Stay tuned for pics.
River sampling, fused glass, ice cream (not so social)
Upstream, downstream (see the dam they made of rocks so the tractors can work on the new bridge?)
Left bank, right bank.
Fused glass at the library, we’ll get it back in 2 weeks after they fire it.
Went to the ice cream social, ate ice cream and snowcones – wasn’t social.
Pond
Grace had a good time at her sleepover, but she wasn’t feeling well enough to go swimming. So, Hannah and I went to the pond (and one other person did show up to swim with us.) We saw fish this time, small ones about 3 inches long and a few larger ones. I wanted to walk down to the other end of the pond, but it was hot, so I didn’t.
I got the tires rotated, filled and the fluids in the car topped off in preparation for our trip Wed.
Long weekend
Friday was James’ day off so we went to breakfast, ran by Home Depot and he fixed the two sprinklers in the front year. We took the girls to Chipotle for lunch and they used one of their library coupons, then we chilled at home until it was time to leave for the library event. Today it was making blankets for pets at the shelter. Only one other teen showed up, so Grace got to talk to the librarians for an hour. She hit it off with them and wants to come back for some after dark teen events (when she likes the events, the next one is video games and she’s not that into them.) Here’s the blanket she and Hannah made.
Saturday was a lazy day. We got the sewing machine from the library and tried to set it up, I think Hannah is going to have to use the one at Castlewood because it comes with an adult who knows how to use it. We only had one outing for the day, the Frida Kahlo fest.
My main idea was to see if the food at Kahlo’s Mexican restaurant was any good, I figured it might be because it’s a small place, local business, in an area that is heavily Latino and it looked like the food was made from scratch.
We walked through the art and crafts at the fest and took a Frida selfie (in the pic with James the photographer is asking us to look fierce like Frida, but I saw her laughing at his face and…I couldn’t look fierce after that.)
Bethany bought a headband and we knew better than to join in the look-alike contest, we don’t have the brows for that.
We went across the street to Kahlo’s and just as I had thought the food was authentic, homemade and good.
I have never had what I ordered (Huarache) but it was like a fried corn tamal topped with slow cooked chicken and mole sauce and everything about it was good to the last bite. The flan that they served for dessert was by far the best flan ever. We went back home, dropped the kids off and went to TNO. Once again we were the only people there, so after waiting for a bit we ended up going down the street to Elevation 5900 to listen to guitar music and have some drinks. We’ll have to come back there for dinner one night, the food looked good.
Bethany had to work on Sunday, so we stayed home, James made breakfast and then we went to Goodwill to find some clothes for the girls. Hannah found a twirly yellow dress that she had to put on before our hike. James found a two seat leather recliner for the basement for 30 bucks, we’d been looking for a loveseat for down there, so we had to run home and drop that off before heading to Cherry creek. We had a picnic lunch at Four mile house, then started walking the trail. We had nowhere in mind to go to, just wanted to walk the trail for a bit.
Back at home we took Maisy to Petco, we were looking for a fishbowl, she got a new baby and got to freak out by watching the guinea pigs.
We ended the evening with ice cream sundaes at the Dolence’s house.
The week – pond swimming, fused glass at library, ice cream social, leaving for CA (sleeping in a tipi the first night, then free camping, coming into SF, lots of stuff to do there Chaplin fest, train ride, more free camping on way home, we’re gone Wed to Wed.)
Dinners this week – corn meal fried fish, picnic in the park, camping dinners…..
Co-op, Park day, hike {St. vrain}
My diatom co-op was today, I don’t know why I thought we’d be able to see any diatoms with the microscope I brought, they are really, really tiny and as seen in the pics below, you need a SEM to see them.
They are a form of algae, unicellular, they have shells made from silicon dioxide, they have bi-valve shells like clams, they can be found in the arctic, the ocean, ponds, creeks….they have chloroplasts and can photosynthesize, but they don’t use it to produce sugar, they use it to produce oil for their food. I think the most interesting thing about them (other than the beautiful 3-d shapes) is that when they reproduce they split in half, then those halves split in half until they come to the point that they are too small to split in half – then they make eggs and sperm and create a new baby diatom! Cool handout and craft to make about them here.
We spent most of park day in the water catching damselflies, crawfish and minnows. Here’s a pic another mom took while we were in the creek, weird to see yourself from above.
The ice cream socal got rescheduled due to rain….
Thursday the girls and I went up to Ward to hike the St. Vrain/Sourdough trail. Lots of flowers on the hike, a nice creek to listen to and downhill on the way back down (which means it was mostly uphill on the front end.)
After the hike, it was back to Nederland for lunch, a carousel ride and candy.
Then back home to pick up Bethany and head over to NREL for the 40th BBQ party.
Sunday, Pond day, Hudson, dress like a cow, 7/11
Gosh, we haven’t been to church in forever – heathens. Hannah kept falling asleep in big church, it was distracting. The message was on Rahab, that bad girl (but not bad forever) who helped out the enemy spies, saved her family, was listed in the genealogy of Jesus and showed that faith without deeds is dead. We went by the mall after church to walk around, I saw this cool pillow.
We had lunch, then dropped everyone at home and I went to a NIA jam that was 1.5 hours of constant movement. It was hard to move in that room with 40 other ladies dancing around too, but somehow we managed. I didn’t feel well after that so we stayed home, had pizza, then went to get ice cream at Coldstone, then back home to watch some TV and chill with Maisy.
Monday Alex and Bethany stayed home to watch a movie while the rest of us went pond swimming.
They found some giant clam shells and smaller ones that they used as puppets.
We left as rain started falling on the other pond. We grabbed a bite and got back home, cleaned up and chilled the rest of the night.
Today we picked up a friend and met some more friends at Hudson gardens. We wanted to catch frogs, but they must have done something to them, we didn’t see any. We did find one big crawfish molt and caught about 6 live ones, saw the flowers and beetles and bees and that was about it.
We got our cow on and got free food at Chick-Fil-A, always good to get free food.
Then we went to 7/11 and got free Slurpees, again, free tastes great!
Lost Cajun, Broomfield depot museum, cute prairie dogs
We went to the Lost Cajun for lunch, we’ve been meaning to check them out and I’m glad we did. It’s rare that food evokes such good memories, the okra took me back to a fish fry place my Grandma and Grandpa took me to when they lived in Livingston. The crawfish pie brought back memories of the Crawfish festival in Spring and the lobster bisque reminded me of our anniversary dinner in the Caymans.
I don’t think there is a bad thing on their menu. When you come in the first time they bring out a tasting board with 6 different items to try. They have spot on drinks (watermelon margarita, hurricanes and more) and the beignets reminded me of Cafe’ Du Monde in Louisiana.
We are going back with Bethany (she stayed home and hung out with a friend.) From there we went by SAME to pick up our art from June and then we headed to the Broomfield depot museum (free and only open on Saturdays 11-3pm.) The depot was moved here from Old Wads and 120th, but the stuff in it and the windows and outdoor paint are from 1909 when it was built.
Coming up there was another old house from a bee farm and to my surprise the grave of Shep the toll booth dog.
I knew about Shep (thanks to Roadside America) but James and the girls didn’t (find out more about him here and here.) I knew the grave was moved when 36 got bigger, but I didn’t know where it had gone, so that was pretty cool. Inside we had a tour guide lead us through the rooms and talk about things like: the y shaped poles that were used to deliver messages to the train as it passed by, the depot manager would stand by the track with the pole and the engineer would grab the message tied onto the top as the train rolled by.
There was a hand crank phone, town safe, telegraph machine and coal heater in the office.
The living area had a creepy old doll on the couch and some books from the original room. The kitchen was small, nice stove and icebox though.
We went upstairs, cool windows and I think that’s the same trunk that we have in our front room.
The waiting area had some Broomfield history and things from the toll booth days on 36, like these toll booth coin bags.
That was a cute little museum with a lot of history in it. Outside there was a grassy area full of prairie dogs, so we walked over to say hi.
They were so cute, when we drove by in the van I think they liked the music because when we stopped they came running right up to the doors.
We’re back home and we’ll be watching some Wallace and Gromit in a bit when dinner is ready.
Pond
James and I dropped Joel off at the airport early (and got a text later that said he made it back to the Fort.) We returned the rental car Joel was using and I dropped James at work (after having coffee with him.) Back at home the girls and I watched Moana again, such a cute movie. Then we went to the pond to chill. It was cloudy and the sound of the water lapping against the bank was nice. The flowers are blooming, the dragonflies were buzzing and I must remember to make sure we wear water shoes (a huge crawfish scuttled past.)
For dinner we waited in line at Raising Cane’s at their grand opening day 2. I have to say, I’m not impressed. The chicken was a bit tough, there was only one dipping sauce, I didn’t like the fries, the Texas toast was meh and they don’t have dessert. I had high hopes, but they were dashed.
Last day and henna
Joel and Nick took off for the Incline and made it to the top.
The girls and I chilled at home, they walked to Abo’s for lunch, then Grace, Hannah and I went to the library for Hummingbird henna (Mrs. Anita’s) henna program. I did my own (and so did the girls), but they also got a bat and dolphin from Mrs. Anita.
Once we finished we picked up library reading prizes (books, Elitch tix and Chipotle tix.) Grace went to youth group, Joel played video games with Bethany and we watched some TV together before heading to bed. I think Joel had a good visit, he had some time with friends, some time with family and some time to sleep-in and chill. He’s headed out tomorrow morning, but doesn’t have to be back until the 9th. He’ll get back to the Fort tonight and that will give him a day to get back into that schedule (and they are usually lax on Sunday, so really he needs to be back in full swing by Monday.)
Park day
I know I said that we wouldn’t bring any park day critters home but – I wanted the damselfly nymphs to raise and Hannah wanted the minnows and baby crawfish, so there you go.
Gwen came for a sleepover and James and I got out to LM’s for scoop of jazz Wednesday. It was nice.
My new list of books from the library.
