually really nice because it's been so hot around here lately. We definitely have some massive zucchinis, I've never seen zucchinis this big (granted I don't see that many zucchinis :) ) And Bradley was SO excited about how big they were, he could barely even hold all of them while I took pictures :) Now I just have to figure out how to get my family to eat zucchini :) I am going to make lots of zucchini bread (recipe courtesy of Grandma Mary Ann) and I made fritters the other night that I thought were very tasty but no one else would eat them, darnit.

New Toy

So you know how my camera died? I somehow convinced Kevin to let me buy an SLR camera, something that I've been wanting to do FOREVER but never was able to before. I figured it could be my birthday, and mothers day, and Christmas presents for the next couple years or so :) So YAY, I got a nice new camera!! I'm still trying to learn all about it so that I can take the best pictures I can. I'm reading a lot online, watching videos online and trying to play around with it to teach myself all about aperture, shutter speed, focus modes and all that fun stuff! I'm having a blast with it. I always have taken a lot of pictures of my kids, but now I think they're getting a little annoyed :) I think I took about 200 pictures the first day :) Here are some of my favorite shots so far, experimenting with different modes and effects :)

4th of July

4th of July was a lot different this year. Because of the terrible wildfires that have been out of control around here, all personal fireworks were banned and several cities cancelled their shows - including Fort Collins. At first it was just postponed, which I was upset about, but had comfort in knowing we'd still have our show later - but then they went and cancelled it completely. I have NEVER spent a 4th of July without fireworks at City Park - it's a tradition, and I'm so sad we missed it this year, it just didn't feel the same! I know it's just a precaution and I do understand that. And actually, as much as I hated to admit it, I would totally understand the postponement. But not the cancellation. They could have postponed them one week and we were already in a better place after getting quite a bit of rain right after the 4th. The red flag warning was even lifted in this area 1 week after the 4th. Oh well - enough complaining :) I spent it with my family and that's all that matters :) Luckily we went to the Rockies game a couple nights before and saw their amazing show and the kids loved it!

Then on the 4th we just had a nice, lazy day hanging out and had a little bbq. Then we went to the park to play before heading to Loveland to watch their fireworks.

Since probably most of the people in Fort Collins had the same plan, it was pretty crazy and we didn't feel like parking miles away and walking, so we just found a little spot next to the street and watched from there. Not my favorite spot, not the best view, not City Park :( But we got to see fireworks on the 4th of July and the kids were happy, so I was happy :)

One of Gracie's very favorite things right now are flags, so even seeing all the "Merica Flags" everywhere was a treat :)

Playing Catch

Garden 5 weeks in...

Here's the garden at 5 weeks. My zucchini are taking over! I'm going to have to start cutting off some of the leaves because they are drowning out the peppers. I was sure loving my garden but the more and more it grows the more and more spiders I find :( I'm going to have to get over this spider phobia of mine! I have gone out to pick zucchini 3 times now and I see spiders all over and I get scared to touch anything and I come back inside. Especially those zucchini leaves - the spiders like to hide on the underside and then jump out to get me when I touch the leaf. I have to get over it though because there are several that are definitely ready to be picked, along with quite a few peppers. I see some tiny little green tomatoes starting to grow, so that's exciting. I'm excited to actually be able to eat something from it soon!!!

Sammie's 5 months!

I feel like I JUST posted her 4 month update, these months are just flying by! Sammie is just such a fun little girl and sweet as can be. I did stop swaddling her which I feel might have been a little too early but it's just so hot and she gets SO hot and sweaty, so I figured she'd get used to it and be more comfortable. She is pretty good about it now, she likes to roll over and sleep on her left side and suck on the pacifier. It's pretty cute because if she's on her back and you give it to her she'll just roll to the side automatically. She will roll from front to back and back to front now but doesn't do either a whole lot. She will grab her pacifier now and she likes to hold on it while she chews on it. I KNOW her teeth are moving around in there and hurting her quite a bit, she's had a couple bad days and nights because her gums are hurting her. It's pretty cute I'll start rubbing her gums with my finger and she'll just fall into my hand and lean into it and close her eyes. She is usually very good at naps but she has been waking up more at night. I'm so used to just grabbing her and feeding her so I'll do that over and over and over again but I need to start giving her the pacifier or just waiting a little bit to see if she goes back to sleep without being fed all the time. Originally we were planning on moving Gracie into Bradley's room when Sammie was about 6 months but as I'm writing this that's less than 3 weeks away and I don't think I'm ready :) BUT I do know that getting Sammie into the nursery would help me sleep better, so it should be somewhat soon. Just last night she realized that she could put her foot in her mouth and chew on her toes, and she was very excited about that! She's getting to be such a little girl!!

Fire :(

On June 9th I got up early to go garage saling with my Mom. We both live on the west side of town, right next to the foothills so we started out in those neighborhoods and very early on, about 9 o'clock, we noticed a tiny little smoke plume rising from the mountains. By the time we got home around noon it was MUCH worse!

The next day we went to a Rockies game and that evening when we got home it looked like this. It is really scary. I do live right next to the foothills but I understand the chances of it getting into Fort Collins was slim, I knew they would do everything in their power to stop that from happening. But just LOOKING at it... it's such a terrible sight, and it's SO close! It looks like a huge volcano, or bomb exploded right next to my house. I couldn't stop looking out the window. I have always been scared to death of fire. I used to HATE July 4th because I'd sit up in my bed at night listening to fireworks going off and just be terrified that one would land on my roof and start my house on fire. I used to wake up in the middle of the night and get worried that the heater would start something on fire so I'd get up and go around the house moving everything away from the vents.

Like I said, I didn't really think that it would get to Fort Collins, but every night I'd go to sleep I couldn't even see down my street it was so smokey. So one night I woke up in the middle of the night because the dogs were barking and right away my sleepy, irrational head thought - the fire got to us! And I freaked out!

This is the next afternoon view from my Mom's house. I went over to her house to pick her up so that we could go somewhere to try to get my camera fixed. All day I kept hearing on the news that so many people were going up to look at the fire and I kept thinking, 'dumb people, you're just getting in the way!' And then after picking Mom up and seeing the mountains we look at every day right in front of me on fire, I let my curiosity get the best of me and we drove up to Horsetooth (to join the crowd of dumb people).

 

We drove up to the reservoir close to the spot where Kevin proposed, but a little south of that. I didn't want to go too far north and get too close to where I thought we'd be interfering with firefighting traffic or any of that. This is the view looking south across the beautiful water - mountains untouched by fire...

Then this is the view from the same spot looking north. It was a terrible sight. You could see houses so close to the fire line on the other side of the water.

This is the view from Overland Trail, right next to my Mom's house. Sometimes I actually think I have a little ESP, or something like that. Several weeks ago when the Hewlett Gulch fire was happening it was further west and we couldn't actually see any fire and just saw smoke plumes, not actual mountains on fire. I remember driving down Overland looking at the mountains and actually thinking - how scary would that be if these mountains right in front of me were on fire and I could actually see it. Then this happens, and those mountains right in front of me are on fire, and I can actually see it...

We sat and watched it for a long time, watching the helicopters and planes fly in the fight the fire. I can't imagine being a firefighter, that would pretty much be the job of my nightmares! I am SO thankful that we have people that put their lives on the line to protect people, their homes, and the beautiful land that we live on. They were actually worried that if this fire jumped the Poudre Canyon it could run up the canyon and get into my Dad and Jan's neighborhood. 2 weeks after this fire started, that's exactly what happened. They had been on pre-evacuation for days and days, had left and come back, and on day 14 were emergency evacuated because it jumped the river and made a run for it. It got to about 50 homes in Glacier View, but luckily (for now) stopped before it got to them. It is still burning but as of now, Day 19, it is now 65% contained. Of course no one knows what will happen every day, but it hasn't grown for a couple days now, even in the terrible fire weather we've been having. Now there's a fire just south of us in Colorado Springs that has been blowing up out of control and burning into crowded neighborhoods. Sometimes I think that we are just ruining this planet and there's so much global warming and that's why temps and getting higher and higher and things are getting drier and drier and fires are going to start all over and we won't be able to do anything about it - but then I try not to be so pessimistic and negative. (Hopefully that's not my ESP talking :) )

My thoughts and prayers are with everyone who lost their homes or have been effected by this fire. And I thank God that one of my homes for the past almost 25 years has been spared.