Quinzee Campout

Mason went on his first Quinzee campout with the Scouts. This was a really cool opportunity as he learned exactly what is entailed with building a snow shelter, and then he got to sleep in it!

The process begins with building a huge mound of snow.

 Next, you place sticks in the mound so that when you dig out the snow on the inside, you'll see the sticks and know it's time to stop digging.

 Here he is inside!

 His Quinzee-mate, Patrick...

The Men

I caught this adorable scene one day and had to preserve it for all time...

Hmmm... wait a minute. I think maybe someone's faking it!

Oh, all right - none of them were asleep. But don't they make a good lookin' bunch?

Especially this little ragga-muffin monster:



Happy days in the Force household... I am truly blessed.
Michele

Butterfly Pavilion

Maddox and I get to have a special day together on Thursdays because Mason and Morgan are at their homeschool enrichment classes. This past week, I took Maddox to the Butterfly Pavilion and we had a wonderful time! We saw all sorts of gorgeous butterflies from all over the world! We weren't supposed to hold them, but I snuck a shot of us admiring this one up close...

Here's another one that we especially liked - it looks like an owl with those beautiful "eye spots" on his wings.


In addition to all the butterflies, they also had many other creatures including a hairy tarantula named Rosie. Kids can "hold" Rosie, but Maddox wasn't too crazy about that idea, so Momma had to hold her instead... and I can't say that I was any more thrilled about the idea than he was! We saw scorpions - including one that glows in the dark - stick bugs, millipedes, starfish, crabs, poisonous spiders... and I could handle all of these just fine. It wasn't until we happened upon a cage full of COCKROACHES that Momma got severe eebie-jeebies. I have a cockroach phobia... never heard of that? It has a name. I looked it up: Blattodephobia. Yes, that's me. Completely blattodephobic. And I CERTAINLY didn't enjoy looking at a cage with hundreds of them crawling around... {shiver}. I mean, how can that POSSIBLY be educational?!

...but those butterflies sure were pretty! :)
Michele

A Day at Keystone

Keystone is one of our favorite ski resorts...

 Here are the big boys with their childhood friend, Case!

 ...and his dad, Matt.

Grammy Comes to Visit!

One of my very favorite times here in Colorado is when my mom comes to visit! She came for a week in the middle of February, and we had a wonderful time! I don't have very many pictures of her visit, but that's only because we were INCREDIBLY busy while she was here!

We cooked, sewed, shopped, crocheted, cooked some more, sewed some more, ran the kids everywhere they needed to go, cooked yet again, and sewed even more... thrown in there were some times to tend to the little guy... affectionately called the little monster.

One of my favorite things we did together was MAKE SOAP! Mom has done this before, and I have SEEN it done before, but this was my first attempt in my own kitchen. I think we did fairly well - learned a couple things along the way - but hopefully in a couple more weeks, we'll have a nice bounty of cured and ready-to-use homemade soap!

(We didn't intend to make those soap "balls"... that was due to one of those "things" we learned along the way.)

We were all (okay, mostly ME) sad to see her go, but the GOOD NEWS is that we have booked a cruise in May and Mom & Dad are going to go WITH US!! I am SOOOOOO excited!

Have a great week, everyone...
Michele

Trains, Trains, Trains!

One of Maddox's very favorite things is trains. So we have taken a couple of trips to the local train museum down in Golden. Oh, how he loves it there! ...but then, so do all the other boys in my life.




Here they are in front of the big snow blower!

Dad, I took this last picture for you... we get to go inside the roundhouse where they work on restoring all these old engines. It was so cool, and I know you'd probably love to tinker around in there!

Well, Mom is here with us this week, so we're going to be busy cooking, sewing, shopping, and just hanging out! ...and there probably won't be any blogging going on. :)

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!
Michele

Unicycling!

The guys have been working a long time on mastering their unicycles - and, by George, I think they've got it!

One wheel... three wheels... what's the difference?!

 And yes, Momma gave it a try, but only made it a whopping 3 feet.