Susan - it sounds like a wonderful birthday for you. I pray that this new year will be full of blessings and good health. Every new year is full of possibilities. I wonder what this year will bring for you?

Judith - take care of yourself during these busy times. Rest is good for the soul but especially for you as your body is working hard trying to heal. I look forward to hearing what the doctors said this week when you feel like sharing.

Yesterday was our first day of Summer in this part of the world. We have already had a lot of hot weather. I hope we can have a enjoyable Summer weather this year. Last year was very hot and it is starting out the same way this year. Last night we had a huge rain storm with hail but nothing was damaged. I was afraid the garden with it's tender new plants would be hurt but they seems to be fine.

Good morning! The family are still here and we need to feed them breakfast then go to church. Hugs all around!

I did get more sleep last night so I have more energy today. We had a long trip because in the morning we had to travel to Nederland to celebrate my daughter's 45th birthday and lunch then we left for Grand junction. We stopped at Costco on our way to get some groceries for our trip to the cabin this week then stopped near Aspen to buy groceries for our friend who broke her foot and can not get out for 6 weeks. We delivered the groceries and had a nice visit with her and gave her communtion since she can not come to church then came home.

Today is as busy as yesterday was with church, a meeting after church then grocery shopping again for the rest of the food for the cabin. Our daughter (who had the birthday celebration yesterday) is on her way right now to our house with her 2 kids, and two more of my grandkids (ages 15 and 17). I have to make up two more beds for them to sleep tonight then it is packing of the food and the 1 1/2 hour trip up the mountain for most of the week. We will be back on Friday with a week to rest and then to the cabin with my middle daughter and kids and older daughter (she will turn 47 while we are at the cabin) at the cabin again. I do not know how much I will be on here but I will at least read the threads as I can to keep up my streak. Have a great week everyone! I look forward to your update Judith as well as hearing from Marilyn to see how she is feeling.

That's understandable, Judith. You had the weekend before you could attend your next appointment. I will just stay alert to when you post an update. Yes, lots of activity happening here with our 16yo and 11yo granddaughters. Yesterday I stayed home with the dogs while Colin drove them to various activities. The 16yo had a short driving lesson with Colin, but they also went swimming ten pin bowling, trampolining and played board games with friends their age. They cooked tacos and burritos for dinner and today we are all going out to lunch. They want to bake cookies too.

Linda, sounds like a very active time for you with all the travel and celebrations and have to dos. Enjoy and come chat when you can.

My daughter and two grandkids are up the mountain fixing the spring that gives us water for the trailer. There is a wire cage around it to keep the water clean as it comes out of a crack in the rock but the wild animals try to get to the water to get a drink and break the wire cage. It also naturally gets leaves in the fall also so they are cleaning it out. The rest of us, 2 granddaughters and Glenn and I, are sitting in the shade enjoying the breeze and 72F weather. When they get everything fixed and cleaned, I will fix lunch for them.

Judith- the cabin was built in 1932 out of logs. The mice and chipmunks get through cracks between the logs and any other little holes they can find. The ground hogs burrow under the cabin and chew the logs. They can't get in the cabin but make messes around the cabin and are noisy especially at night fighting each other. It is pretty normal around here to have cabins that are not used continuously to have small animals in the cabins. There is not much to do about it.

Susan - I'm glad you are having fun with your grandkids.

Today was fishing and swimming day. We went to the National Forest to fish in "Soap Creek". The water was rapid but we caught some trout and really enjoyed the scenery. We went to the lake close by for people to swim or wade. It was very overcast and got cooler as the day wore on. We had a picnic lunch after fishing and my grandson helped me cook dinner. We do not get to see him very often so it is nice to work together and have some 1 on 1 time with him. It has been a very good day.

Any activities around water sounds good to me, it’s so hot here in Florida and the high humidity makes it even worse! Looking forward to getting to know everyone. I haven’t been very active on MFP but do love meeting new friends! I’ll check out the activities!
Have a great Thursday everyone!

It is good to have you here Semsmith. Were you in Spark also? Do you want us to just call you "semsmith" or by your first name?

Susan I am so grateful you are able to spend good time with your grandkids. Right now my grandson is doing magic tricks with my granddaughter. He is really good and we are having a wonderful time of laughter.

Today we drove around the property to check the trees we put our initials on in 1988. We had a huge fire about 5 years ago and our poor trees have been dying slowly. This year is probably the last year they will be standing. Our two oldest grandkids got a driving lesson on mountain roads. They were very careful driving. They are just learning to drive on regular roads too so they are learning focus well. We also went to fish but did not catch any. The weather was perfect but it started to rain as soon as we got home. I am enjoying listening to the rain on the roof. We should sleep well tonight.

Judith, take care and come back when you have more energy.

Linda, I am loving your stories of the woods. I'm so sorry about the fire though.

Hi everyone. Today we take the girls home. It's a 2 - 3 hour trip each way so we shall be tired when we get back. Colin wants to leave in less than an hour and I have much to do. The dogs are coming with us. So all is well. I am just checking in here for now!

We made it back safely to our home in Grand Junction at a little after 4pm. I am in the midst of washing all the sheets from the day everyone stayed at our house on Sunday night plus all the linens and clothing that we used up at the cabin. When we came home we unpacked the truck then took a shower and laid down for a little. My CPAP battery ran out in the middle of the night and I tried to stay awake since I knew that if I went to sleep without the machine coupled with the high altitude, I would have problems breathing. Most of the work of my CPAP is to keep me from breathing very shallow while I sleep. Shallow breathing in high altitude is much worse than here at the house. I did stay awake for several hours playing mind games but did fall asleep for a little while. In all I got 4 hours of sleep which was not very restful. I am now working on the third load of sheets but will leave some for tomorrow.

We are getting lot of rain in the past 24 hours. It rained yesterday morning then later during the night and now it is thundering and lightening and raining huge drops. I hope that we do not get hail that would hurt out garden. We have some really nice tomatoes starting out on our plants that I am looking forward to eating.

Tomorrow we are going to an antique car show. Our friend has her car to display and wanted us to come see it. She offered for us to ride in it but it seems that each time she has offered, we can not do it. I will try to take a picture of it for you to see. We also want to go see the movie "Inside Out - 2". I don't know if you have seen the first one but it is about a girl in the tween years and all the emotions that she goes through. Each emotion (joy, sadness, fear, anger and disgust) has a cartoon person attached to it in her brain that we see on the film. The second movie is about her emotions as a teenager. She has the same emotion as she did in the first movie and then anxiety, envy, embarrassmentand ennji (weariness, bordem and dissatisfaction) are added. Maybe if we see it we will understand our teen grandkids better. 😃

Judith - yes we did find the trees and took pictures but most of the bark is off the trees now so not all of the initials were showing. It seems that a lot of the Aspen trees are dying off but I don't know if it is just their cycle or there are boring beetles or a disease that is causing it. I hope that you are feeling better and can do what you need to do. We did finally catch one brown trout so Glenn cooked it for breakfast and shared it with all who wanted to taste it. I am not fond of fish so I did not take any so the others would have more.

Susan - it sounds like you had a good time with your grandkids too. i hope you can get some rest too after your 4-6 hour trip taking them home.

Sandi - we live in Colorado like your daughter. We have two homes one in Denver that our daughter lives in and we stay in when we are visiting the grandkids and one in Grand Junction which is our retirement home. Where does your daughter live?

Marilyn - so great to see your posting again. I hope that your cold is better but sorry about your vertigo. It sounds like your cold may be affecting your inner ear. Vertigo is hard to deal with and makes it hard to be up and about like you want to be.

Judith - I am so glad that you are feeling better. Yes we have had a lot of rain which is very unusual but I prefer it to the 100F that we were having. Today is overcast but does not look like any rain.
Happy Canada Day from me too.

We did go to the car show but it was very hot so we did not stay long. Here is a picture of our friends car. She had it shined up until it sparkled.


Here are also some pictures where we fished on Wednesday and Thursday. it was really cool and peaceful and the mountains were spectacular. It does not show very well in the pictures but a camera can not show the grandour. Next time we go to the cabin - which is next week again, I will take my more professional camera and I will see if the mountains show up better.




Our oldest daughter and granddaughter will be at our house on the 4th of July and stay a few days then go to the cabin with us and our other daughter on Monday through Friday. I am looking forward to seeing them again. I am not necessarily looking forward to all the work it takes to get ready thought but as I have said before, it is memories that are the most important.