Catchin' Up

Wow, am I a terrible blogger! You probably won't see a whole lot of posts on here in the near future, just because a lot more stuff is happening. Oh well, there are more things in life than keeping a blog up-to-date. A whole lot of changes have been happening, I don't even know where to start. 

 The first big change (for me anyway) was learning to drive. I finally got my permit, which didn't take a whole lot of time to get. We drove out to Hugo, CO for the permit, which was worth it. It's a nice, small town, which gives you that small town feeling of welcome.

Then there was the trip to AZ, to see our Great Grandfather. It was extremely windy in New Mexico on the way down. The dust was thick as we drove along the road, you could here it hitting the car, almost the same sound as when you're driving in a snow storm, and the ice particle hit the side of the car.

Flagstaff Arizona reminded me a lot of Colorado, with all the pine trees and such, it was a welcome sight in contrast to the desert sand of New Mexico. 

The view from our Great Grandfather's back porch 

My friends new dog "Billy" He's a shy little thing, or perhaps he just doesn't like me :P

The two best from a small portrait shoot with a friend of mine.

Another thing that's been happening here, is a welding project, which I am having lots of fun at. We're building a new tongue for a trailer, where the old one started to break. Sorry, I do not have a picture of the tongue (I know, that's half of the story!) 

A painting my Sister-in-Law was working on, which turned out really well. She has an amazing talent with drawing and painting, and writing. 

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2013 Recap

Well, 2013 was quite a year! A whole lot happened. So many event's, seeing things happen in your life, and your friends lives. This last January, was my brother, and Sister-in-Law's first Stock Show together. 

My first Zane Grey books.

1930's Sedan 

This last year was also my first, to have photographed a coyote, and also learn how to use a film camera, not such a huge deal, but big for me. 

This last year, we had fun going into drainage pipes, and walking the drainage ditches with our friends, jumping across, to see who could make it to the other side all the way on top!

Also this last year, we did lots and lots of fencing around the place. I think we did more fencing this year, than any other year. 

And on May 11th, our friends who live out in Kiowa, had kittens. Most of them have gotten big by now. That was a lot of fun. I never realized how sharp there little teeth were, until one of them bit me while I was playing with it. 

Our Farrier 

The View at Night on Lake Loveland

Also this past year, we had fun going to antique shops with our Grandparents from California, and my brother and his wife. We saw all sorts of cool things, like WWII AAF dress uniforms, old tools, and this cool old wedding dress.   

Cool Old Wedding Dress

Black Forest Fire from our Road

The Black Forest Fire, on June 11th, was a monumental thing that happened in Colorado this past year. It destroyed 486 homes in that region. We had some friends of ours, at our house, who had been evacuated because of the fire, for three days.   

The View in the Morning: Camping

We had fun camping for five days down south in Colorado last year. We had a wonderful time there. I met some old friends of mine, who I hadn't seen in a long while, and made some new friends. We enjoyed running around in the forest, and doing some of the activities around camp. 

Big Thompson Flood 

The Big Thompson Flood, on September 12th, another monumental disaster that happened this past year. It surpassed water levels, higher, than the ones recorded for the last flood of the Big Thompson. My nephew was born 2 days before the flood. 

Big Thompson Flood

Big Thompson Flood

This last year was my first year to take a picture of a North American Bald Eagle, which we saw, while with our Grandparents up in Lake George. 

Pikes Peak from Woodland Park

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Quote of the Day

" The best way to cheer yourself, 

is to try to cheer somebody else up"

-Mark Twain 

  

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Black Friday, Pictionary, Hobbit and Fences.

  This past month has been something else. It seems as though you see all the same news stories about Black Friday, "People get trampled, Brawls Erupt etc." It amazes me that people can act in such a way. We never go shopping during Black Friday, but then again, Elizabeth is a small, town, so I don't think anybody got trampled or beaten to death here.

  This Thanksgiving was a lot of fun, unfortunately, our cousins were not there, but we made the best of it. We played "Pictionary", and our team totally smoked the other team, by more than half the board. We had the better guessers, and the other team was more skilled at drawing.

  We then hit a cold snap, which sent temperatures down to -15 here. I must say, I was not happy when the chicken waterer was frozen solid one morning, but hey, what do you expect when it is -15? Our chickens seemed to have all but stopped laying eggs; however, we have been getting more and more as the temperatures rise. 

  

  This week, my brother and I went down to our grandparents to fix their picket fence, which a bear tore down. It wasn't so hard getting the posts out of the ground, except for the second post which was sunk in concrete and sandstone, that took us quite a bit to finally get the concrete out, but luckily, we got them all out, and the new ones in and put in concrete by the end of the day. we got everything else done the next day. 

  While we were there, we saw the movie "Hobbit" for the first time. I'm not huge into fantasy movies, but this was the exception, it was really good, and I really enjoyed it, especially the battle scenes. The next day, we went to the theatre to see a movie called "Frozen" but I guess something was not right on their website, so they had no tickets for it, so we ended up watching the second Hobbit, which was even better than the first, but they leave you hanging in both ones. 

  I still have to get Thanksgiving pictures done, I might post some odds and ends from that batch, but I hope to post some pictures of the frost soon. We had a really cool frosty morning on Friday, it looked sort of Narnia-ish, everything look white, and there wasn't even a breeze outside, and it wasn't terribly cold out either. 

Anyway, here are the pictures for the day.   

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Life

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. 

The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

~Albert Einstein

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