Durango Palmers: March 2012

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Hunters

A couple weeks ago the kids and I were sitting at our table eating lunch and looking outside. All of a sudden a prairie dog ran by. I've never seen one around here since we've lived here (10 years!). They decided they wanted to trap it.

So after lunch they dressed up in their own versions of camo

*notice Kate's dress has a flower on it, hence camo...and Jack has a Bronco jacket on (not sure how that works but you just don't argue)
**also notice the fierce hunting faces

They were armed with a carrot (for bait of course), a box, a piece of string and a stick. And they went out and set up their trap

and waited for the prairie dog under the trampoline.

Aren't they sweet?

They got a little frustrated with me taking pictures. They felt like I was too noisy and the prairie dog wasn't going to come if I was there.

They sat and waited and waited and waited for about 3 minutes and then got bored. They decided to go look for him instead. So they took their Nerf guns and hunted in the area behind out house.

In the end there was no prairie dog but they had an adventure outside so I was happy with that!

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Snapshots

I have a few random pictures I wanted to post. Just a couple snapshots of my glamorous life.

Mishka with his gigantic bone the kids wanted to get him. I think he has no idea how to even begin chewing on it...

The boys said they were dressed like twins and wanted a "cool dude" picture.

And Jack playing the part of the injured man in the story of the Good Samaritan at church.

We took the kids to the Top That frozen yogurt shop that just opened downtown. De-lish! Only here can you put Fruit Loops, Coco Krispies, Fruity Pebbles, anything chocolate or fruit, on yogurt.

I don't have pictures but I thought I'd also share that as of this week, all the kids are in classes in town. Jack has been doing a little science/exploration class with his buddy Norah at the Discovery museum every Monday. They are learning about their senses and he's having a great time. Of course we have to drag out the story of what they did that day in class (quite opposite of his friend Norah - he's such a boy).

Kale and Kate are doing a homeschool art class that just started and is 8 weeks long. We really wanted to expose them to art stuff that I knew I wasn't going to be able to do with them. Things like pottery. Their first class they got to sculpt clay and even do a pot on the wheel. They had a blast. Hopefully I'll get some pictures of all my little students at their classes.

And that's about all I got for this one!

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Also in Denver

We did a few other things while in Denver.

We had lunch with my brother and my sister, Katie (from NY) at Gunther Toody's, a fun little 50's diner.

Jack has mini-corn dogs stuffed in his cheeks. Makes it hard to smile...

Played with Lilah

Gave Lilah her birthday present (she turned 1 on Friday!!!)

Laughed at Mishka and my sister's dog, Cutler. SQUIRREL!

Looked through photo albums. Ate lots of food. Visited with lots of family.

On Wednesday we headed back to Durango. But not without a quick stop to Ikea...

Um yeah. Ikea is a baaaad place. We had some money set aside for school desks and we spent it all! It's amazing how much you can get at Ikea!

Then we drove home through Colorado Springs so we could stop at Focus on the Family and check out Witt's End. See if you can spot all my peeps.

The kids listen to Adventures in Odyssey (and frankly Mark and I love them too) so we thought it'd be fun to stop in and see it in "real life". The kids loved it. It's all free and there's quite a bit they can do. A 3-story slide! A stage with puppets and dress up clothes.

A Bomber plane

Witt's End ice cream shop

It was a fun time. Long drive but fun time.

We spent the next 2 days putting together all the Ikea furniture and catching up on the 3 days we missed. Life doesn't seem to ever really slow down. It just has lulls at some points...

Monday, March 26, 2012

Kitty the Great

As I mentioned in my last post, we were in Denver last week for my grandma's funeral. I called her grandma Kitty growing up but once I had kids, we named her Kitty the Great. She was 90.

Here's a picture of me and my mom and Kitty the Great holding Kale outside our church right after Kale was born.

My grandma was a very independent and intelligent woman. And opinionated (I had a couple opinionated grandmas - apparently that's where I got all my opinions...). She started working at the age of 9! On Pearl Harbor day she got engaged to my grandpa and then enlisted in the Navy. She was a radio operator.

After the war they got married and had 3 kids. My mom is the only girl right in the middle.

She had been living on her own in an apartment since she moved up to the Denver area to be near family. Recently she had a mild stroke and they were doing a lot of tests to check for that when she went downhill very quickly. It turns out that there were other things wrong that they had not discovered. So she passed away early in the morning on March 12.

It was one of those things were you knew it was coming sometime but at the same time it was unexpected. She had seemed to be doing well before that. She was sad though. And that made me sad. She missed my grandpa. And I think she missed her independence. She was still independent but not like she had been most of her life. For goodness sakes, she graduated from college at 45! She decided what she wanted to do then she did it. She always let us know her opinions. Some of them were fine. Many times, however, she had a crowd of people who disagreed. She didn't have much tact later on either. She may never have had tact but I didn't experience that when I was growing up :). She was just the grandma who made me clean my room...lol!

Her service was last Tuesday. She had a Catholic service which was actually very nice. My grandpa had one and it wasn't personal. My grandma's was. Afterwards we went to Fort Logan - a national cemetery - and had another service. This was a military one.

Several veterans performed the service. This gentleman read something and prayed a beautiful prayer for our military.

They folded the flag and gave it to my uncle and thanked him for my grandma's service. Talk about choking up!

Add to that Taps...and a gun salute...

And we were a mess. There's just something so beautiful about a military service. So much honor and respect. It was an honor to be a part. Made me so proud of my grandparents and their service.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Just a Sec

I know that all 5 of you who actually read my blog to see what's happening in my life are wondering what the heck is happening in my life and why I haven't blogged in....a long time.

Well. Because a lot has happened in the past week and sitting and typing weren't on the agenda. In fact, it's not on the agenda now but because I got a text from a friend asking if I was still alive I figured I'd let you know that yes I am. Hence the typing.

Today was literally filled with laundry, cleaning, organizing and putting together some of our new Ikea school furniture. Of course they say it's office furniture but I know better. It's school stuff. Tax returns are a blessing in our world!

I was doing loads and loads of laundry to catch up from our recent quick (like lightening fast) trip to Denver. My grandma (my mom's mom) passed away last Monday morning and the funeral was Tuesday. It was unexpected yet expected. Ya know how that is? I have so much to say about her life and her funeral but because this is just a sec (and I've already used way more that one) I will share more later with pictures. It really was an awesome service. And I love my family :)

So now I really have to run.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Week in Review

More things happened this week besides visiting with our favorite firefighter as you might have guessed. There just hasn't been time to blog it all. And I wonder if you really want to know...I mean we're not all that interesting....

But in case you were interested here's the week in review:

Mark and I attended a parenting conference last weekend (as noted in Kate's birthday post). After the conference we took our state supervisor out to dinner with the pastors on staff, the Quissenberrys. Always a good time of fellowship.

Monday night we went to dinner with our good friends, the Jones', and they took us for our first time out at a sushi place. Yes we were sushi virgins. And we loved it! I really wish I had thought to document the event but sadly we were too busy eating everything to stop and take a picture.

Tuesday I worked.

Wednesday Mark and I went to a nice dinner (with the Quissenberrys again!) at a nice couple from church's house. It was like a fancy restaurant! And I'm not even kidding. There were several courses of food and for proof of the amazingness here's a picture of the dining table!

Gorgeous yes?

Thursday Mark had worship practice so I took the kids to Walmart to spend some of their birthday money. They both bought Legos! Then we spent the rest of the night putting them together...

And then Friday was firefighter Mike Friday and small group.

Saturday was a women's breakfast at the church. A group of ladies and myself put it on and I spoke on testimony. I was so blessed and amazed at the ladies who came. It really was so fun. I love teaching!

This week was back to back nights of busy-ness so Saturday and Sunday are days of rest for us!

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Fun on Friday 35 (I accidentally posted 33 twice...)

FF hasn't been happening as regularly thanks to birthday breaks and stuff. We had fun on a Friday but it was labeled birthday fun :)

This week, instead of a FF outing, we invited our awesome firefighting captain friend, Mike Krupa, to come teach a fire safety class to our kids and their homeschooling buddies. I realized that kids in public school usually will get a visit from the fire department and teach them fire safety. I wasn't sure about how to teach that without scaring my kids. Kale tends to be very sensitive to things like that. He doesn't want to go away to college ever. I would expect that from an 8 year old...hopefully he'll feel differently when he's 18.

Krupa came to the house and did an amazing job teaching 9 kids ages 18 months to 8 1/2 years. Not an easy task! The kids already know and love him which made it so much fun. He was sweet, funny, patient and just wonderful. I was so blessed he came.

See the concern on Kale's face?

Our youngest student, Somer

At the end of his presentation he went out to the car (the kids were bummed he didn't drive a big fire truck!) and got his gear. That. Was. Awesome.

They had a blast trying it on.

The girls weren't as interested in dressing up so no pictures of them. At one point during Krupa's presentation he was asking the kids about the different ways they could get out of their rooms. He asked them what they should do if the door was blocked. They said go out the window. At this point Kale leaned over and quietly said to me that Mark and I needed to get each of the kids their own sledge hammers....yeah right. He's a thinker that one! I told him that I was confident he could open the window without a sledgehammer :)

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Too Much Cuteness

is a good thing in my book!

My sister and my sisters-in-law do not do blogs (no judgement - I know how much work they are!) but they do text pictures and let me tell you that I LOVE the pictures! To be blessed with such cuteness on my phone does this long-distance aunt good. So of course I have to share it with the rest of you!

Here's my little mister.
Kieran