Saturday drive in the mountains

Aspen hike

September has been a doozy at the Marney house. It got really busy, really fast. Then, last week, all the germs and busyness caught up with some of us. George got a nasty cough, Issy got it too, Isaac started having throat problems again. Then, this week, the four younger have battled a very tricky tummy bug. Ugh. It makes me want to bathe the house and everyone in it in Lysol. 

And it is Autumn in Colorado. Pretty much any descriptor I try to use for it wouldn't do the beauty justice. 70 degrees and sunny pretty much every day. Breezy. Longer shadows. It has been killing me that we have been busy and sick. If I am lucky, I get maybe 70 or 80 Autumns on this Earth. And every beautiful day that passes makes me feel guilty for not being outside and soaking in the gloriousness. 

I love Autumn. It is so vibrant, so dynamic. Because I am Catholic to my core, I was reflecting yesterday on Autumn and how the dying, the giving way to something else, can be so beautiful.  Beauty in suffering, dying then rising, Autumn/Winter/Spring. Alright, I'll stop. 

I got to carve out some time for a quick hike yesterday. Both Joe and I had taken this hike at Mueller State Park this summer and commented how beautiful the huge Aspen groves would be in the Autumn. They didn't disappoint.The colors were delicious and hard to capture the vividness on camera. I hope you enjoy the attempts though. 

 These two are my favorites. It was breezy and this group of trees was raining leaves as I was approaching. I actually ran up to it, so I could get a picture.

 The Aspen leaves adorn the evergreens for a short time.

Sprrrring

We inherited a ton of planters and pots and such from the former owners of the house. There were actually built in planter boxes on the upper deck. So even though I'm not what you would call a green thumb, I've been itching to plant some flowers. At least to fill the planter boxes with something other than last years dead flowers.

 But Spring is pretty hard fought here in the mountains. There is a lot of back. And forth. And back and forth. And just when you think it's gonna happen, it goes back again. 

I am terrible at waiting though. I kept looking at flowers all through May, tempted by their bright springiness. I restrained myself. Which was a good call because it looked like this on Mother's Day: 

April Showers bring May... Snow?

But finally, finally! There is a weekly forecast where no temps below 40 are predicted. And it is supposed to be pretty nice and sunny. It was crazy gorgeous earlier today. I had asked Joe if he would get me some flowers for our anniversary next week, and boy, did he deliver. So I spent this afternoon making the outside of our house nice and Springish. 

Joe had gone on a hike with the three biggers so I got these cuties to help me. And actually, they were relatively helpful! Now I just need to keep the plants alive :)

House Tour Part II- The Main Floor

Okay so Joe actually did Part I- The Basement on his blog about a month ago.  So you can mosey on over there for the pictures of the basement/ ground floor.

 This is the view from the side door.  To my right are the stairs to go to the loft/ master bedroom. You will have to wait for that until next post because I can only clean one floor of my house at a time. That doorway across the room and to the right is the entrance to the dining room.

 Dining room when you are standing in the kitchen.

 Kitchen when you are standing in the dining room. Also, the doorway across the room and to the right goes to the hallway and also loops back around to the living room.

 Hallway. From the left- Bathroom, Big Boy's Room, Adelle and George's Room, gate leads to the Basement.

 Bathroom. I love shower doors! I can shut the water and splashing in with the little kids while they bathe.

 Adelle and George's Room. 

 View 2 of their room.

 Big Boy's room. I am actually standing next to where the Lego table is, which still needs legs so I am not going to take a picture of it. 

So there you go! 

Visit to the Great Sand Dunes

I visited the Great Sand Dunes National Park about 15? years ago, and I was just so taken with it. It is just an amazing slice of this wonderful Earth. A huge (seriously, huge!) pile of sand nestled up against gorgeous mountains. I have wanted to go back for many years and when I knew we were moving to Colorado that it was something I wanted to share with my family. So even though it is a three hour drive, we packed some food, threw the kids and dog in the car and made a day of it. I am really glad we did. We even got to see some amazing clouds in our drive home.