Wildlife in Estes

This weekend Rob and I went Estes again. I was hoping to see some big wildlife (like a bear), but no such luck. Although I did see some wild turkeys. I guess they are rather rare, so that was exciting. They didn't ever fluff up their feathers though -- I looked a little bit online, and it looks like the females have the black heads and males have red heads... maybe these were all males.




We also saw a beautiful blue-jay.
Although I didn't see any bears, I think I heard one at night -- I woke up at 4, and it sounded like someone was banging on a metal pan. My mom had said that the bears try to get into the dumpster. Next time I hear that I'm dragging Rob out of bed to go peek outside! I did look out the window but I didn't see anything!

Breakfast from the gardens

Rob and I always like to do something special for breakfast on the weekends. But this morning, we had very few groceries. (we need to go shopping!) We had 3 eggs and some juice, and no bread or milk. But, we did have a garden! I went out and picked some green peppers and made a skillet with some cheese and about 1/2 green peppers and 1/2 eggs. It was delicious. I don't get a ton of vegetables from the garden, but it is fun to have those opportunities!

Funny Bikes

So Rob and I have a tandem bike that we like to ride around. We have yet to pull Eve around on it, but I'm sure that would be quite a site to see. But nothing compared to these two men that I saw riding around on their bikes this weekend... sorry, the pictures are bad because I was in my car and they were far away, but you get the idea...

My favorite part is the windshield --they are going so fast they need to block all those bugs! ha ha!

Fancy bike number one

His partner in silliness!

Eve and the Bus

Typically our Guide Dog club goes on social outings once a month. This is to expose the dogs to other environments they may not have been introduced to yet. This month we took the dogs on a bus ride around town.

Eve did great, and didn't seem phased by it at all. She was a little bummed though because they wanted her to sit the whole time, and she wanted to sleep! Silly puppy!

Eve and I pose in front of the bus

Eve and Ashley sit patiently while riding around town.

More veggies

Well I've gotten 3 bowlfuls of beans from the garden so far this year -- but I'm learning a few things as I go:

1) Pick beans early! I'm still picking them a little late, and they get rather fibery!
2) Buy the stringless variety!! Some seem to be fine, but others feels like eating floss!
3) Watch for sunlight! My cucumbers last year were awesome, but this year they are small and everything associated with them (leaves, fruit, etc) is yellow. I think it is too much water and not enough light. Those rasperries are blocking the sunlight!

But I am getting some peppers -- I planted all the colors, but so far all we have is green!

Puppy Swap

Eve is growing up quickly, and before she gets too old I decided that a puppy swap might be a good idea. The idea of a puppy swap is so that you can know how your dog behaves around others -- what problems appear that you didn't notice, etc. So, I contacted one of the other women in our group and we decided to swap puppies for the rest of the week. Now Eve is at someone else's home, and we have a new puppy named Ashley. Eve and Ashley are about the same size, and I think they might even have the same birthday. We let them play in the back yard a lot, and Ashley was thrilled to chew on Eve's bones.

All that playing makes Ashley tired....

Ashley says, "I think I'm as cute as Eve, if not cuter, don't you think?"

The Black Bear Adventure

This last weekend we went camping with Mom and Dad in Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park. It was a miracle that we cound a site to camp at, because most of the sites were reserved much in advance, but when this opportunity came up, we couldn't resist.

Mom and Dad got there about 30 minutes before us, and when we arrived, they told us they had just seen a bear, within 10 feet of the campground. I guess it was ambling along towards their dog, who was on a leash and just laying near the campground. My dad saw it first, and told my mom to turn around, and when she saw it, she raised her arms and made a loud noise and the bear turned around and scampered away! What an experience!!! Too bad I wasn't there :(

But one of the rangers did snap some pictures for proof (although it was farther away at that time)!


Camping was a lot of fun. We didn't see any wildlife the rest of the trip, except one fox. It was quite cold for August though, I think getting into the 40's at night. But thank goodness it didn't rain!

Go to bed!

Tonight I was herding Eve upstairs as usual to go to bed. But instead of going up the stairs she walked over to a suitcase I had just laid out to start packing. Jokingly, I said, "Do you want to go to bed?" and this is the result:

Silly Eve! Suitcases aren't for sleeping in!

Surprise!

So I think I may have the best husband in the world! This weekend Rob surprised me and had a table full of gifts for me, just out of the blue! He gave me a new camera, and an awesome new printer, but the sweetest of all was a lesson plan on how to learn about photography designed for two, written entirely by himself! It is so sweet, and I feel like I could keep busy for hours and weeks, and months, and years. In the lesson plan are little assignments tailored to our lives! How sweet!

My new camera is an SLR, which is a completely new concept for me. My old cameras always had some of the same settings, but now I feel obligated (and excited) to learn about them! I love you Rob and I think you're the best!

The 2nd Triathalon

So today we had our lab picnic. It wasn't paid for by the company, but they did give us some time off, so that was great! It was a beautiful day and we had it at a great park, with a pavillion and lots of big shade trees.

One of the events of the picnic was a triathalon -- a wheelbarrow race, a three legged race, and a potato sack race. Of course Rob and I were on the same team, and one of my friends snapped some photos of us as we went by... boy do I look like I'm working hard!!!

Trying to synchronize our footsteps... Right, Right, Right....

And a nice family photo!!! Eve is tired just from watching us (and playing with another dog there while we were racing)

First Dahlia Bloom

I love dahlias. Last year I had these huge plate dahlias and they were just gorgeous!! This year my dahlias are just starting to bloom -- I think I have 5 plants total, so we'll see what variety I have. This is the first flower I saw. It is a very vibrant red, with the petals underneath fading to an orangish color. BEAUTIFUL!

Harvesting The Garden

Last year was the first year I really had a garden since it was the first year I really had a house. I really enjoyed it and this year I once again planted a garden.

I've been harvesting some sugar snap peas for quite a while now, getting a few here and there and snacking on them at work. But tonight I went out and harvested a lot of green beans. These all came from bush beans that I started from seed, planting them rather late (probably end of May). I got a whole big bowlful of beans from just the bush beans. And you can see from the picture below I also got 2 whole raspberries and 2 whole carrots. In fact, I didn't even plant any carrots this year or the year before, but they keep popping up. I'm pulling them like weeds.


This is the progress of my garden so far... in the bottom of the picture I have a flower garden, and then in the middle garden I have lots of peppers, watermelon, cucumbers, raspberries, and chives. Then in the back of the garden by the fence I have pole green beans, bush beans, more peppers, snap peas, and there are carrots scattered about. We have a strawberry plant too in another area of the yard.

Eve vs the Bike

Our weekend toy!!! We got this neat dog carrier for Eve so we could take her out on bike rides with us. We are not supposed to run with her because her hips are still developing and we don't want to cause hip displaysia (sp?). So we bought this carrier specifically for dogs online.

This weekend was the first time we got the chance to try it out..

At first Eve didn't know quite what to make of it....she says, "Guys, I trusted you and you put me in here... please take me out...."
Another shot of Eve giving us a sad face. We try to tell her that it will be fun!


And we're off -- I snapped some shots while Rob rode ahead. We rode to a concert in a nearby park. It was a lot of fun, and we enjoyed the jazz music. I think Eve liked her first bike ride, although she never seemed quite to settle down. Amazingly enough in the below picture she is sitting, which was unusual.

Usually Eve liked to practice her surfing skills and stand and balance. This picture below she is staring at Rob. Rob did a great job driving slowly so Eve had a good time! We also took her in the carrier to church on Sunday.

Weekend chores

I think it is almost a universal truth -- weekends are good times to catch up with chores and housework. This weekend we did laundry and some cleaning. Eve decided to help us with the cleaning. How nice of her! Silly dog wasn't quite strong enough to lift the detergent up enough to pour into the washer, so she just decided to chew on the bottle (And run around with it gleefully in the back yard)