Altitudes, Lattitudes, Changes in Attitudes

I need to give some credit to Jimmy Buffet for the title of my blog via a semi-stealing of his line in one of my favorite songs...I have fallen so far behind in blogging. I promised myself that this trip to Grand Lake would provide ample opportunity to do some catching up. However, that "ample opportunity" never materialized. But here's a bit of an update...

Today I realized that our family is in FOUR different time zones. Pacific Daylight Time - Alyssa and Charlie in Morgan Hill. Mountain Daylight Time - Ralph and I in Colorado. Central Daylight Time - Ashley, Jim, Gracie and Emily visiting Jim's family in Chicago and St. Louis. Eastern Daylight Time - Rob in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on a business trip. Whew! Bet this won't happen again anytime soon. Feels like we are aligning the planets or something.

A few weeks ago I decided to join Alyssa in her homemade baby food efforts and I bought some organic apples, peeled them, cooked them up, and put them in my food processor and - Voila! Applesauce, baby food style. It was very enjoyable and made me a little sad I didn't do this when my girls were babies. Or when Gracie was a baby. Oh, well. I DID make my own yogurt once-upon-a-time. Does that count?

Little cubes of organic applesauce are ready for the freezer.

Charlie is one happy baby boy. One of my favorite things is watching him go to town on his "One Man Band" toy. Don't you just want to bite into that cute little thigh?!!! Oh, ok, I admit, I do, and it makes him laugh like crazy :)

Yummmmmmmm....I'm all ready for my organic applesauce, Mimi!

And then it was off to the pool at the Aquatic Center to watch Gracie and Emily take their swim lessons. The Strombergs found the Aquatic Center was a cool place to hang out in August! Here Emily and her mommy discuss the intricacies of the breast stroke. Or perhaps Emily is just chewing on a pool toy...

Ok, big breath, Emily Mae! "But Mommy - chlorine is SO bad for my pretty hair!"

Gracie climbs out of the pool with a little help from her teacher. That's a BIG step up to the pool deck!

Brrrrr....ok, everybody line up for a dive back into the pool. "Kinda hard to swim with my teeth chattering like this!!!!!"

And then we said so long for a couple of weeks to the Strombergs and the Wagners and on September 1, Ralph and I left for Grand Lake, CO to visit our little vacation home and for me to go to my 45th - yep, big gulp - 45th class reunion in Pueblo.

While we were shopping for groceries in Granby, we saw something very un-grocery like that was a MUST have for our cabin. We'll purchase one every visit until we have fishing poles for every one of our sweet grandbabies.

Barbie fishing poles...who'd have thought?!!! And here (below) is a perfect place to cast a line - into the stocked lake across the street from our home, Columbine Lake. There's even a picnic table for a little lunch when everybody's caught their limit.

When we arrived in Grand Lake the very first night we saw FIVE moose - four yearlings and their mamas. No big-racked bull moose so far. And where was my camera? Yep, back at the house. So, I made do with a little bit tamer side of wild life and took this picture when Ralph spied this little squirrel working on a pine cone at almost the tip-top of a tall evergreen outside.

And tomorrow I travel to Pueblo to begin the first day of our three-day class reunion! I'm sure I'll have lots of stories to tell from that experience....or not......