First Stitches

Clementine designed and stitched this herself. It is two hearts and a purple flower under clouds.

Junior Ranger

Clementine earned her 8th Junior Ranger badge this week. We took a day trip to Rocky Mountain National Park to escape the forest fire smoke and extreme heat. Our first stop was an historic homesteader cabin and the Never Summer dude ranch, which was in operation from 1920 to the late 1970's.

Clementine tried roping a cow and dressing up in aprons and bonnets to do a little laundry with an old fashion washing machine.  We also visited the ranch's taxidermy shop, but Clementine did not want to spend too much time there.
The cutest animals we saw was a nest of baby ground squirrels. There were eight baby squirrels, but they kept running out of the nest and their mom would chase them back. We saw elk, beavers, and a wild turkey.  I was hoping to finally see a Moose, but no luck. We are planning a return camping trip and maybe even a stay at the historic lodge on Grand Lake.

Morning Commute

Clementine on the way to school this morning. Luckily it is only a few blocks. I just spent an hour shoveling and it is snowing again.

Saturday Morning

Michael took this photo of Clementine and I working in the kitchen. I was doing dishes while she was spelling words with refrigerator magnets.

Trick or Treat

We had a great Halloween. This is the first year we have lived in a neighborhood with lots of trick or treaters. We actually ran out of candy. Clementine liked handing out candy as much as she liked going door to door.

First Frost

We had our first freeze last week. Clementine and I dug up the potatoes and carrots. We collected all the red tomatoes and hung up our plants with green tomatoes in the garage. I am hoping it is warm enough in there for them to ripen. We also brought in the last pumpkin. The biggest and roundest pumpkin. We carved Clementine's name in it when it was just a tiny pumpkin. We are sad to see the end of our garden. Here is a photo of it at its peak this summer.

Spiders

Thanks to Aunt Claire we now have the spookiest house on the block.