yea for fun fall snacks

just sayin'  

What's one of your favorite fall snacks?

Kelly

jars

I didn't hit up a ton of garage sales this summer but I did hit the jackpot on one.  

In addition to vintage aprons, a sewing machine, carpet remnants that were new to "carpet" my storage room's concrete floor, vintage cookie cutters, milk glass to replace one I broke a few months ago and good conversation with the sellers, I also scored a box full of canning jars which included a vintage blue one and a box of brand new canning lids for the whopping price of one dollar!

I had fun dressing my table with them with the help of a friend.

Have you had any great garage sale scores this season?  

Kelly

bump

Thirteen Weeks

Garden of the Gods

Sunday, September 23, 2013

ten on ten . . .

just did not happen today.

I think some of it could be *due* to this:

Kelly

cubes

Our day of traveling from Germany to Belgium was a good but long day.  

We had the morning and early afternoon to explore around Munich, see the Glockenspiel and other buildings, get rained on a bit and eat some of the best gelato all of us had ever had.  

Mango sorbet for a small boy was a special treat indeed that he is still talking about. 

Our train got into the Brussels Midi station after 9 p.m.  Thankfully David napped like a champ on trains the entire trip.  

Our hotel was directly across the street from the train station which was great but the station was soooo huge that it was hard to know where to exit to walk right across the street.

Some nice people and a little bit of precious data spent on the iphone later and we had it in sight.  We were all really tired and not at our best.  Thankfully the lobby had these cool cubes which took someone's mind off things while we got checked in!  

Time for bed!  

Goodnight!  

Kelly

reminder

Just a reminder that tomorrow is Ten on Ten if you'd like to participate.  

photo by Adrian while on a hike here in Colorado

Heaven for one small boy

Riding a train, stuffing one's mouth with pretzel and watching another train speed by!  

The best things in life.  

photo by Adrian

Kelly

day three

I know this photo is blurry but I had to include it to show how we were in crazy college backpacker mode, except wait, we had a two year old with us!  ha!

David made up this particular riding on the suitcase mode of transport earlier this summer all on his own and he loves it and gets upset when he can't do it.  It gets TONS of attention in airports, etc. 

Breakfast of champions in Germany - a nice big pretzel!  Mama had a cheesy one.  ummmmm . . . 

After a day of walking around we were off to the train station to get ready for our next leg.  I was sad to discover that the little bakery stand that had been there in my college days had been replaced by lots of new shiny food stands of all types.  Oh well.  We still managed to find some nice things for the train.  

I was so happy we went through Cologne and I got to spot this cathedral out the train window.  When I was in Europe in college, I woke up from my train car bed in the middle of the night one night and stepped out into the hall to see this beauty with snow falling down all around it!  A sweet memory that is burned into my mind forever.  

More adventures to come!  

Kelly

day two

So our little trip was actually a not so little trip.

Here's how it went down . . . 

So Adrian's boss says something to the effect of "hey, there's this conference in Munich, you in?" and since it's covered by the company and all then yep, he's in.  So then, you may or may not know that Adrian has family in England who would LOVE for us to visit but this mama has admittedly been putting off an overseas flight with a little guy but then now seems like the time . . . 

so, we went and I'm glad we did but boy did it have it's ups and downs!

So day one I think I have one or two photos of but I don't know where they are but basically Adrian was already over there for the conference and not wanting to just find things for David and I to do by ourselves in a foreign country every day for the whole conference I opted to come on the last day.  

Which meant flying by myself over the ocean with a two year old.  

What was I thinking?

So basically, day one consisted of an extremely early morning flight, 7 hours of hanging out at O'hare and playing in their really super cool play area (thankfully!),  a LONG lunch at Macaroni Grill in the airport - best money ever spent - as we got waited on and David got to color and I sort of got a little break, my button popping off my favorite jeans in the family bathroom and *thankfully* God knew in advance that would happen and had me pack a safety pin "to hold my keys" that I quickly realized needed to become a repair for my pants (what would I have done flying over the ocean with falling down jeans?  I don't know!) and then getting on an 8 hour flight somewhere around 6 p.m. with a poor boy who hasn't gotten a nap all day.

The above photo is what I look like after all of that, not sleeping on the plane hardly and then getting to take a glorious shower and nap at the hotel and have some lunch and then going out with Adrian's co-workers for a delicious Greek dinner in Germany.

Why not, right?

And here is one happy boy finally getting to ride the trains in Germany (well, this is a subway really) that his Daddy has been sending pictures of all week.

So there you have it, the beginning of our adventure!  

Kelly

We've been on a little trip

(I know, we're always on a trip it seems.)

More on the trip later but lest anyone be worried I just wanted you to know that David can play cars ANYWHERE!  :)

Hope you are having a very nice labor day. 

We are recouping and hanging out together.

Kelly

sweet boy in overalls

I love this sweet boy who LOVED bridges that we'd come upon while hiking in Alaska.

Kelly

again, from Herring Cove

See that snail and that lovely little bit of green?  Love it!  

Kelly

chilling out in Alaska

I don't usually end up blogging much about our trips to Alaska.  I think we take SO many pictures and then we have so much to catch up on when we get home that it just doesn't really happen.

But sneaking in pics here and there is certainly better than nothing, right?  

Adrian took this photo for us.

It is my favorite little guy and I sitting in one of my very favorite spots on earth, Herring Cove.  

We enjoyed a little snack, soaked up the sun, sat on rocks and looked out at the water.

Bestest!

Kelly

I just love this photo

Hope you're having a good day!  

Kelly

ten on ten - August 2012

I'll be honest, probably one of the reasons it has taken me so long to post this is that it wasn't a very fun day.  Nothing catastrophic happened, it was just one of those days that was yucky - inconveniences, persevering through discipline issues, chaos, changed plans, unmet expectations, etc. - just real life sometimes.  

It's easy to feel like the whole day was a "write off" but honestly there were good moments through it (or at least by the end)  :)  and God was faithful throughout it.  It may not have been the most fun day ever but we did make it through whole and unscathed.  

relative calm before the storm

leftover pizza for our lunch with our little friend who was over

thankfully it *was* a good weather day

thanks to Adrian working from home, I was able to leave briefly during nap time for an afternoon iced coffee

enjoying my new canister labels while getting ready to start supper

pizza dough rising

needing to change plans midstream - filling a pot for pasta

so thankful for this quick and yummy recipe (I leave out the capers but to each their own) - thanks Alyson!

inspecting the clippers

freshly shorn and oh so grown up looking - my mama heart hurt a bit - ready for some fun in the pool

You can see more ten on ten entries here

Hoping your day today is going really well but if it's not, hoping that you can salvage the good, move on from the bad and trust in God to see you through it all.  

Kelly

streams of water

^"Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land —a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey . . . "  Deuteronomy 8:6-8

reminder

Tomorrow is Ten on Ten if you'd like to participate!

Kelly

photo taken by my friend Jenni on our trip to NYC in '06

green

I love how very green everything is in Alaska.  

Ferns are one of my most favorite plants.  I need to buy some to plant at our house.

I wonder which kinds do well in Colorado?

Their little fiddleheads are so magical to me.  

Don't you love all the different shades of green in that one small patch of earth?

Kelly

little hiker

One of the things we did A LOT in Alaska (nearly every day) was hike.  I love the trails there, some gravel, some wooden stairs or boardwalk, etc.  Sitka, the main place we visit and Baranoff Island on which it sits are in the world's largest temperate rain forest so unlike the dry, hard ground here in Colorado, the trails are quite spongy, soft and sometimes wet there.  

We have been working with David all year teaching him to hike and wanting to make hiking an enjoyable experience for him.  He really took off on this trip and would be the "trail guide".  It was a lot of fun to see him grow in this.  

This photo was taken on day one, hike one of our Alaska trip.  We were in Juneau at the time.  David is on the Mt. Roberts Trail.  He did really great and hiked nearly straight uphill for about 3/4 of a mile before he was done and ready to be carried.  

We took one of these trams back down the mountain after eating in the restaurant at the top.  

Do you like to hike?  Where are some of your favorite places to hike or favorite trails if you're local?  We would love to discover some new ones.  

Kelly

baby giraffe

Our zoo has a new baby giraffe! 

Isn't he the cutest?

God makes really, really neat things.

We got to see him last Saturday on a little family trip to the zoo.  

Do you have a zoo in your area?  Do you like it?

Kelly

hmm . . . what do you feel like talking about today?  

I don't have a lot.  

I'm really enjoying Christy Nockels music lately.

Summer coughs and colds are no fun.

This is a fun quote:

"I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me the most civilized music in the world."

- Peter Ustinov

Have you read One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp?  

I need to.  I got the app on my phone and I think it's pretty neat and I recently listened to this interview (okay, naptime ended and I've yet to listen to the last 10 minutes) and it was really good!

That's all I've got.  

Hope you're having a good weekend.  

Kelly

shoes

I miss these little shoes from last summer!  

Thank you again, Debi, for giving them to us.  

But then again, these little boots that I got free at a garage sale in Sitka this summer are pretty stinkin' cute on my boy too if I do say so myself.  


Speaking of shoes, I think I've just got to finally give in and admit that my feet grew in my pregnancy with David.  I don't notice it in open-toed shoes and I wear a lot of those.  I don't think I've bought any close-toed shoes since I had him and the ones I've had probably have stretched some although I've noticed snugness a bit, but I tried to order some hiking boots for our Alaska trip before we went and ordered an 8.5 and they flat out were *too* small!  


I wear a size 9.  There, I said, it, time to embrace and move on and find some cute hiking shoes I like!  Any suggestions? 


Kelly