Just because she's so darned pretty!

Estes Park

Estes Park is a tourist town with a very good reason for being a tourist town: the stunning Rocky Mountain National Park. Unfortunately, we didn't have time for a park visit yesterday, since we had places to be and basset hounds to see...but we did get a splendid eyeful from town! And the drive up is nothing to shake a stick at, either!
M and Q on our friends' deck. These particular friends are from way back in our Vail days, and have since lived in Taos, NM and now Estes Park. They have visited us twice since moving back to CO, and we had yet to make it up to the Park (only an hour's drive from us...which tells you just how busy we have been for the past year). It was high time we paid a visit - if only a brief one.

I love B's style...so simple and organic. It always makes me feel good to be in her environment. And then there's her sense of fun, which is enough to fill everyone's hearts.
These Kapla block sets are awesome..and I've vowed to get Q a set when she's old enough to be interested in building as well as knocking down (her current preference). B & D's kids built a beautiful sort of castle, and it was all I could do to keep QQ from leveling it.

M valiantly trying to get QQ to eat some superb fresh peaches that B served us. Oh my goodness they are especially luscious this year.
Sam was not so sure about their dog, Sage, who actually took a liking to him. Sage (who wandered in off the mesa as a puppy) just might be the sweetest dog on earth, and I don't know what Sam's problem was.
I was trying to restrain myself (somewhat) with the camera...until E came out in this amazing costume, at which point I lost all self-control.
How could I resist? Is he straight out of a fairytale? Doesn't he look ready to fight dragons?

Don't be too jealous...this is the view from their deck!
B was nice enough to find Q a costume of her own, since she was showing just a bit of hero worship for E's outfit.
Q was delighted with the whole experience.
A cape suits her, no? ...I really need to learn to sew.


She even got a crown of sorts, thanks to B's ingenuity.

Look how proud she is!

Sage cuddling up to M.
Setting up cardboard block towers for the Q to knock down...now those are good friends!
Sweet G, fresh from his nap and still a bit sleepy.

Did you guess????

For those of you who had trouble guessing at our big surprise...yes, we spent M's day off driving up north to Estes Park to visit friends (photos to come later....it's been a long day!) and then looping back west onto the plains to a town called Loveland to meet the newest member of our family: Fred.
It has been a season for dramatic weather, and Estes Park looks good with a little drama going on. The mountains were still snowy, and the meadows a shade of emerald green that I haven't seen in years. That's not even to mention the wildflowers, which were just amazing. I wish I'd gotten some shots of those, but it was a bit of a rush trip.
A shot of the canyon on the way down from Estes Park. Just gorgeous with all the extra greenery!

A little less talk, and a little more action, you say?
OK...I'll end the suspense.
This is Fred. He's a six-year-old basset hound. We adopted him through the High Country Basset Hound rescue.
Our journey to Fred started quite some time ago...two or three years ago, in fact, when we fell in love with a basset hound puppy that had moved in across the street from M's parents' house. We talked about it at the time, and the seed was planted. At the time, however, we had two active dogs, and were contemplating a child. It was no time to think of a third dog.
Not long after we brought our QQ home from China, however, M lost his beloved dog Max to a stroke. It took us all some time to get over that loss, but after a few months had passed we started thinking about our next adoption. For us, it's always about adoption. We couldn't think about buying a puppy when there are dogs out there desperately in need of loving homes to take them in.
The search was, as it happens, a long one. We watched the pounds. We considered a couple of other breeds. But in the end, the conversation kept coming back to bassets. One or two that we saw at local shelters turned out to have behavioral issues that we couldn't handle. We needed a dog with just the right temperament both for our toddler and for our Sam. It took months for us to find just the right dog - not too old, not too young, gentle enough to be safe around a little one, but with enough strength and energy to keep up with our athletic lifestyle...the list went on.
The Basset hound rescue did a good job of considering our needs and locating just the right dog for us. Arriving in Loveland, we were braced for another disappointment...but on sight, Fred appeared to be just as he had been described. We both gave him the thumbs-up, and into the car he piled.
The weather did not cease to impress on the long drive back south to Denver. Across the planes and through farm-country, we skirted and dodged a tornado warning. It even looked like tornadoes out there on the plain.
In the back of the car, Fred wondered why he couldn't sit up front with the rest of us, and when QQ was going to share one of her chips with him.
Still scanning the horizon for funnel clouds. I love this farming country - the wide, tilled fields, the vistas, the beautiful barns, the unobstructed views of the mountains in the distance.
In the end, we escaped twister-free and made it home safe with our new family member.
Fred letting himself in the front door for the first time. He certainly wasn't hesitant.
Checking out the latest blooms in the garden, as I do every time we come home. All the excess moisture has done amazing things this year.
My latest peony.
We took the dogs and Q for a quick jaunt in the park before dinner.




Our new hound on the scent.

Back home and settling in for a quiet evening, this is what happened when Fred's short legs met our slippery hardwood floors.
Sigh.
His full name will be "The Dread Pirate Fred", by the way. And his first nickname will be Eeyore, because I can't think of anything else when I look at him. I may give him a popped balloon for his birthday.

QQ and cabin fever

This has been a very unusual spring in Denver. The waves upon waves of heavy spring snowstorms have finally abated...but not by much. They have been replaced by wild, electric thunderstorms, bearing monsoon-type rain. If you'd asked me, I would have guessed that all that spring turbulence would have been over and done with by now, giving way to the famously intense dry-heat of a Denver summer. But, no. Yesterday, the afternoon thunderstorms brought with them not snow (thank goodness!) but hail.
Hail that piled up on our patio and in our flowerbeds.
Hail that rattled on the shingles and shot like BB gun pellets off the flashpoints of our eves.
Cooped up indoors for yet another unexpected day, QQ came up with a new routine: she would run across the room, flop onto her beanbag chair, and then let her body go limp as a noodle and slide down to the floor, where she would lie supine where she fell, as if shot with a tranquilizer gun. She did realize that this was a comedy routine of sorts, and played it, accordingly, for laughs.
That on the floor is actually an egg...an Ostrich egg. This ostrich egg has been hanging around our house for a couple of years now, and M. was on the verge of throwing it out (since our house is overburdened with "things" as it stands). At the last minute, he decided that, instead of tossing it, he'd put it in QQ's room and let her play with it until she destroyed it. She did indeed play with it, for three or four days. The boredom of the hailstorm marked its ultimate demise.
QQ's final act of boredom: UHhhhhhhhhhhhhnh!

I believe that she is LITERALLY contemplating her navel in this shot.