Major Mom 
On July 10th my mom brought the boys to Colorado for us. They were staying in West Virginia so they wouldn’t have to endure the pain of the four-day westward drive.
I think they would have been okay on the long drive, but only because they would have been immersed in DVDs and their Nintendo DSs.
We got tickets for the Pike’s Peak Cog Railway during the weekend my mom stayed with us. It’s a great way for anyone to get up to the top of one of Colorado’s “Fourteeners.”
Enjoy these videos from the boys’ piano recitals at the end of May. The boys will definitely miss Miss Ashley. We haven’t found a piano teacher here quite yet…but we aren’t looking quite yet either. Timmy: Jacob:
Earlier this week, I was hauling the boys on errand after errand all over Colorado Springs. One of the errands was a short stop at Hobby Lobby to “dry mount” one of Timmy’s Atlanta Braves posters.
While waiting for the work to be done (about 15 minutes) I took the kids to the model crafts aisle. I thought they would look at the airplane kits, but they instead wandered over to the model rockets.
Sorry, you can’t really call it “taking a walk” here.
The kids, Howie and I decided to take a hike along the Cottonwood Creek Trail, which runs southwestward from our neighborhood. Just a couple houses down from us is an access point between two houses to Colorado Springs’ expansive network of multi-use trails.
We figured it’d be a quick walk to Cottonwood Creek Park, which is a nice big park with baseball diamonds, a basketball court and several playground structures.
Locals in the Colorado Springs area frequent this very unique fitness challenge: The Manitou Springs Incline.
Manitou Springs is one of the towns due west of Colorado Springs. It’s known as a vacation spot for their natural springs and boasts the home of the Pike’s Peak Cog Railway (for another post).
It’s also the town with the trailhead for the hiking trail up Pike’s Peak, the Barr Trail.
Not far from the Barr Trail is something called “The Incline”.
“What on earth is this Incline you speak of?”
Just before the boys left Florida for good, T’s baseball team enjoyed an evening with the Pensacola Blue Wahoos. I had written about the Blue Wahoos games in a previous post in 2012.
The kids got to take part in the team’s “Field of Dreams” experience, which was a block of seats together, dinner, getting introduced as a “featured guest” at the game, and a chance to hang out with the Blue Wahoos players before the game, either by singing the national anthem with them, or else running out to the field with the players as the players’ names are called.
While we were in Colorado in May to buy our house, we took some spare time to visit the Garden of the Gods park, which is along the western edge of Colorado Springs.
The Garden of the Gods park is a gift to the City of Colorado Springs. In 1879, Charles Elliot Perkins, the president of the Chicago, Quincy and Burlington Railroad, purchased the land that included the Garden of the Gods. He intended for the land to one day be used for a summer estate, but that plan never came to fruition. After his death, Perkins’ children conveyed the land, 480 acres worth, to the City of Colorado Springs. A plaque commemorating this is affixed to one of the rocks.
Tonight I had set up our PC desktop computer on our new Ikea desk. I turned on the Davis Vantage Pro 2 console, and I didn’t realize that our weather station is already transmitting from inside a deck box where it’s awaiting a more formal installation. So for now, trust the temperature, dew point and … Read more
As always, when asked what I want for Mother’s Day, the answer is the same. I want an outing with the family at a location of MY choosing.
It often involves something more feminine. Being in a house full of guys, I usually have to give up the girlier things during the year, but for Mother’s Day I get my berry picking and botanical gardens visits!
This year, I asked for a trip to Bellingrath Gardens near Mobile, Alabama. Again. I had already dragged the family out there over the holidays to see the fantastic light show, but I wanted to see it in the spring with all the flowers in bloom before we moved to Colorado.
I was not disappointed. And Timmy, my little naturalist, was just as impressed with all the flowers and animals.
I took the good camera with us so I could capture the beauty! Enjoy some pictures. Be forewarned, I took over 300 pictures, so I’ve distilled it down to about 30 of my favorites.
Dave’s squadron in Florida has an annual tradition: BACONFEST! One day, everyone shares their favorite bacon recipes.
In 2011 Dave made bacon cream cheese roll ups, and I can’t remember what he did in 2012, if he did anything at all.
While it was tempting to make another beer-bacon cheesecake, this year Dave proclaimed, “I’M MAKING A BACON EXPLOSION!”.