Pumpkins and Such

We went to the pumpkin patch and had some fun last weekend. In true 3 year old form Bri ate all of the caramel off the caramel apples and gave the apple part to her cousin. It was great weather and a good time was had by all.

Bri has been asking to make pumpkin pie for weeks (even though she has never had pumpkin pie) so I roasted my first pumpkins yesterday and we made pumpkin pie for a pot-luck tonight (hee/hee)!



I'll post pictures of the butterfly-fairy (Bri) and the pumpkin (Addie), from tonight, latter on.

If it'd been a snake...

Hi. Clint here. You know that ole saying that goes "If it'd been a snake, it'd've bit ya!" This home-spun cliche is usually employed to point out the very obvious (by then) location of any variety of sought object. However, in a one-in-a-million occasion, the object in question IS an actual snake. This was the case during Alisa's and my recent hike to Devil's Thumb up Shadow Canyon. She obliviously stepped right over it, it got flabergasted, then I caused more flabergastion as I walked up, and it nearly got me. (It was only due to my mongoose-like reflexes that I avoided the snake's strike).

Here is a picture of the snake. I'm sure it was more scared of us then...whatever!

As you can see from this picture above (taken later in the hike), we both escaped injury of the hemotoxic, reptilian variety. That's Devil's Thumb in the background.

Girls, girls, girls.

All things come to an end

Our summer break is over. So very sad. Clint has started back to school and the girls and I are getting into our school-time grove. We had a great summer filled with all sorts of fun. Here is a recap of our weekend away for our 5th:

Clint "Let's climb zowie tower in Rockie Mountain National Park, it will be so fun."
Alisa "OK, sounds good. Remember I haven't been on a multi pitch climb in about 2 years."

So, off we go. A weekend away.

We drop the kids off at my sisters and head to the park. Traffic was insane and we ended up hiking in 5 miles, carrying all of our stuff, mostly in the dark (really, it was super fun). After finding a place to sleep (in the middle of a snow field on a large boulder) we eat some dinner and try to get some sleep under the stars and this amazing moon that was about as bright as the sun.
Wake up. Eat some pop-tarts. Hike over to the tower. Start to climb said tower. Go up about 5 pitches where I experience some exposure fright. I'm wanting to go down, Clint isn't saying that he'll take me. I understand this to mean that I can't go down. I tell Clint I think I'm tired and done. He climbs on, I follow. He finds repel anchors. I rejoice, until I see repel anchors... a little scary! Descent ends up being epic!!!! Getting down takes about as long as climbing the dang thing. I'm in my climbing shoes (which are killing me) and Clint is thankful that I am beyond cursing him and laughing at our lack of water/food and the mere fact that I want to fall over and die! Finally we get down. Fill up water bottles from river and add "kill all the yucky stuff" tablets. Then we start hiking out. Yes, I said hiking out. 5 miles, with a 40 lbs pack on (alisa's, Clint's' was 70 lbs). We commence in asking everyone we pass what time it is until the alloted 40 mins has passed and we can drink water without getting sick. When this time reaches we want to jump up and down but settle for sitting on rocks to drink some...ahhhh water!


Crazy fun!!! We then spend the rest of the weekend in a cute little cabin on a river hanging out, hiking, sleeping and playing. It was super great to be together.

We did a lot of other fun stuff this summer and are both sad to see it go. Now it's time to look forward to playing in the snow.

Oh, and the girls are great. Addie is crawling and pulling up on things. She can even eat food on her own. Good times.

Our House In The Middle of the Street...the details

Here are the exciting details of our new house...purchased just in time for the Great International Recession and resulting World War. A little scary. Fear-mongering aside, we have a super-cool little dwelling, and here are some pics of it, with comments from the artist:

Your tour guide, Brianna

We have a tree swing. Cool.

The lovely and picturesque east side of our house. Our room is the upper south window; the girls' is the upper north. The living room is below our room, and the kitchen is below the girls' room. (The tour guide is looking for her cue card).

The technology nook,
the Remarkable Bookcase, aka "Lazarus" (yes, there's a story to that),
the hall to the back door and storage shed
the girls' room

For some reason, I really like our mailbox. We have all these incredible flowers and stuff all along our fence.

front flower garden

and that's about it. In regards to the absences of Bree's partner in crime (Addison), she's inside, either learning to crawl, or eating something she shouldn't.

Feel free to drop by the place and see it for real. We'd love to have you!

Happy 4th!

We spent our 4th up in the mountains playing. It was wonderful! We had a great time trail running, hiking, biking, going to a concert and watching fireworks over Lake Dillon. We got to see a beaver, mountain goats and a moose. Dang, our back yard is pretty!

chickens and things

Well, we're still here. It's been nuts around the Locks house. Bri and I have been sick, Addie is getting teeth, Clint is busy with Rock Lead School, we had a house party, we had to get ready for the house party, we've painted every wall in our house, the girls and I made a trip to Spring Field to visit my grandma, and we have tried to find some time to sit on our front porch and drink some wine.

Our feelings on all of this craziness? Fun, tired, excited, tired, wanting to give the girls rum so the whining will stop, tired, thankful...

Summer is here with tree swinging, hiking, gardens, playing outside and enjoying the mountains. Oh, and our summers now include feeding the 23 chickens that live across the street (Bri just adores them). Yes, we do live in the middle of old town and chickens are allowed. They are a hit with all of Bri's friends, and truth be told, with our friends too.

Gotta love it!

Clint will be posting pictures of the house soon.