Farewell!

Thanks so much for reading our blog - it has been a long and wonderful journey since the beginning of our adoption process. I no longer have time to keep up two blogs, and really they have become redundant. You are welcome to follow our continued adventures at Une Envie de Sel.

We have a pear tree!
This little tree has been outside our house since we bought it, and for three summers it has born no fruit. My mother, when she came to visit, was convinced it was a fruit tree, though we couldn't guess what kind. Suddenly, this summer it is heavy with pears!
What a delightful and unexpected bounty.

Flavors of the East...
an obligatory stop into the Pearl River trading company, where we spotted this wonderful lunchbox, as well as a tiny carton of bacon-flavored toothpicks.
Dragons on the ceiling.

For dinner, we ducked on a whim into an open-air Indonesian restaurant where I had a delicious nasei-something-or-other that featured a pickled salad, anchovies sauteed in a delicate sauce, and a chicken curry with fragrant coconut rice. The unusual combination of flavors was exciting in concert. Q, exhausted by a long day of social obligations, slept through the entire meal.

The real star of the night was this melt-in-the-mouth curried chicken appetizer wrapped like a gift in banana leaves. We spotted it on a neighboring table and just pointed to it, so unfortunately we have no idea what it was called. Can anyone help? It was superb. My husband had been trying to duplicate it in the kitchen, but it would help if we could look up the name of the dish.

Still out on the walk home. We call this "total consciousness failure".
Back in the hotel and hiding under the eiderdown with daddy. Happy girl!

New York part 2...South Street Seaport.

New York part 1...the financial district.

On the return from the mountains, we decided to take the long way back to Denver, over Trail Ridge road and the continental divide, through Rocky Mountain National Park.
It's a stunning and vertiginous drive over what looks like the spine of the world, and I never tire of it. Mike's brother and family decided to follow us, so we all got to enjoy the spectacular views.
Q warming up with hearty chicken soup on the road after a pause to savor the panorama from the top.
Out in the wind. Even on the hottest summer day, the wind is biting at this dizzying altitude.
Chrissie and Holland watching herds of elk and tiny wildflowers on the moraine.
A camper on the road.
Entertaining herself with mommy's accessories.
On the far side of the ridge is Estes Park, a town where I used to attend Arabian horse shows during the summers of my childhood, so it holds a lot of history for me. Once down from the heights, the heat closed in again, and we decided to stop for icecream and cool off the girls.
And after icecream...
Mike got all of the girls kitty whiskers. Once shown the mirror, Q couldn't quite believe her own eyes. (That's tempera paint still on her neck from the morning's crafts. It was also all over her dress, in spite of the smock - we'll see if it comes out!)
Two kitties....
...and three. Are they not the cutest thing you've ever seen?

On our last morning at Snow Mountain Ranch, my sister-in-law and I were eager to try out the crafts center, which we hadn't yet managed to visit. Fortunately the family was understanding, and let us have a couple of hours to play.
We brought the elder girls along, and honestly I have never seen them more focused on a creative project as they were here.
It's a wonderful space, with every imaginable creative resource available, from leather tooling to stained glass, painting projects, ceramics, jewelry etc.
Not only that, but the space itself is wonderfully put together, from the mosaic tiles at the art sink to the beautifully tie-dyed painting smocks.
You can't help but feel happy in a place like this.




What lucky people we were to spend four days in this amazing place, where you can do pretty much anything you can imagine and then some. Thanks to my mother-in-law and her posse for making this wonderful family vacation happen.