Trees Cut Down

One of our trees in the front yard died.  So we got it and another tree cut down.  Jeff counted the rings and it was 36 years old.  Doesn't seem to old but I guess it was within the lifespan of a pine tree.

Zane is in 1st Grade!

Zane has started 1st grade.  Oh my.  He's done great at drop off.  Way better than me.  Every day I just want to hold him, tell him I will miss him, love him, all that, but I have to let go every day and let him learn and grow without me.  He's doing good.  His first reaction after the first day was it was the BEST ever.  His teacher is the NICEST.  :)  That helps me feel a little better. He's going to do great.

Rachey took the first two pictures.  :)

Here he is today, his 3rd day of school and it was chapel day.  He looked so handsome.

He is my heart!  I love him so much.

Day 14 and 15! Honeyville and the Train Museum

Just when I thought we had our last day of vacation, we did some stopping along the way and in Durango!  YES!  It was needed after our final drive through the windy, narrow roads from Ouray and Silverton.  Those roads are amazing. 

Pretty in the morning sun.

Shows some of the burned trees from the wildfire.

Burned.

Very close to Durango.

We stopped at Honeyville and the kids got to see a beehive behind glass!  We could never locate the queen, but there sure were a lot of bees!

A ton of bees

Next, Durango and the train museum!  What a cool museum!  We got to go into an old steam engine (not totally in the controls) and into a caboose!  We had no idea that a caboose was the living quarters of the workers!  It had a stove, sink, bunks, and chairs.  It was close quarters for sure.

Zane could have probably spent a couples hours at this museum revisiting everything. 

The kids were especially intrigued with the scale models of scenery and towns.  They loved them.

This museum had all sorts of things in it. 

Learning how it works. 

Where the coal was kept.

Really neat model train track with several trains on it.

Inside the caboose!

Writing area!

We are so spoiled with our ovens!

Sink

One more visit to the engine.

Day 15 was traveling for 10 hours.  We spent the night in Roswell, NM and got home about 5ish.  We had a great great trip.  And thanks to Grandma D for making us a welcome home meal!  It was so kind and I know it took alot of time.  It was sure appreciated and was the best meal we'd had in two weeks!!!

Elevation at our house.  haha!

Day 13-Kids Choice

We didn't have much on the agenda today and Jeff let the kids pick three things they wanted to do. 
They chose:
1.  Play in the mountain stream.
2.  Play at the playground.
3.  Eat at a restaurant.

Easy, peasy, right?

Breakfast-Zane is actually sick of Eggo waffles!  He's eaten them every day and after he ate about five one day, the next day and the next he sort of groaned when he looked at them.  :)  So today we had to come up with something new, but still eat the eggo waffles we had.  

His invention:  Sausage eggo waffle sandwich wrapped in a half of a tortilla.

Sister gets one too, of course!

 We headed out after breakfast to our mountain stream spot and they had just put mag chloride on the road.  They had a workers sign telling us that so after a quick look up on the iphone to see what it would do to the vehicle, we decided not to go up it.  It was bad business to the car for sure.  So we went to the playground.  And good thing we didn't go up the the stream because it started to rain.  We would have been sitting up there in the suburban.  The kids still played on the playground and got soggy bottoms from the wet slide.  :)  They had a good time and would come and sit with us occasionally.

 I went for a walk around the park a couple times, but a dog finally detered me.  It seems like every one here has a dog.  And they are all "sweet" and "won't hurt you at all."  Uh-huh.  Anyway, I walked to the main street after the rain had mostly let up and did a little bit of shopping while the kids kept playing and we met up at a Mexican food restaurant.  It was pretty good!  They actually didn't have chicken strips and french fries on the kids menu and Zane and Rach had to eat a soft chicken taco and a cheese quesadilla.  And they filled up on the chips, Rachey dipping hers each time into the salsa.  She likes that stuff.

Snugly boy!!

Funny girl!!

We drove around town looking at houses after that and made our way back to our cabin.  I started cleaning up, Jeff took a snooze, and the kids played.  It was very relaxing.  Then we got to see the rain in the mountains start to come.  At one point, the rain was so heavy, you couldn't see a certain mountain at all.  We got a little rain here, but not enough to wash off the car. 

Main Street in Ouray

Old Courthouse, not in use

The school

1883!

She put her boots on upside down.  :) :) :)

Starting to rain-view from our upstairs window

View inside

:) :) :)

Clouds below the mountain.  I thought it was cool.

My Zaneo!

We had leftovers for supper and packed up!  We will head for Durango and spend a couple hours there sight seeing and then end up in Roswell for the night.

Love to you all!