One year later...

So. Almost exactly one year ago, we made some initial attempts at yard work. (It only took us ten years, lol.) Since then, we've had a whirlwind of plantings and hail storms and roof replacements and house painting and patio installation and fence replacement and tree removals and debris removal and sprinkler system tweaking and such. Whew. 

You can understand, then, that we weren't particularly enthusiastic about tackling much more in the way of yard work this summer. ;) With this in mind, we trekked to the Fort Collins Nursery on Saturday with the intent of picking up two plants (to replace two plants we wanted to pull out because they'd grown unruly and were killing multiple other plants beneath/beside them) and some mulch for the backyard patio area. 

Somehow, though, we came home with this... ;)

...and subsequently spent the afternoon replanting those two spots that we'd initially set out to do...plus these pots by the front door...

Ta da!

Whew. It took longer than anticipated. But. It's done! 

I won't mention how all of this led to the discovery that our gutters (which Nathan already cleaned once this year) needed cleaning again (which Nathan was sweet enough to do today before it rained since the rain overflow would have leveled my new potted plants)...or how as soon as we got home from the nursery our garage door broke (which we fortunately managed to get fixed today since the repair truck/guy wouldn't be able to get here Monday and possibly Tuesday due to the paving crews in our neighborhood)...or how Nathan got rather sunburned...or how we didn't even get to the back yard and now have decided to wait until fall on that. LOL.

Yup. Not mentioning that. :) 

On the bright side, Nathan also hung this tree slice that I painted...

And on that happy note, we're proclaiming ourselves done with any new projects for the time being. Knock on wood. ;) 

DCC 2015 - Part 3

And here are my favorite pictures...boys posing with other people in costumes...

This was actually a booth for Kaiser but the Star Trek medical staff was awesome:

(Apparently, Asher was contagious or something as he was being examined, lol.)

We only found one other Drax the whole day but were quick to ask for a picture:

There were more Star Lords throughout the day, but this is the only one we photographed...

And we found this Groot...

We were really kicking ourselves because we saw two other kids (brothers, probably) dressed as Groot and Rocket Racoon and we would have loved to get a picture together. We did also see a group with a Gamora and felt badly for her because she couldn't be in the picture in front of the green screen, lol. (Being green, she didn't show up.)

And Micah insisted on getting his picture with this Captain America...

But Captain Jack Sparrow was probably our favorite for the day...

He even acted like Johnny Depp's character!

And after we'd visited the bathroom (which took some doing for our little Drax, hence the removal of his costume), we found this Baymax, which was pretty darn cool...

And that's the end of my Comic Con pictures for the year. ;) 

DCC 2015 - Part 2

One of our favorite things about Comic Con is the people watching. Seriously. The costumes are amazing. Many were a mystery to us and many appeared to be just random things thrown together, but many were also just so impressive. Here are some of the ones we managed to catch pictures of...

This is President Business from The Lego Movie...

And we honestly don't know what this statue angel thing is from, but it was way cool...

...and then there were the things that you just can't unsee...

Yeah. Really. ;)

We particularly enjoyed themed groups...

(The boys tell me that this has something to do with some video game.)

And that's just a small, small sampling. :)  

DCC 2015 - Part 1

Yesterday, we went to the Denver Comic Con. :) For Micah, Asher and me, it was a return. Nathan and Noah were first-timers. This was the extent Nathan was willing to dress up, lol. (His shirt says "I am Groot.") Asher went as Star Lord and Micah was Drax. (All three characters are from Guardians of the Galaxy.)

Noah and I opted not to dress up this year. (In sticking with the Guardians theme, I'd have needed to paint myself green and I wasn't really up for that, lol. Noah didn't have any desire to be a racoon or paint himself any color.)

So. After getting the younger two through weapons check and getting our bearings, we enjoyed some time in the Maker type rooms...with all sorts of cool tables showcasing 3D printers, video games, other interactive games, electronics kits, and other fun stuff. Here are Asher and Nathan playing pong at the SparkFun table...

Though 4/5 of us could happily have spent more time in that area, a certain youngest son was quite insistent that we go to the exhibition hall, where we people watched and browsed the merchandise and artists gallery. I made Noah take this picture of Nathan and I with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man...

And we eventually found this booth with lots and lots of HeroClix figures...which made boys particularly happy.

After making some purchases and eating lunch, we continued our browsing and people watching into the afternoon. 

We left mid-afternoon to beat the traffic. Here was our view as we headed back to the parking garage:

Yup. Loads of awesome people. :)

More pictures in just a minute... 

Mesa Verde

On Thursday, we drove from Pagosa Springs over to Mesa Verde National Park for the day. It was pretty awesome. Despite grumbles about the drive, itself (there was some unexpected construction that caused delays on top of the two hour drive), everyone had a truly good time and came away from the experience happy.

We ate first then headed to Spruce Tree House to do the self-guided tour thing. On the walk down, Micah stopped to do some sketching...

(Since he's been pretty into drawing lately, I outfitted both him and Asher with travel sized sketch books for the trip.)

Micah and I then caught up with the rest down in Spruce Tree House...

After climbing down into the kiva and looking around and all, we headed back out...detouring a bit to hike part of a nearby trail. We turned around after this point, but not before Asher and Micah had great fun re-enacting the trash compactor scene from Star Wars, lol.

From Spruce Tree House (after wandering the museum there and watching a video), we drove a bit of the loop and stopped at the overlook for Cliff Palace (which, unfortunately, didn't open for the season until the next day)...

(The stuffed squirrel on Micah's shoulder is named Spruce. Micah picked him up at the giftshop at the Spruce Tree House and is very happy about it, lol.)

Then we continued on our way to Balcony House, where we took the guided tour. This was definitely the highlight of our visit. Nathan and I have been to Mesa Verde before but hadn't done a guided tour. It's worth it, folks! (I have lots of pictures and stories but am abbreviating them here...)

Here are Asher and Micah's butts climbing the tall ladder to get into Balcony House. (My apologies to the strangers on the ladder above them. I wasn't trying to photograph your behinds, lol.)

...and boys looking around in the living areas of Balcony House...

...and the tight little tunnel to get back out of Balcony House...

(That's Nathan.)

Our tour guide was really spectacular and made the experience so much better. You could tell he just absolutely loved his job, and he did a great job of sharing that love. Happy.

From there, we did a wee bit more driving and stopped at this overlook:

And then boys declared themselves done for the day and we headed out of the park to find dinner and drive back to Pagosa. A good day!