A Day at Grammy and Papo Saindon's House

Playing on the slide:

Digging in the dirt:

Eating Ice Cream Sandwiches:

Playing with Grammy on the couch:

Playing with Papo's toy train:

Relaxing on Papo Larry's lap:

Doesnt' get any better than that!!

I Love a Good Dream

So this morning I woke up tired because I didn't sleep good at all! I couldn't seem to get comfortable in my own bed and then my kids woke up at 3:30 for reasons unknown to me. But, thru all this I did manage to have a great dream. This kind of dream is my favorite kind because it was about two people in my life that have passed away in the last 6 years. I love these kind of dreams because it seems like you have actually been able to see and talk to them in real life. You wake up feeling happy, at least I do. The first person in my dream was Travis. Now Travis was my high school sweetheart of 2 years. We had a lot of fun together. He was very handsome with dark natural curly hair, olive skin and a darling grin. I attended both my Junior and Senior Prom with Travis. He is the one who started me working at Juniper Valley, the restaurant on the Ranch, the summer after my senior year. See if you can follow this: Travis's sister is Tami, was married to Greg, who is my husbands first cousin....got it? So after high school we remained friends and in touch because I worked with him at Juniper Valley. He has a special place in my heart. Unfortunately, on April 6th 2002 he was driving his red vintage mustang, which I loved, late at night and missed a curve out in the country and wrecked his car. He was killed instantly as he was partially thrown out. This news was extremely devastating to our entire family. He was only 27 years old. His funeral was beautiful. It was in a huge church with standing room only. It was like a high school reunion with all of our friends that came. He was very loved!

So I don't remember to much about my dream, but that I think we were still in high school and we were holding hands and we walked back to his mom's house. After being there for a while, the phone rang and it was my Grandma Irene and she was calling to tell me that my mom was worried about me and that I need to go home. I have told the story of her here. Anyway to hear her voice was sooo wonderful!! I just couldn't believe it. In my dream I knew she was deceased, but she was calling me on the phone. It was kinda weird, but very cool.

So, I am always thankful to have dreams about loved ones that I have lost. It is comforting to me and always gives my heart some joy. I just wish they happened more often.

I don't have any digital pics of Travis but here are a couple of my Grandma Irene with my kids:

Having a tea party with Madison:

Water Puddle Footprints

Lookin forward to more days like these.....

Charred Remains with a Dose of Fun

So Saturday we went out to the Ranch for Breakfast Club. Now Breakfast Club is something all the family, well most of the family on the Ranch particitpate in. It is usually held on Friday, but since Kirsten and the kids from over the mountain were here, they held it on Saturday. Now Breakfast Club is a rather elite society and if you find yourself lucky enought to be invited, then you should definately go! It was very interesting to see the path of destruction left by the fire from last week. Starting around 3 miles or so north of the Ranch you could see the charred land begin. It is very interesting to see the different paths that the fire made thru the fields. How does it choose which trees to spare and which to take?

You can see just how close the fire had been to Robin's house...

The Army was dropping big buckets of water on the smoldering trees......That was pretty cool to see! The wildflowers were pretty impressed!

They also got their first horse back ride which was fun for them.....their Dad on the other hand was a nervous wreck!

Cousin Spencer.....who Madison is in love with....

Cousin Madeline.....

Love this pic walking up from the barn...

Eating donees on the tramp...

Hangin out of the fence.....

Some kitty love...
.

Mother in love, Kirsten and Amy Catherine

Fire Moving Away From Ranch

Update from our local paper:

Hwy 115 evacuation lifted; firefighters still working on containment
Update 7:00 p.m.

Evacuated residents along Highway 115 in El Paso County are now being allowed to return to their homes. Highway 115 is back open.A brush fire burning on Ft. Carson land is now 10 percent contained. The charred acreage is holding at 9,600 acres. The pilot of a plane that crashed while fighting the wildfire has been identified as Gert Marais, 42 of Fort Benton, Montana.
The NTSB is investigating the crash of Marais' single engine air tanker. The plane went down at 6:15 pm Tuesday. Marais worked for Aero Seat out of Sterling, Colorado. No structures have been burned. Fire investigators are trying to determine the cause of the fire.

Fires at the Ranch

Today we are experiencing a wild fire at the ranch were a majority of Matthew's family lives. This is Matthews cousin, brother and dad watching the fire that was just 20 or 30 feat from the restaurant and a house. Luckily it has not burned any stuctures , but it is not contained yet. Keep our family in our prayers!!

A Little Day Dreamin

So lets all make believe that this is the view that we are taking in while we drink our coffee this morning!! Awhhhhhhhh......

Sick, Yet Again

So the wildflowers are sick yet again. We had about one good week after about a 3 week bout of the crud. Tuesday Madison got a runny nose, Parker followed shortly after. Then on Friday night Madison developed a horrid cough accompanied by quick short breaths along with some lovely crackles coming from her lungs. So we gave her breathing treatments on Saturday and today we visited the weekend clinic. The Dr. put her on a steroid to shrink the swelling in her lungs. So it's either Asthma that is triggered by a virus, RSV or advanced Bronchollitis. She gets the lung issues almost every time she gets sick! It's very scary to have a child that is having a hard time breathing! Hopefully this will take care of the problem and we will have a restful night tonight. So you could keep her in your prayers that she will get well soon and that it's not asthma!!

J. Crew Flip Flops.....YUMIE!!!

So my dear little sis bought me a cute new pair of J. Crew flip flops for the summer!!

I was so excited!! They had a lot to choose from and I chose this cute pair with chocolate and hot pink strips.

They really are sooo cute! So the day after I got them, my dear little Parker decided that they looked mighty tasty and took two small bites off of each toe!

Nothing is safe in this house I tell you! It either has been chewed on, drooled on, colored on, ripped, kicked, broke, squished, painted, etc......

Madison insisted that she also get her toes painted, and to tell you the truth so did Parker, but I didn't want picture proof of that!

Fun Places I've Beeen * Nova Scotia

So I have been thinking about some of the fun places that I have traveled "pre-children". I thought I would share some of the places in case you want to travel there someday. Granted, I have not gone that many places, so the list is pretty short!! But, it will give me a chance to "relive" my trips.....since I won't be anywhere anytime soon!!!

So, here goes......

One of the most interesting trips that I have been on was to Canada. We visited Halifax, Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island. I traveled with Christel (sis), mom Patty, Aunt Judy, Cousins Bobbi and Shawndra and we went in September of 2004. We flew out of Denver, had a layover in Toronto and finally landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Halifax is a darling little city. We rented a car and off we went. We stayed in Halifax for 2 days, made our way to Cape Breton and drove around the whole island which took about 3 or 4 days. From there we took the ferry over to Price Edward Island for 4 days. I don't have any digital pics from the trip because at that time I only had a still camera so the pics below were stolen from the www.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn Harbour View in Halifax. for two days. It had a nice view of the harbour and a short walk to the ferry that took you to the shopping area. Halifax has an interesting story behind it. We learned about this story when we took a tour of the city upon this:

It was called the Halifax Harbour Hopper. It was a bus and a boat all in one. It was fun.

One thing that I didn't know about until we got to Halifax was that it contained the cemetery where 121 of the people who perished on the Titanic are buried. When the Titanic sunk, three ships from Halifax helped recover those who died. We visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic which was very interesting. It contained many artifacts that were taken from the scene of the Titanic. Visiting the cemetery was one of my favorite things on this trip.....I know that sounds strange, but it contained such a large part of history there!
When in Halifax, we drove to Peggy's Cove.

This was a darling fishing village located an hour or two from Halifax. It had a beautiful lighthouse with a breathtaking view of the ocean! And of course, cute shops!!

The next day we traveled to Cape Breton Island. We drove around the whole outside of this island and it took several days. This was a beautiful island. Here are some pics from around it:

Some of the beautiful coastline around the island, but this these pictures just doesn't do it justice. This is a piece of Highlands National Park. They say that it one of most beautiful drives in the world:


The Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Park is the crown jewel of the Canadian Park Service and the largest historical reconstruction in Canada. Fortress Louisbourg was built to protect France's interests in the new world and to serve as the centre of its massive seasonal fishing industry.Its location near the eastern tip of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia enabled it to serve not only as the capital of the new colony of Ile Royale but also to act as the first line of defence for France in its 18th century struggle against Great Britain for colonial supremacy in North America. We spent a whole day here.....

and we stayed at the Point of View Suites just across the bay. It had a lovely oceanview.

We were able to go whale watching at Pleasant View Bay. It was great and we seen all sorts of pilot whales

We were able to stay at The Markland Resort the night before our whale watch and it also had a beautiful view as you can see below........they were individual cabins that sat on a cliff above the ocean...

We made our way around Cape Breton Island and finally got to the ferry dock to go to Prince Edward Island! BEAUTIFUL!!

So fun to finally arrive. We stayed at the Firedance Bed and Breakfast:

These were our rooms....

the main dining/living room area...

The couple that ran it were my age and they made our stay so relaxing. We had been driving a lot, and were glad to get to stay here for several days. The breakfast they prepared each morning and you can get some recipes here.

Of course the big thing to see on PEI is the Anne of Green Gables estate. It was very fun and the tour was interesting.

We also were able to see the Anne of Green Gables musical which was really great!!

We did a lot of shopping in downtown Charlottetown and purchased a lot of nic nacs!! What a great time we had!!

The last full day that we were there they couple that owned the b&b packed us a picnic lunch to take to the beach. That morning I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. I kept this a secret and wrote little notes in every one's lunch sack with their names listed like "Grandma Patty, Aunt Christel", so that when they seen there names with something in front of them, they would get the drift. It was so fun to see every one's expression when it was time for lunch!!! What a fun memory that is! A funny thing is when the tide goes out in the evening, the beach becomes huge!! I have never seen anything like it. It's like the ocean shrinks back up! Very cool! The dirt there is this deep rust color and stains everything, But it is very pretty!

The scenery in PEI is very beautiful. The wildflowers are everyone and sooo pretty!

They also have a lot of potato farms that supply several of our fast food restaurant the potatoes for there fries. Also, they produce a lot of the mussels that are eaten here in the states. Matthew enjoys PEI muscles at Carrabas every chance he gets!!! And did I mention that they have over 25 golf courses on the island!!!?? We also went on a tour of the island and we were able to tour the Wood Island lighthouse. Very cool!

When it was time for us to go catch the plane, we took the Confederation Bridge when we traveled back to Halifax. It connects PEI to New Brunswick, Canada. It is 12.9 kil long and was a pretty cool thing to see.

All in all it was a wonderful trip!! It was a lot to see in a short amount of time, but the memories are great!! I would recommend it to anyone!!