Waterton Lakes Park

Some shots from Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada (just over the border from Glacier National Park). It's a really cute little town where deer just wander around in people's front yards and outside of shops!

Jon and I did a waterfall hike.

Young grizzly bear up on a hill above the road. We saw 13 bears while on our trip - most were in in Waterton Park.

Another deer in someone's yard. =)

Evergreen, CO

My mom and dad were in town last week for our trip to Montana. We had a day in Colorado though, so we spent it up in Evergreen. It's up in the foothills, only about 40 minutes from our house. Lots of cute shops and restaurants, and a gorgeous lake! There was actually a wedding in the lakehouse (very cute bridesmaids dresses!), but the rest of the lake was available to the public.
Jon and one of the friendly local ducks.

Tapping into my earth mother side =)

My first few rounds of canning: today I made another batch of Jon's fave jalepeno jelly.

Jam made from Oregon blueberries:

2 types of jalepeno jelly (those with a V are vegan for Jon's veggie friend):

Leftover jalepeno jelly for Jon: (it will probably get eaten tonight with cream cheese and crackers - yum!)

Do you think it decreases my earth mother credits that I'm watching Charlie Wilson's War while I can?? =)

Blueberry pie filling

I'm working my way through the 7# of blueberries that we bought at the Farmer's Market on Sunday. (they're in the red/green basket of the last post) They're not local - apparantly blueberries don't grow that well in Colorado. (Which is okay - I'm repeatedly amazed at the variety of fruit and veggies that do grow well here!) They're from Oregon though, which apparantly is a great place for blueberries to grow and be happy.

I canned 7 half-pint jars of blueberry jam/jelly on Sunday, and tonight I'm going to freeze a few batches of blueberry pie filling with the remainder of the berries. Jon's excited about the future pies! =)

Farmer's Market goodies

Our goodies from Sunday's local farmer market - 7# of blueberries (for jam, etc), red and yellow onion, carrots, zucchini, 2 types of plums, peaches, apples, okra, jalepenos (for jelly), tomatoes, and an eggplant. The cherry tomatoes are from our garden, and aside from the blueberries (Oregon), all the rest are from Colorado farms. Eating locally is yummy in the summer. =)

Ground cherries from our garden - they grow in these papery covers. We had our first ones this weekend. They taste a little like melon.

Rhode Island trip

Last week I spent a few days in Rhode Island with 9 other girls from Jon's side of the family - Jon's mom and her 2 sisters, plus their daughters and daughters-in-law. Very fun to meet and hang out with everyone!

Rhode Island was gorgeous - we were mostly in Newport and around Naragansett Bay. There were hydrangeas everywhere!
We took a boat tour around the bay - it reminds me of Old Town in Virginia. Someday I want to own a sailboat. =)

We toured 2 of the Newport mansions while we were there - this one is the Elms.

Sunken gardens of the Elms.

The front of our hotel - aren't Adirondack chairs so beachy and fun? =)

Jon's new toy

Jon bought a 1951 Willys on Friday. Guess what we've done all weekend?
It tops out at a whopping 45 mph - only 25mph in the neighborhood though - gotta watch out for the kids and the bunnies. =)

Yeah, it's a little rusty, but look at all the dials and the 8 ball stick-shift. Maybe I'll actually have to learn how to drive manual.

Check out the Cougar leather seat covers.

With the top and doors back on.

Our Backyard

Trying to make the most of our 0.09acre lot - from L to R:L cukes, sedum, herbs, sedum, petunias/geranium/agaratum, stupice tomato, yellow flower (was there when we moved in), rose, 3 more tomatoes, peas.
Peas

Tomatoes

Lettuce, cucumbers

Pool plants - watermelon, zucchini, scallop squash, pumpkin, petunias

Plants

Yesterday I received 12 plants in the mail. I ordered them from an heirloom seed place (Seed Savers) - 7 different tomato plants (including two brandywines), 3 peppers, and 2 ground cherries. I'm amazed at how well they traveled! Now I just need to find pots to hold 12 new plants. =P
Come visit us in August for garden tomatoes!

Still here

Yeah, we're still here. Just lazy I guess. =)

Well, it's May in Denver, which means we alternate from 6 inches of snow to 80degrees. The last week or so have been more of the 70-80 degree variety, so we're in the midst of planting seeds and plants. Just veggies and herbs so far, but soon I'll add in some flowers for color. For now though, our tulips are gorgeous! Funny that the tulips peaked 2 months ago in Dallas. =)

Aside from the garden, tonight was the first of what I hope to be a new meal-planning tradition: Spicy Mondays. We kicked it off with homemade chicken enchiladas - super yummy but over the top spicy! It was a new recipe, and next time I'll definitely be cutting down on the chilis in adobo sauce. I also assembled a chicken and rice casserole for tomorrow - another new recipe.

Mondays are my day for chores and errands since I don't work that day. Today was 4 hours of cooking (that resulted in 4 meals - tonight, tomorrow, and a duplicate of each for the freezer - yay!); grocery shopping at 2 stores; buying plants at the nursey and then planting them; transplanting some of our seedlings; turning in our tax stuff; dusting; cleaning the kitchen; and other miscellaneous house stuff.

I hope everyone else had a productive Monday as well!